Chaos

 Bourbon. Neat.

It's hard for me to remember when things changed. When I stopped wanting to keep trying to go to church. When I decided I didn't care what a church said, I was going to drink alcohol. I was going to live the life I wanted to live, how I wanted to live it. I would live in a way that I could feel good about and feel true to myself. When I was going to leave my wife. When I was going to put myself first in life.

Now, a couple of years later. It's all just details. It's about where I was and where I'm at. Let's start with where I was. Devout. Honest. Clean cut. whatever the hell that means. also. fuck punctuation and spelling. well. its not like this is for anyone else. not really.

Where was I. oh yeah. clean cut mormon boy. it is both impossible for me to see that I was ever him. and yet. somehow. i dont know who i would be now if i wasnt him then.

alright. so. no drugs, no alcohol, no tobacco, tea, coffee. you know the drill.

Now I sit, a year into the virus. A year into the world changing. drinking bourbon. neat.

at least I didnt fall prey to what many who grew up mormon do. they buy cheap and they drink to drink. they literally do what mormon parents everywhere warn them alcohol makes you do.

perks to marrying into a family who isnt mormon. donalds, if any of you ever manage to read this, however unlikely. thank you for your love in the time I was a part of your family. I will always remember you all fondly.

but yes. i was able to see what a perfectly functional american society looks like when alcohol is not absent. and i saw that it didnt need to be what i was warned about. it could be that. it could be violence and anger. but it could also be laughter and joy. ease. not a necessary addition to life as I clung to so long. I was right then. You dont NEED alcohol for any situation. but social lubricant is nice. hell. sometimes it helps your brain get out of its own way.

now. here we are now. 2021. a glass of fine pnw bourbon. aged on the puget sound. how FUCKING COOL! and I never would have known. if old me could see current. real me. a collection of fun, interesting whiskey on my desk. a beautiful glass decanter filled with a perfect, balanced bottle of buffalo trace.

its amusing. 

for me, this chaos. this virus. life has changed. but, it changed as it has been changing for a few years now. a steady progression. for a long time I saw it as building myself back up to who I was so that I could start my life over.

but that was never it.

I have been growing. But not to what I was. At one point, it may have even been parallel with old me

but this. now? This is something new. Yet. it is who I have always been. just now, I dont limit myself. I dont hold back. I have grown in a job. Reminded myself of what I can do when I put my mind to it. I can become the best. the leader.

I dont have to live my life a slave to my depression. to my anger. to my fear.

I am in charge, i control my own fate now. for better or for worse.

OH. and this wasnt meant to be heavy. it kinda just ran away from me. the amusing point that this all started on was the thought I had as I poured the last of a very special bottle of whiskey for myself tonight. I would say about half of all people that find out im a whiskey guy get grossed out looks on their face. they associate whiskey with some awful experience years past that scarred them for life. then you have me. who had his first drink at like 24. and its the only alcohol i keep in the house always. hell. i collect them like books.

i dunno. it was funny to me

life changes. life goes on.

its 4. bedtime is coming up for the vampire. alas. maybe in another year i will write again. i should write more. ether here or a book. somewhere to record this all. for myself at least

who knows. maybe someday the cards will change. maybe I will believe in society. maybe i will have hope for a future where I want a kid and a family. but for now. its just survive. stay alive long enough to find out if thats what I want someday.

keep on fighting. for something more.

Alive

It's hard for me to express the last 12 months in words. 13 Really. It was about August I realized I didn't think I could stay married. Not to a woman who didn't love me. I was sad. I was angry. I was confused.

Alcohol helped. Well. Helped isn't the right word. Alcohol numbed. It made me feel less. Hell I think that kinda helps me mentally nail down one of the big problems. The final year of my marriage was training me to block emotion. To stop feeling. Because when I felt things, it hurt. So when I discovered alcohol, it made it easier. It wasn't a 24/7 effort to numb myself. So every weekend, when she was actually home and alone, we would drink. We would actually laugh. We were almost friends again. But it was all superficial. I knew how I should act. How I should feel. So I acted. Those last 3 months in Utah. Part of it I even genuinely tried to keep things going. Try to see if there was anything left to repair. But she was never there. She was at work till it was time to go to bed. And on the occasion she was home for more than a few minutes before bed it was distanced. She showed no real interest in my life, what I wanted from life. I think in a way that's part of what made me struggle to find a direction to move. I wanted so much to please her, to have her be interested again. So every shift in classes and degrees I would hope as I excitedly talked to her about my classes I was so interested in that she would show interest. Want to genuinely hear more about what was making me so excited.
At best she would smile and try but it was always just absent "yes that's nice" type talk. Then she would rant about work or start reading.
I feel like when I think back on the last year of the marriage all that's really left is fighting. And me finding excuses to play video games instead of spending time with her. She was not alone in her lack of effort. For me it was how I could spend time with Jason and Logan and eventually Kasey. People who I knew cared, people who would ask how I was doing and would genuinely care about the answer. Even follow up days or weeks later to see how it was going.

