Forgiveness

After 17 months, 518 days and 836 meetings, it comes down to forgiveness.

And that’s what today (court) is truly about.  I get to stand up and acknowledge not only the pain I felt deeply and lashed out on others without remorse, but also say to the little boy who doesn’t understand why Daddy’s not always present, “I’m sorry”.  

Not in words.  But in actions.  

In 17 months of living a different life.  

And I get to do one other thing.

I get to forgive myself.  

For the guilt and pain I’ve held onto.  The things I wish I could have done differently.  

Let it go.

There will be other hard days.  But each day I live in the Spirit (Romans 8) I can truly breathe.

So, here it goes…

“I forgive me.”

~ Peace

The Burtle

after tears and loss, 

each day I find

I'm still here, 

and I move on

til the end.

I do not know

how each day will go

but through tears,

through heartache

loss, hurt

I let it go

04/21/22

clc

pEEPS

Quite squishy on the inside,

Crusty outer shells.

Looks like neon vomit at times.

Filled with diabetic coma levels of sugar 

and a stomach ache ready to happen

Yep…

I’m talking about my friends - Bwahaha!!!

Community

Tribe

The people we choose to do life with.

Those who I chose to be:

Vulnerable 

Trusted

& Safe with.

And not just at Easter!

I love the term “the Communion of the Saints”.  It’s a term passed around in some of the more liturgical churches.  And though not part of my own upbringing, it has always meant something.  Us, we, coming together = not just in a church service, but in life.  Serving others without thought of reward or social media ‘likes’.  Jesus chose Twelve.  Many others chose Him.  Mary, Martha, Lazarus, the rich young ruler, Zacheus.  I’m not getting preachy, just the reality that Jesus was a man who walked among THE PEOPLE.  His Peeps were Low-lifes (prostitutes, gays, thieves, murderers), fishermen (working class), Tax collectors, The racially unaccepted… the list goes on people.  He really got ‘community’!

My peeps have changed in recent years, yet I know how important they are.  Some remain, some drift off, others come in.  But it's important that there are some who seem to always show up (and if you know me, that's the biggest deal.  Just show up!).

I’ve had to learn that We is much stronger than Me.  This extremely extroverted introvert shudders at that thought!!  You mean I have to open up, AGAIN, to others!  Haven’t I learned this lesson already?  Trust again?  Believe in others again?

Breathe…

It starts with a nod to god, a silent prayer that he’s got this.  All of us.  

“God, grant me the Serenity…”

No, there is no Easter Bunny coming to visit each of you this Sunday morning (wouldn’t that be creepy as Hell?!?!).  I’m not gonna leave a crappy marshmallowy, sugar-filled treat; they will just make your teeth hurt, your stomach sour.  I do want to give these few words.  So, if you’re reading this, whether it be a new friend or my deepest companions over the years, here they are…

I love you all.  Yes, ALL of you.

Deeply.

Damn Peeps!

~ Peace

The Burtle

my Feet

"I was told to look at my feet.

They brought me where I am (the past), will take me where I’m going (the future), and they keep me in the present, if I just look at them.

And breathe."

When things start spinning around inside my head, I sit, I breathe deep and I take this advice.  It’s proven over and over to be the simplest way to ground myself.  To ‘root’ myself back in the truth (and God and everyone else knows I need to be Well Rooted!!!!)

I know my past; it’s mine.  I’ve lived it, and regardless of how hard it is, it remains in the past.  Sometimes grounding me and other times making me ‘boo-hoo’ about the place I’m currently in.  My past can reminisce like the tales my grandparents and mom would often tell about people I really didn’t know.  And that’s where I’m at.  I know my core, my soul, but the man who lived most of the 40 years before now is mostly a shadow that I recognize, but have no desire to emulate.

