Gratitude

The purpose of me writing this is to tell you what it was like, what happened, and what its like now. I tell my story not to hear myself speak. I am telling my story in the hope it shows someone else how to overcome the insurmountable problems in front of them just like the countless people who have done the exact same thing for me. I am not writing this in an attempt to claim responsibility of authorship for anything written here and anything that belongs or appears to belong to anyone else is indisputably their works and all credit due will be freely given. I say that because if it was left up to me I would not be writing this. I am only writing this by the grace of my higher power, the skin of my teeth, and the giants that have come before me, who cleared this path.  

The greatest gift I have ever received was the gift of desperation. I had tried everyway to implement my will on my life and I was absolutely failing at everything. I was destroying my family, I was destroying my body. My friends were gone, my extended family was gone. I was running across an open plain while the four horsemen of my own apocalypse were riding me down with the intent to annihilate me with brutalistic barbarity. I was allowed to see my future and the only thing that I shown was death watching and waiting. I was facing my own destruction. There was nowhere to go! I could not turn around and hide behind the corner. I had worked my way to Dante's inferno's 9th ring of hell. I was given two choices; stay, or grasp the flimsy reed that was presented to me. I know for a fact that I cannot run my life by myself. I know this because I tried everything within my power to retain any form of control in my life. It wasn't until I had been utterly and savagely beaten into reasonableness was I willing to grasp that flimsy reed. That flimsy reed has proved to be the loving and powerful had of God. I equate my putting my faith into my higher power as jumping out of a perfectly good aircraft with a questionable parachute, packed by who knows. Standing in an an aircraft you have a sense of control, but when those doors open up and the wind crashes in, the light turns green and the jumpmaster says go, you have to give up your control, focus on the things you can control. Like giving the people around you plenty of room because flying a parachute is just like driving a car. I am surrounded by a bunch of people who are scared out of their minds, are not paying attention and probably cant see past their own noses even if they have their eyes open in the first place. Some people can claim to have only jumped night jumps because they had their eyes closed the entire time. 

I am grateful to be an alcoholic, because without the devastating and savage beating I endured that crushed and ground me into a state of reasonableness I would have never found my way into the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous. I have finally given up and handed all of my broken and pulverized pieces over to all of you and my higher power, and by the grace of my higher power those pieces have been slowly put back together piece by piece. Each piece held together with a beautiful strip of gold. I can tell you that I think i am starting to resemble a beautiful flower pot that I along with my friends and family, and my higher power can plant flowers in and we can all watch them bloom. I will never be put completely back together and that makes me smile, because I can continue to add little bits of my destroyed pottery and a little bit of gold to this vessel that I can now store whatever I want in. I am going to take my family to a pottery painting place and try to replicate a Japanese kintsugi flower pot and then I am going to plant some flowers in it. 

God I am grateful! Thank you so much for letting me share this. 

The Symbol

So there I am. Standing on the precipice of a cosmic cliff over looking the great expanse of the universe. There is no sense of how tall the cliff is. It continues so far down that the only sense of termination one would get is its disappearance into the inky darkness of the universe’s expanse. I notice a massive shoe attached to a massive person. His shoes are as tall as a two storied house. His pleated pants extend so far up into the cosmos that from my prospective he is nothing but a huge pair of shoes and infinitely long pleated pants. 

You as an outside observer might wonder what is going on. To tell you the truth, I may as well have been abducted by aliens. But, I have an overwhelming sense that I am supposed to be here and just melt into the experience. 

