letter

I hate you right now.

There is an anger that burns in me deep and still crackling with the dry pine that chars and blackens my eyes.

You have tied my soul to a stake at its center... trying to kill the last bit of humanity that I felt for you.

And you almost succeeded.  I am blackened, sick with soot and ash.  Struggling to breathe over the longest two weeks I can remember.

But you didn’t.

At this point I am sad, beaten down and weary.  But i also feel sorrow for your burden.  How you walk around with all that inside you and unable to really let it go, the pain, the guilt, the hurt that you hold, I don’t know? The judgements that you put on me, on others, but don’t realize that you too need help to move on.  I wish you would have listened to my own pleadings for you to find solace and help.  But you are too strong for that.  Instead you’ve asked all of us to change.  To bend to your ways.  And you have never been happy with the compromise that had to be.  I’m sorry for that.  But we all have to bend.   

And I still love you.  I may be one of the only people on the planet to see your heart and know how terrified you are at times.  The walls that you build are hard to trace, but they’re there.  I know the good that is there too. Just so much there that covers it up.

Let them down.  Find the answers.  Not in control, but in peace and communion.

I will always have a part of me that is yours, but I know that until you can succumb to a realization of all our faults and humble yourself to another, you’ll never be happy.  I want you to be happy.

I hate you and I love you.  

And if you need me I am here.

Still.  Even after the pain you’ve just put me through.

Chad

02/06/18

my little man

does anyone even read this?  my bullshit writings about a life I wish I had.  a life I've never known...

it doesn't matter.

What matter's is a little boy.  a bubbly, full of life and stubborn-genes boy who can light up the world with his smile, his laugh, his endless questions. "what's that daddy?" "where you at daddy?"

well for almost two weeks now he's been gone. he was taken away without my knowledge.  she took him, without any announcement except a text 5 hours after they left.  taken 12 and a half hours away to permanently move him with her.  It wasn't the plan that we had worked out and told family and friends.  It was premeditated.  She started planning it as I was leaving town for a conference.  these aren't my thoughts, these are facts.  

and I didn't even get to say goodbye.  to play with him for a minute. to stand in the way of her doing what I considered the unfathomable.  my lawyer had asked me on the Wednesday that I left if I trusted her with him.  would she do anything drastic or flee?  I immediately said "no", that's the one place I knew we trusted each other.  or I thought.  how could she do this?  I'd never deny him to her.  I know how much he means to both of us, and I thought we were both looking out for his best.  but now I wonder if that was a lie.

she's starting her life over.  she's moving on.  but i'm his dad. i'm important as well.  he needs me too.

i've had to do things that I thought were never going to be part of my life again.  the horrors of seeing my two older ones being dragged from Atlanta as young ones has been overshadowed by this.  then I was too young and broken to even fight it at first.  now I have no choice.

but I just want to see him.  to hold him close.  to rock him to sleep.  to read to him and just walk and have him ask his many questions.  to sing with me.

why?  why would you do this?  you've broken more than my heart.  I don't understand.  he's not a possession or a belonging.  he's my little man.  I love him so much.

and I miss him.

how do I express that over a video screen or a phone message?

I was willing to do just about anything to be close to him.  now I'm just unsure.

since I know that no one reads this, I'll close.  it's just me at 4:30 am with a heart full of tears.  broken and needing my son.

a dog named Murphy

Between the winter of 2006 and spring of 2007 was one of the roughest stretches of my life.  It was when the abuse of my past first came alive outside my head and the relationship I was in was being destroyed by two people who cared about each other, but both carried closets full of past hurts and suffering.  It was dark, sad and depressing.

I got so low I didn't want to be here anymore.
Obviously I’m still here.

It was also when I first learned what unconditional love was.  And that came from a fuzzy four-legged creature named Murphy!  She was a puppy of a golden retriever, even though she was already two when I got her, that never fully grew up, and taught me what it truly meant to love another being.  And it started at the pound.

