Scars Still LInger

 

Memories are strange things.  Each of us observes and perceives things differently, so shared memories can vary wildly.  Plus those occurrences have differing importance for each of us, so what might become a vivid memory for one observant, will become a forgotten memory for another.  It’s incomprehensible to me how memory works, or in many cases, doesn’t work.  Why do I remember very specific information about one hit wonder Canadian band, Glass Tiger, who I regard as one of the worst bands to ever have been professionally recorded, but can’t remember if I took my daily medications this morning.  I’m sure this is likely a worrisome sign of my on-setting dementia.  Why do some memories come flooding in with amazing detail at random times, while others languish in obscurity just out of reach? 

 

Glass Tiger "Don't Forget Me When I'm Gone"

I’ve heard that most women who have given birth, cannot recall exactly how painful the experience was.  That would explain people who give birth more than once, but something tells me that this is fiction created by some male, to feel better about himself.  During my multiple hospital stays over the past 40 years or so, I have experienced some pretty intense pain, and I can recall the experiences very clearly, if I choose to.  I generally do not choose to.  If I ever find myself in similar situations my fight and then flight mechanisms activate quickly.  I’ve had some embarrassing scenes in recent years because of my fear of re-experiencing medical pains from the past.

 

The numbing of past pain for me has generally occurred from emotional pain – not so much physical pain, although I do not deny that they can be deeply intertwined.  However, like so many of us, I get those random late night memories thinking about a past relationship that had run afoul years ago.  Sometimes those memories are positive ones, and those good memories can be tricky.  For example, this happened to me recently.  I was looking back at a past relationship fondly, and believe it or not, could not for the life of me, remember why the relationship ended.  In this case, the very next day, I pulled some random papers from a file that had bits of past writing inside, and there it was: evidence of why that particular relationship failed.  It astounded me that it all so easily slipped my mind.  There was plenty of solid proof as to why that shit needed to end for both parties involved.  I feel like an idiot typing this!  I know, I know, but it’s these lapses in memory that can get us into trouble. 

Aren’t we supposed to learn from our experiences?  Like the old example of a child burning their fingers on a hot stove.  Next time they’ll know better.  That gets socked away into the memory banks, and for most of us, stays there forever.  I wonder why our brains selectively choose what memories to lock away for future reference, and what to discard.  Obviously, some of us are better at learning lessons from past mistakes, or remembering how to avoid pain.   

I guess I’m a little stunned at reading about a past failed relationship from the perspective of when it had still been fresh, and discovering that I had pushed those negative feelings so far aside that I wasn’t really certain of the validity of what I was reading. I immediately began to make excuses.  I allowed the obvious: the failure part of the relationship was at least mine as much as it was hers. I could only remember those good times – the comforting times.  I envisioned how we have both changed over the past several years.  Forgiveness is one thing, but foolishness is another.  Light up that stove top!  Maybe I can stick my face on there. 

 

David & David "Welcome to the Boomtown"

I find memories, whether accurate or not, incredibly important and endlessly intriguing.  Memories are made up of all of our individual experiences.  I am fascinated by people’s stories, or their collection of memories – scars and all.  To me, these are what make us all unique and interesting.  Why does the memory of first hearing David & David’s “Welcome to the Boomtown” stick with me?  Why do I remember that more so than my high school graduation?  Maybe one day that specific memory will serve me.  Maybe not, but it does tell a small story about who I am and what I’m made of.  It’s these things that I want to know about others.  It concerns me that I know fictional characters from novels, television shows, or movies better than some people I’ve known for thirty years.  Why do so many of us keep our experiences so close to the vest?  I suppose that most of us simply don’t trust each other with this personal information or we don’t care.  Perhaps, if we were more willing to share our memories with each other, we might collectively learn more life lessons.  Or perhaps not.

Apathy and Exhaustion

I’d like to think that it all went wrong on one dramatic day late last summer.  It would be nice to blame all of my troubles on that dreaded day, but the reality is that things began to slip long before that and it’s become a free-fall ever since.  What happened last summer?  Nothing special really.  I spent a nice morning with a woman who I had grown very fond of over a couple of months and after taking her to lunch as a thank you for helping me with some work; I made my big move and asked her out on a date.  The general response to the few times I have built up the nerve to ask such an outward and potentially life changing question of someone has always been some kind of awkward silence followed by a polite dismissal.  I am used to this and pretty much expect it.  This day was no different, and even though I should be used to being turned down, it is still disappointing and discouraging.  So, I found myself back in my office at work a few minutes later trying to figure out what I did wrong, when I received a phone call from my doctor.  She was contacting me to inform that my latest labs (blood tests) showed that my transplanted kidney was being rejected.  It was a ten minute stretch that I didn’t need.  It’s strange to think that day had held such promise.