The future - well, I think this one unsettles me more than the past most days.  Future TRIPPING is exactly that - a BAD TRIP down a road I may never actually travel.  I don’t know the future.  Can’t tell it, predict it any more than Ken Cook could predict the weather back in his days on Channel 5 in Atlanta.  I know NOW (the present).  I know where I am.  Sure I have thoughts, hopes, even dreams of a future.  But in reality, the path ahead of me is ever evolving and honestly I try to turn it over anytime I get ahead of myself.  Who do I turn it over to?  Well, God.  That’s my source, my guide, my stronghold.  

Never in a million years did I think I would be a carpenter, and at 50!  I was a *blank* *blank* music teacher for most of the past 20 years before Covid.  And this new path was started a long time ago.  Tinkering with musical instruments in high school and college.  Restaining old furniture.  Building a shed in 2014.  Doing a full renovation side by side with my contractor ex-father-in-law in 2016.  Building boxes and artwork out of reclaimed Barnwood.  The pieces were all there.  I just didn’t know what picture the puzzle was supposed to look like.  

So tonight I look at my feet.  I’ve worked hard today - finishing stage one of a large deck project at work.  I’ve had communication with some really cool people in my life.  I got to say “I love you” to my kids.  I’ve written.  I’ve prayed.

I’m sitting here looking at my feet.  Thankful.  Blessed.  

Alive. 

~ Peace

The Burtle

ROCKETMAN

Started watching the biopic 'Rocketman' - the story of Sir Elton John.  Musician.  Man.  More.  And I started thinking about change. 

Here is a man that, whether you like him, care for his music, lifestyle - is the epitome of what we all face each and every day.  Change.  Realizing who we really are.  Finding ourselves amidst the voices that have been telling us what we 'ought' to be.  Wanting more...

Life changes.  Sure my core might not change much, but my hairline, girth, aches and pains from age CHANGE.  My political and philosophical views change.  I change.  I've evolved much in 50 years.  I've seen more than I care to share on this page.  I've hurt.  Loved.  Lost.  And Changed.

I was born to be a middle-class white child who had no real fears.  I had to change and adapt to survive the damage done and the onslaught of fears that came from abuse.  I changed and hid inside a pseudo-world filled with faith promises and dark corners of despair.  I've changed my mind.  Changed my hairstyle; my attire.  Changed location.

Adaptation can be survival, but it can also be rebirth.  Reginald Kenneth Dwight was born in the United Kingdom in 1947.  He was special.  Different.  Talented.  Misunderstood.  And he could have just been "Reggie" and the world might not have been blessed with "Candle in the Wind", "The Bitch is Back", "Your Song" and countless others.  He shed the name and became who he was inside - Elton Hercules John.  To shed the past isn't always turning our back on it fully.  It can be an awakening into where that journey takes a right turn (the next right turn) into the path that lay ahead.

Change.  It's hard.  It's sometimes lonely, "it's lonely out in space".  We drift in a sea of our own worries, schedules, rituals and routines.  Our kid's activities, Netflix binging, staying up late out of fear for the workday that will come.

Relationships change.  My mentor told me a while back, "relationships either end or change".  I balked at this for a bit, then realized how true it was.  I lost the person I thought was the perfect person for me.  It ended.  I was torn.  But in retrospect, it was toxic.  We were toxic.  My relationship with my father, though often strained in the past has changed.  I am thankful for that change, even in the light of the circumstances that surrounded it, the loss of my mother.  Every day I try to figure out new ways to change the relationship I have with my youngest son.  He's 6 and I continually have to find new ways to connect; for him to know that dad is present even though we're worlds apart.

I change.  I've grown sullen in some areas.  I want more - a relationship that CAN change, grow.  Yet, I wait on God (trying to be patient) and hope in his plan.  I pray for the day I can sit, grow, change with someone... like Elton's words below.