She was that special dog.  The one you go back to several times during a visit to the pound.  The same dog that I ended up taking off a day of work to make sure I was the first one in line to get her the day she was available to adopt.  She was going to be our new companion, and never did I realize that she would become much more to me.  She already had pulled on my heartstrings from the very first time I bent down to approach her and she put her paw against the chain-link cage they had her in, just to get my attention.

Over the next five years, as I tried to work through a lot of my own personal baggage, I found that I learned more and more about how to love from Murphy.

Loyal, patient, always excited to see me, nudging me when I needed to be reminded that there was more to life than just the pain that I was going through.  I would come home and I could hear her inside on the wood floors dancing... pitter patter,  just excited to have me open the door, her big frame almost taking me down to the floor as she jumped up to try to be pet and to welcome me with a sloppy kiss.

The first summer we had her I had a dinner we had to go to that involved us leaving her alone at home for an extended time with someone checking on her.  At some point during the evening Murphy decided to play shaker with a bottle of medication that had been left on the counter. We got a frantic phone call saying that she was laying there in a pool of her own feces, unresponsive.  Rushing to her, we weren't sure whether she would make it or not. Fortunately the dog sitter was able to take her to the emergency clinic, and by the time we got there we were forced to make a decision… Do we save her or do we let her go?  It was the first time I truly realized how deep the connection was between me and that dog. Without hesitating I pulled out the credit card.  A thousand dollars later we were told that she would make it, though it would be a rough couple of weeks afterwards.

She never judged me, even when I corrected her she learned and practiced the most loving obedience.  Yes, there were times she went astray, but she always looked back at me with her big silly grin and would lope over to me to be praised and loved.

I wish we all could love like that.  Without pretense or the life crap that I find gets in the way of that simple childlike love that only a silly, beautiful grown-up puppy can provide.

Murphy died last mother’s day.  I wish I could have been with her when she went, but I’m glad I have the good memories of her to keep in my heart.  A heart that she made much larger just by coming into my life.

I am the MONSTER

Yes, I am.

There is nothing that I hide in this.  I am the monster.  It is inside me, part of me.  I am.

There is no uplifting ending coming, I'm just being blunt.  It hunts, feeds, devours, takes hold.  It is part of my subconscious.  Lingering to find the moments I'm willing to let it take the reigns.

I fucking hate it.  And I have continued to fight it everyday for the better part of my life.

You may have seen it, witnessed it, but unless you've been devoured by it, you can never truly get it.

I'm not alone.  THERE ARE MORE OF ME OUT THERE THAN YOU MIGHT THINK. Souls who have ridden the storms of it's deceit and false promises more of their life than they wish.

And until I come to grips with me, the monster remains.  Something I fight.  But maybe one day it will be something I can fully come to grips with and not face it every day, but embrace it.

Maybe.

Outside Voices

Will you let me be?
finding such times to tear apart the fragile parts of me.
Will you move and let me fly?
without pretense or looking for how I've done it wrong, or just not right?
now I find that I can only decide the course
but I am not alone, I can weather this with or without that voice
So let me stand, or let me fail
but I will be the one to rise above, or sink below to dwell.

11/24/17
clc

the process

One side may think that they have won. That they have finally recovered their lost grandchild from the evil of the big city. The other side may feel defeated and betrayed by the loss. I stand in the middle, but this time not worried what either side thinks. I’m doing the right thing. While I can’t understand his lack of motivation, lack of any desire to move forward, I can’t let him stagnate and stay complacent. At the same time, maybe it is the best place for him to go. Instead of being swallowed up by the big city, at least he will be in a familiar atmosphere and have the time to figure out what it is he wants to do.

I hope he will find his footing. Find a passion in something that burns deep and allows him to move forward and be successful. But it’s his turn to figure that out. Stubborn and hardheaded, probably has a lot of me in him, and his mother. It is his turn.