The funny thing is that those two rejections no longer particularly bother me.  The kidney issue was resolved through a few changes in medication and a lot of labs and expense.  This process wasn’t easy, but things are back in control and have been for some time.  The other rejection?  Well, that one stings, as most of them do, but that pain mostly fades with time, despite the acute loneliness that such rejection leads to.

So I keep asking myself why I still feel so damn terrible all of the time.  I didn’t realize it then, but I think something turned inside of me a few months before the double rejection day.  The hope of winning the heart of a lovely, intelligent and driven woman was only a distraction that gave me temporary motivation.  Maybe it started when I decided I wanted to move from my apartment in the ‘burbs back into the city where I feel I belong - nearer my dwindling social life.  So, as my lease drew closer to expiring, I started to shop around.  In the meantime, I began the process of getting rid of things.  I discarded, recycled, or donated boxes and boxes worth of stuff that I had unwittingly collected over the years.  I made those tough decisions about several items that I’ve generally held onto over the years for sentimental reasons.  This time, most of those things were discarded.  It was time to change and simplify my life – to move forward.  This felt positive.  Along the way though, I seemed to have discarded many of my things and a big part of myself.  Many of my interests and hobbies – the things that have kept me distracted, entertained and inspired all of these years seem to have gone missing.  It’s like I’ve lost interest with everything I’ve always enjoyed.  Some of my extended family and co-workers call me “the golf guy,” yet I have only played one work-related round of golf in nearly two years, and I do not have any inclination or desire to play anytime in the future.  At the end of the 2013 season, I gave up my Portland Timbers tickets after 12 years of rabid fandom and have barely paid any attention to the team since.  I use to mainly write short stories and fiction when the urge struck, and enjoyed the feeling of creating and always felt a sense of accomplishment upon completion – well done or not.  Nowadays, my writing has been almost solely focused on promoting the music I love, which feels increasingly hollow and pointless (it’s not as though I command any kind of audience to spread the word anyhow).  This process lacks the creative spirit of the artists that I admire and that I so used to crave to emulate.  I’ve even found my lifelong passion for music on the wane.  It’s as though I’ve heard too much.  I’ve begun to question whether or not I am stuck in a rut as I listen to long-time favorites, or newer bands who remind me of music of days past, but very little seems truly new anymore.  Am I really seeking out new directions and branching out, or am I rehashing my teens and twenties over and over again?  Am I simply stuck on repeat?

I feel silly providing these examples of my current listlessness.  They are all unimportant, mundane and simple individually.  However, I’ve begun to notice that they are emblematic of a problem that I do not fully understand.  None of these things have progressed consciously.  It’s as if a trap door has opened beneath me.  It’s as though during my effort to simplify and improve my life by tossing away extraneous bits and pieces, I’ve thrown myself away.  I’ve blown out my pilot light.  I’ve lost my fire.  I’ve lost my ability to live.  I’ve become what I’ve always fought against.  I’ve become an automaton.  For example, I’m allowing my job – something I’ve always tried to keep from defining my person – to frustrate and confound me.  Every day feels like an impossible, frustrating and endlessly stressful trudge uphill with no hope of ever accomplishing anything.  It’s become a trap - a steeper hill to climb each day.  I’m stuck in a perpetual cycle of living paycheck to paycheck with a carrot dangling in my face promising something better on the horizon.  Only that something never materializes, no matter how hard I try to reach it.  Yet, I keep trying until my batteries run out.

I’ve been through a lot of difficult times in my life.  Everyone has, and as with anyone, I’ve faced life’s challenges and muddled my way through one way or another, but for some reason, this time, I do not know what to do.  I am at a loss.  Maybe, I’m simply exhausted.  For much of my life I’ve focused my energy to do battle against an ugly genetic disorder (VHL) and the multiple surgeries that I’ve endured.  Now that I’ve been fairly stable for the better part of ten years, the tiniest little thing these days can come along and knock me out – blown over like a feather.  The lingering effects of those battle scars have taken their toll.  I struggle with the concept that I’ll never feel truly physically well again.  And I don’t mean in the ‘I’m getting older’ kind of way, though that is very real.  I am in real physical pain all of the time, which leads to sleepless nights and way too much time to dwell on my shortcomings and the people that I miss and who I’ve lost.  I don’t want to lose anyone anymore.  I don’t know if I can deal with it again.