"It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside

I'm not one of those who can easily hide

I don't have much money, but, boy, if I did

I'd buy a big house where we both could live

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple, but now that it's done

I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world"

~ Elton John/Bernie Taupin

Alone, in outer space or inside the world of our mind is a scary place to be.  Breathe in the change that might be as simple as just opening up to another human being.  Look them in the eye and say...

(you fill in the blank)

~ Peace

The Burtle

"And I think it's gonna be a long, long time

'Till touch down brings me round again to find

I'm not the man they think I am at home

Oh, no, no, no

I'm a Rocketman

Rocketman burning out his fuse up here alone"

~ Elton John/Bernie Taupin

Joy in Sorrow

Beauty from ashes…

I’m not really sure why it hit me so hard. I wasn’t the closest to him. In fact, I hadn’t talked to him on the phone in a couple of months. I’d seen him at gatherings, but never had much of a conversation since the last one we had around November of last year.

Then suddenly.  Gone.

This morning I cried the cry I had been holding on to for a good month.  Not just tearing up, but the guttural, snotty, tsunami cry that physically hurt as much as it did emotionally.   And maybe that was why it hit so hard.  I needed the example of another life lived.

I’m not here to tell his story.  In fact, I didn’t know it well.  But I know he practiced a set of beliefs that I too have found life in.  Finding the ability to be present amidst the storms that we all face.  

And there is joy.  Tucked away in the loss and not understanding is knowing that there is no more pain.  That there is no more sorrow - except for what those of us left here hold in this moment.  In the moments we reflect on life.  Death.  The path we all have to trod.

I look at my feet.  I’m thankful for being able to be present in the pain.  I’m grateful for Gary and all the others who have shown that we don’t stop living, even when we’re faced with death.

There is joy in sorrow.  There is ‘beauty from ashes’.  There remains a hope for something more than just the day to day; if we decide we want what he had, and are willing to go to any lengths to get it.

Thank you Gary.  And for all the ones that are also grieving tonight.  

Prayers for us all.

~ Peace

The Burtle 

Gettysburg

Grief can be a deceptive monster, meandering through our lives in and out at different times stirring anger, sorrow, loss, longing - all the feels.

I was staying on the outskirts of the historic battleground in early September 2020 when I got the news.  I had already been in a state of my own self-imposed grief and trying to escape from reality as I knew it.  Everything was gone.  Everything was lost.  Or I thought so.  And then I realized there was more to come.

Life was coming.  At 2am I got a text saying that my best friend and his wife were heading to the Hospital… The birth of their daughter was eminent.

Then death.  At 6am I got the phone call.  It was my uncle.  My mom had passed.  Unexpectedly and suddenly - days after a questionable surgery and hospital stay.

Life and death work that way.  In conjunction; ebbing and flowing through the lives of those around us.  Through our lives.  Grief comes with that.

My own grief:

My past - a childhood with hidden demons. 

Excuses and not ever quite understanding my purpose here.

My present (2020):

The Toxic relationship that I worshiped.

And finally My mom.

I have grieved.  I’ve reached down and dealt with the passages of hurt and loss that bound me for years.

There are moments I wish I could go back, like the ghosts in the Christmas Carol and tell those who witnessed my chaos firsthand what was going on inside.  That my own selfish desires fueled an already fragile psyche into the abyss of self destruction.  That I knew he was going to show up (the abuser WOULD rear his head at the funeral).  That I was sure she WOULD show up at my side.  That I WOULD be able to make it through the day without the taste of spirits on my breath.  That I WOULD be able to grief… SOMETHING.

And in my mind none of it happened.  Well, I thought none of it happened.  My abuser did show up, to be spurned by my ‘fighter aunt’ who protected a man who didn’t want to be protected.  I wanted a fight.

The Gettysburg of my emotions, my grief; my pain.  And just like Gettysburg, it didn’t end well.

Today, I stand on another mountain that bears the carvings of soldiers of that same war.  I felt a tear form in my eye.  Grief can appear at any time.  We feel, we breathe in this experience that is life, and we all face loss - death.