I ask biggy shoes to show me a symbol that represents my life. I am curious. The shoes instruct me to close my eyes, and from the darkness of my mind the burning surface of the sun appears. I am looking right at the sun. Massive plasma arms reaching out from the surface. It feels like I just opened the door to a very hot oven. Scorching but pleasant heat spills across my face and chest. I think to myself that “this is cool.” But, the feeling of awesomeness is short lived. It is replaced by the feeling of getting socks for Christmas when you were hoping for a PlayStation. I am grateful for getting something, but this shit sucks. Lame. I think to myself “how am I supposed to draw the burning surface of the sun?” I want to make a pendant that I can hang on a necklace. The burning sun will not do. I asked the giant shoes for the truth, but the truth sucks, so I start to improvise. I think to myself that the sun is a star, so I could just say my symbol is a star. But a star is pretty lame and I think it sounds like a shitty town or a stripper’s name. I add a tail to the star to spice it up a bit and turned it into a shooting star. But, it’s still lame. Biggy shoes tells me in a stern tone, “it is a sun, not a star.”

I tell the giant shoes my thoughts about how lame the symbol was and how I wanted a new one. 

A horrendous clattering erupts between the giant shoes and myself. It sounds like a metal light pole dropped from 50 feet and was burning off its gravity fueled energy by bouncing around like a barking chihuahua. 

The commotion scared the crap out of me. I swung around coiled up like a terrified rattle snake, ready to send its deadly venom into anyone or anything that wanted to find out.

I looked down and seen a word made out of metal. It was an odd bit. The word spelled “otlA.” What a queer word. I had never seen or heard of it. I thought that it must have been a Hungarian or maybe a Nordic word. I had no idea. I picked up the word and put it into my mouth like I was an infant. I explored the contours of the word with my tongue similar to the tongue fussing over a stuck piece of meat between your teeth. Trying to get a sense of what the word meant. I got a very distinct coppery citrus taste and I spit the word out onto the floor. I blurted out to biggy shoes that “I didn’t like it” and “I wanted a new one.”

I will try to explain the following scene but, I will have to ask you to be patient with me and allow the scene to unfold. You will experience the unfolding with me. Thanks for being here.

Imagine you were looking at a chalk or marker board as a teacher tried to get you to see something on the board. No matter how hard you try to see what the teacher is pointing out, you just can’t see it. Your teacher gets so frustrated with you because of your inability to see something so apparent. The teacher feels as though they are going insane and in one last desperate attempt to maintain their grasp on their sanity. They hold onto their sanity like a terrified child holding onto the safety bar of a roller coaster. Thinking that if he let’s go it will result in his death. So he squeeze as hard as humanly possible while doing the same thing with his eyes. With that desperation the teacher grabs the back of your head and pushes your head forward towards his finger pointing at the exact spot you need to look. You still don’t see what he is pointing at. The teachers sanity splits and the energy produced by the splitting propels your dimly lit brain across galaxies. You see stars and planets pass by. You feel a slight chilly wind passing over your skin and through your hair. After passing through uncountable galaxies you approach a blue planet. As you get closer to the planet you have a dim recollection of familiarity, and then recognize North and South America. You see Baja California, and recognize the US Mexico boarder wall. You sweep over roads and dodge cars and realize you are in Tijuana Mexico. You see a red stop sign approaching. Just before your face smashes into the sign you see the word “Alto.” A thunderous roar of an angry man yelling “STOP!!!!” The depth and power of this voice was overwhelming and awe inspiring. How could I be so dense? I guess that’s what happens when you frustrate biggy shoes

Knee deep in hand grenade pins

Sorry Bill! Bill isn’t his name, but if you recognize yourself in this story, you know who you are. Bill works for me, one of the best guys I have ever worked with. The dude got shit done. You never asked Bill how he was going to accomplish something. It was like working for the mafia. You just told Bill that you needed 25 RPGs in two weeks and voila a week and a half later you got 25 RPGs and a box of donuts on your desk with a sticky note that said “your welcome.” We all know some shady shit more than likely went down. But, like the Clinton years. Don’t ask, don’t tell. Bill was like an ace up your sleeve. The dude would show up with a never before seen beater ass car, sporting a bath robe like the Dude from the Big Lebowski; shovels, a bag of lime, duct tape, and a harbor freight special blue tarp in the trunk and a case of natty light after you drunk called him at 3:30 in the morning. I think you get the point. Love you brother. lol.