So yeah. That encompasses some of what was going on. If I'm being honest so much of it feels like a numbed over scar. I know there was good. Even near the end. It wouldn't have been so damn hard to leave otherwise. When I try hard to remember details I just feel pain and anger. Which I know wasn't everything. When I try and describe the relationship and pieces of why it broke, most people say things like she sounds awful or attack her for hurting me. But the pain I remember isn't from things she did. It was from absence. I felt alone. Even when she was home she was at work. On her laptop or her phone. Always. I supported it. Encouraged it even. Because that's what a good husband does. He encourages his wife to excel. To become great. But it ate at me. Fed the loneliness. I acclimated. Even when she was truly present. Had stopped working and was either watching TV with me or reading a book next to me, I embraced the loneliness. To me it became ever present. There was no use in trying. No use in fighting anymore.


Ugh. I can't. I can't keep typing and talking. Feeling those things again.

Maybe I will try again someday. But for now. I will talk of recovery. Growth. Being alive.

August 2018.
I got in a car a drove. Just me. No Michelle. No Fawkes. Just me.
I said I had to leave because of the smoke. Which. Was a sliver of truth. I had to leave because I needed home. I was starving for it. I needed friendship. I needed family.  She had talked about and tried to plan a trip for us. To reconnect. To heal our marriage. Something came up at work.

So I drove. I spent time with 3 people other than my parents.

Brendan. I got to know Brooke a little better, spent some time with my best friend again. Talked through some of my issues but mostly just spent time with them. Hung out on the trampoline. Just had human time. Reminded me what having people care felt like.

Kasey. He went shooting with Brendan and I. We shot pool. We sat in front of his house talking for hours into the night. I had seen him twice maybe since I left on my mission. Not enough to really reconnect and Jumpstart our friendship. That day, day and a half was enough to remind me of what I was missing. The great friend I had in him.

Mara. I had seen her once since I left on my mission. I had avoided even the occasional Facebook message because it bothered Michelle. But I was sad and broken and I missed my best friend. So I said fuck it and went and helped her family paint her house. I talked and laughed and joked with her and her family. Reminded me of a Jess lesson. A healthy relationship shouldn't ever force you to cut a piece of yourself out of your life.

Between those three, my brain got snapped out of the groove it had been in. It was like a hard reset.

Somewhere in all of that I decided. If Michelle and I couldn't figure things out by December I needed to leave. I couldn't keep going the way I was.
So. A couple of months later, some nice heart to hearts with good humans and a bottle of tequila later it was done. I was done.

I left as soon as semester was up. There was snow. Tears. Anger. I said alot of harsh words just to get out. I gave up the house.

Brendan made the drive with me we made it without anything too crazy. Still not sure how but we did.

Things are blurry from there. I know events but so much is a blur.

Tenneriffe with Jason, Logan and Kasey.
Christmas with Jason's family.
Lots of nights walking with Brooke and Chomper.
Shooting with Brendan.
Tannerite
Pokémon Go
Applying for all of the jobs
Getting a job with Amazon.
Meeting Troy and building a great friendship.
Reconnecting with Mara and Kasey.
William Ryan Key concert. Selfish things and Cory Wells. Jameson and ginger beer.
Introducing Mara and Kasey and meeting Kristen. Movies and the rock and night walks and adventures. Staying out late and having fun again.
Meeting Zack and Joseph.
Prime week. Learning unloading at work.

Then things start to come into focus. Mara and Kasey dancing around the possibility of a relationship. Me learning a healthy relationship with alcohol and not using it to numb anymore.
Talking through life with Troy learning to lean on someone else and have them actually listen. Weekly fires up the mountain. Bringing Joseph and having that be all sorts of odd.
Spending every second I can with humans. Friends, family. Anyone and everyone.
Playing video games less.
Being outside more.
Being happy. Smiling more. Loosing weight. Feeling comfortable in my own skin. Being excited for my two best friends to start dating. Watching life happen. Feeling alive.

Thats it. The overall theme of my life this last year. Alive. Feeling life again. Feeling pain, joy, love, anger. All of the things. Because I want to feel again. I want to experience all of the emotions that life has in store for me. Because what I had before that. It wasn't life anymore. Being a walking husk of a man. That's not living.

Life is good and bad.
Cutting one of them out means cutting both out. That will never be okay again. Feeling is always worth it. No matter how much life hurts.

It's time to be ALIVE.