I’ve forgiven Lee.  But I still have no desire to see him.  The spiral I went on was partly fueled by his rape of more than just my innocence.

I felt betrayed by someone who never showed up.  I know that’s NOT the type of person I want in my life now.

I wish I could tell my brother what I was feeling then.  What I’d been feeling for a long time.  That I needed help and I just wasn’t in a good place.  That I was sorry.  Maybe one day.

My daughter had to bear more than a child, no a young lady should ever deal with.  Watching her father start to vanish, knowing that she had already lost one parent, She was an unwilling participant in my roller coaster.  Though I have looked at her in the face and told her I was sorry, there will come with time where we have a deeper conversation about everything.

My sons both were shielded slightly from the wreckage, but they didn’t get through unscathed.

 

I’ve made my amends to my Dad.  He knows where I stand.  And not by words.  But by one day at a time living this life outside of the bondage of my head and a bottle.

And I’ve grieved my mom.  Not in the moment.  But in conversations over the last year and a half and a walk up a mountain.

I can rest now.  In each and every day and know that I am steady, present and truly alive.

There will be battles still left to fight, but they’re just minor skirmishes in a war that was ended November 19, 2020.

~ Peace

The Burtle

WRESTLING under STARS

I've been up late.  Can't sleep.

God has me wrestling with some things.  Well, maybe I'm wrestling with God.  But I'll come back to that...

Looked up and saw the stars.

Calming.

Makes me feel so small, yet here.

Underneath something so much bigger than I can fully comprehend.

a friend: I love the winter constellations. Seeing Orion’s Belt is a thing for me. Gives me peace somehow

me: They let me know that I can still dream

me: I didn’t dream for a long time. And then my dreams became so unrealistic. I’m learning that they can be part of life again. I didn’t have hope for a while.

hope.  stars.  something so much bigger than I can fully comprehend.

I don't get him.  God.

I'm stuck in Groundhog day.  I've been going through the same motions, getting the same results... over and over.  You realize that's the definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again, yet expecting different results. 

I want to understand.  Life.  Love.  The secret to the best damn barbeque sauce...

I want to live the life I know he has for me.  

And most of the time recently, I'm doing that.  But then I look up to the stars and I feel alone again.  Even knowing that there are others looking up as well.  That God is there.  I still feel it.

Let's do a little recap - 

I've been blessed with over 400 days (445, not bragging - blessed).  This month will be 50 years on this rock.  I've seen my life grow, prosper, spiral out of control and then be rescued by the presence that has always comforted me.  Then repeat it all again.

Yet the one thing I've craved, yearned for since a kid is still elusive.  Someone who gets me as I am, not the broken man I was or the wounded child when I first believed.  See, I believed in a power greater than me as soon as I was sullied.  I had nothing else to hold on to.  And he walked me through the dark I hid, the terrors in the night that only ceased being a nightly occurrence in the last year, and the storms that I brought on myself in retaliation for the pain I carried.

And he gave me the stars - to get lost in on cold winter nights; autumn nights when the temperatures are just perfect in the south - on hot, humid summer nights when a fresh breeze might be the only way to cool my sweat-drenched clothes.

"God is with us".  It's a phrase my Dad used this morning as I listened to him teach a class at his church.  I truly believe that.  

And I'm wrestling with him.  I don't hate him anymore.  There was a particular night a couple of years ago when I did.  When I was so angry that he kept getting in the way of me making my own decisions about life and death.  I hated that he let the man-child take my innocence; that I couldn't handle it for so many years.  I just don't always understand.

I don't understand. 

I pray.  I meditate - the best a man with intense ADHD can.  I try to do good.  I am a good man.

And when I lay down at night, I am alone.

He's heard me tonight.  I love everything he's given me.  But maybe I'm selfish.  I just want a little more.  

So I'm going to walk outside.  Look up - see the stars.

And wait.

~ Peace,

The Burtle