I won’t be too far away. But I am going to give him this chance. Maybe not everyone will understand, but did everyone understand when I wanted to leave so desperately as soon as I turned 18? What about understanding how have I decided to fight for my marriage, and to continue to try to look out after all three of my kids?  I have one who I desperately want to have find her path, just like my son. Let her find a place she fits in, and find where she will be successful. Then there is the little one… such a fun, intelligent bundle of joy.  I’m not gonna be away from him. I’ve already made that mistake before. So there’s going to be a lot of changes coming very soon. Today only marks one. And it is bittersweet. But I also know that it is necessary for everyone to start to find their own way. I’m not abandoning my son. But I’m allowing him to make some decisions, just like I’m having to make decisions on my own.

If you look at my left arm, there is an arrow pointing north. Wonder where that will take me? I have a pretty good clue.

So we all grow, we all change. We all have obstacles and challenges ahead of us, and if we don’t face them, they clog the machine and interrupt the process.

Paint Blue the Air (Writing it out)

Cower in the corner

The night still full of horrors of 

What did I do wrong?

Don't understand, this is what I would become

A man plagued with uncertainty

Unleashed demons, that I didn't breed

From someone else's demented soul

Now I get the gift of never being whole

Child of 5, 6 and 7

Knew much more of hell than any real heaven

Though no one else knew anything happened

"Remember, this is our secret"

Just a 'normal' boys world

At least it's all I knew, how could I ever tell?

Tainted right from the beginning

Though for a long time I forgot remembering

Cause it just didn't seem everything was right

I was growing, learning, figuring wrong from right

So instead of words, I found the silence

In keeping secrets, built my own solace

In places no one could touch, deep inside my mind

Where no man, no one would ever find

But my lust, my young hungerings 

Played out into dressing on top of teenage dreams

The young man who went to church

Was possessed of feelings that would make many burn

And that's the way I learned survival

Bare essentials to protect and hide from

The good, the bad, the holy and hell

You'd never know how much I felt I'd failed

Miserable, but inside there's something

I found that no scar could ever keep me

From looking at the skies above

Thought of heaven, rock-n-roll and love

This kid dared to dream beyond this planet

And the shadows that I wouldn't dare let

Keep me from something more

(Though most days it was just waking, getting out the door)

Then fear came back.

Right in front of me.  He stood. Like an attack.

And to him, it was like nothing had happened,

Hell, I'd never ratted him out, kept his 'secret'

Maybe twenty years might heal some wounds

But that day, it was all back, too, too soon.

I didn't flinch, instead I kept my composure

And in that greeting, no one noticed

The little explosions going off inside my head

Slowly crippling my emotions, wished I was dead

The place I kept those secrets 

was the only retreat I could find quickly

And I went there, hoping to never come out

And for a few years, I even thought I'd found

New life, new passions, revival

But it's never gone.  There's always a little pain.

Once you face it, with faith that you can stand

Those tears still flow, some days hard as rain

Shudder like thunder, find lightning in your veins

But the storms pass...

And life flows again.

I don't know where he is, nor do I really care

There was a time I wanted nothing more, than to make the world aware

But even though I hate him, as the child who didn't have a choice

I no longer want to destroy him, but I'd like him to hear this voice...

"I am no better or worse than you.  I am just as broken.

I just wish you knew all the years you've taken, stolen.

I'll answer for my sins one day soon.

You will too."

When I cower in that corner, when night hits hard and I fail.

I still may cry, retreat inside, sometimes weep and wail.

But I have the right to get up. Leave that 'me' behind.

Find peace in better moments, know I'm not losing my mind.

Sunrise comes, even though there was a day I didn't care...

I don't chose the clouds to break, vanquish night or paint blue the air.

I just find those simple moments to laugh (yes) and breathe.

The past is what it is, the days ahead are up to me.

6/7/17 

clc