It’s time to find a direction to re-ignite that pilot light, but I do not have a clue what it would be, or what it could entail.  I’m not struggling to decide which fork in the road to take, because I’m no longer on a road of any kind.  This must be my so-called mid-life crisis.  I don’t really know what that means.  Maybe it’s the side effect of spending years and a lot of effort trying to achieve those dreams of youth and never quite doing so.  Maybe it’s the realization that those dreams were doomed to fail from the get go and there is no plan B lying in wait.  I’m tired of facing these challenges on my own.

As of now, I am trying to schedule small short-term activities each week that I can look forward to.  These are proverbial baby steps.  The hope is that one day I will once again find my stride and start moving towards positive goals that fuel and instill me with a reason to live and breathe and to feel like I’m worth something.  This feels an insurmountable task.

Ocean Breathes Salty

He sat down on the bench beneath the coat rack. Various odors drifted around his senses from the jackets lined up above his head. Each jacket’s stench told a different story about its owner. He leaned his elbows onto his knees and dropped his face into his palms. He didn’t want to delve into those stories. Pain felt like it was going to rupture out from the middle of his back, or at least seep out through the hole in his left side. The pain was from pressure. The pressure was from old blood swirling around his insides from a long stretch of internal bleeding while on blood thinners during a disastrous hospital stay. He was dizzy from the pills he had taken. He began to shiver, as he attempted to regain his feet and return to work. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his hands as they struggled to retie the white apron around his waist. He heard a voice from behind him ask if he was okay.

“Well that is that

And this is this

You tell me what you want

I’ll tell you what you get

You get away from me”

Red and green cloud the pool’s alternating surface direction inside the bright white porcelain bowl. He managed a grunt of laughter as he thought to himself about how the colors were so festive. He tried to ignore the burn from the infection. He was unable to button his jeans, because his hands were shaking too much. The bandage wrapped around his abdomen had begun to unstick, so he tried to hold it in place with his elbow. The tiny rubber ball underneath the burgundy stained gauze that was connected to a tube that thrust deep inside of him looked like it was filled with Kool-Aid, but it made him think of knife wounds.

“The ocean breathes salty

Won’t you carry him in

In your head

In your mouth

In your soul

And maybe we’ll get lucky

And we’ll both grow old

Well I don’t know

I don’t know

I hope so”

Wrapping his arms tightly around each other, he allowed his head to fall against the stair behind it. His momentum shifted his weight across the steps into the wall. He couldn’t make the ataxia of his torso stop no matter how hard he tried to squeeze himself still. His teeth rattled despite his efforts to clamp down his jaw and arrest control of his muscles from the disease that had already eaten away his soul. He could’ve called out for help, but all he could think about was his impending death. It was past 3 am anyway. He didn’t want to wake anyone. He pondered the notion of his death and what it meant to him. Nothing came to mind, other than a sense of relief and the emptiness that he had always envisioned. He had learned less than two months prior that bleeding to death internally would be a good way to go. It was so relaxing to be slowly drained of life; to delve peacefully into a deep sleep and then never wake up. He did wake up though, and instead found himself sweating, shivering, nauseous and forced into a fallen position on a staircase due to crippling pain.

“Well that is that

And this is this

You told me what you saw

And I’ll tell you what you missed

When the ocean met the sky

You missed when time in life

Shook hands and said goodbye

When the Earth folded in on itself

And said ‘Good luck

I hope heaven and hell

Are really there

I wouldn’t hold my breath’

You wasted life

Why wouldn’t you waste death?”

He stared out toward the horizon. The low autumn afternoon sun still burned bright, if not hot. He considered how the tiny bumps for hills covered with tall trees to the west are blocking his view of the ocean from this vantage point. He had actually never seen the beach along this stretch. He had been to this little town hundreds of times, but never ventured anywhere beyond its two very modest golf courses, which lie just inland. He held his shirt up, as his friend worked diligently to reapply his stained bandage to his side and back. A layer of sweat from the activity and humid heavy coastal air made the bandage a liability. The third member of their group, who joined a few holes prior, asked if he could play through. They nodded and laughed at the circumstance. His pain and mourning have been tempered with determination and a realization at how much he wanted to keep fighting.

“The ocean breathes salty

Won’t you carry him in

In your head

In your mouth

In your soul

And the more we move ahead

The more we’re stuck in rewind

Well I don’t mind

I don’t mind

How could I mind?”

lyrics & title taken from Isaac Brock./Modest Mouse