Bill worked for me, and Bill was in charge of a lot of shit. He oversaw with the assistance of some other team members a group of contractors that also worked for me. Bill, comes to me and tells me about a guy we will call Andrew.

I’ll do my best to paint a picture of this individual for you. Taller, probably 5’10”, 5’11”. Dark hair. Imagine 80s hair band mixed with death metal hair, but greasy like pepperoni pizza. Zits and an obvious history of acne. Soft as warm soft serve ice cream. Titties that would make a dairy cow blush. Wore a black leather jacket and was shaped like a pear. Duck walk and all. I’m not saying this stuff to be hurtful. I’m paint a picture that will become very important to the story later on. The dude looked like he was a 45 year old man child that lived in his mother’s basement. But his mother didn’t have a basement and lived in a single wide trailer down at the sunset estates. I am trailer folk so I can make fun; back the fuck up, Karen. I’ll upper-cunt you. What is upper-cunt you may ask? It’s where you upper-cut a dude so hard it causes his you know what to become a you know what. — Back to the story. Dude was paler than milk.

Bill comes to me and tells me some people are complaining about Andrew’s bathing routine, specifically the lack of it. And how they had told him he needed to shower, but he refused to. So there I am talking to Andrew along with Bill. I tell Andrew he needs to shower at least three times a week, and that I would dictate to him what days he would shower, and that I would inspect him on those days to ensure he was showering. This was all under the threat of me firing him and cancelling his contract due to failure of maintaining a cooperative work environment. Andrew followed through and it got to the point where I would only randomly inspect him.

Months later Bill stops by my office and tells me that Andrew has an OnlyFans appointment this afternoon. I was intrigued. I had never had an OnlyFans appointment before and I wanted to ask Andrew what he was going to ask the OnlyFans model to do for him.

Andrew walks by my office door at the end of the day and I yell his name. He stops and turns to my door. He responds to my call with a “yes, sir!” The thought crashes through my head, “I am not a fucking Sir! I am a god damn working man, I didn’t spend my career in classrooms, scuffing up my knee pads, trying to swallow the gravy in the hopes that I get promoted.” But, my rant would have been wasted upon Andrew’s warm soft served pizza pocket munching civilian mind, and I didn’t want to lose my opportunity to ask him about his OnlyFans appointment.

“I was told you had an OnlyFans appointment this afternoon”? Andrew physically shakes as a response to my question, and the following question sloppily falls out of his mouth. “Who told you that?”

I respond with “that doesn’t matter, tell me about your appointment. Tell me what you are going to ask the model. I am just curious, I have never had an OnlyFans appointment”. Andrew asked me what I meant by “asking the model”? And I thought to myself, “this mother fucker is dumb, he is so smart he fucking retarded”. I responded with “like are you going to ask the model if she would put a whistle in her butt and blow it?” And Andrew responded with “they ask me to do things”.

“What the fuck?” Am I going crazy?

“What the fuck did you just say?”

— In a tone that you would use to explain something to a toddler for the third time. Just slow, Andrew says “Theeeey ask-kk meee toooo dooo thinggggggs!”

My mind is doing fucking back flips, the room is spinning because of the weirdness. “Hold the front door! You are telling me that people pay you to do things on OnlyFans!”

“Yeah!” Is Andrew’s response.

I am floored, my brain is numb. The snozzberries taste like snozzberries. “What do they ask you to do?” I gulp out.

He responds with “it’s mostly involves spray can whipped cream.”

I tell him “you cant leave me there hanging, what do you do with the whipped cream?”

Andrew responds with “mostly spray it on my nipples and they watch me lick it off.”

I respond with a visible shake. And Andrew senses fear so he pounces.

He throws in “some times they make me cover my self from head to toe in whipped cream and make me do the truffle shuffle naked while my wiener slaps back and forth on my thighs.”

And for the coup de grace he throws at me “sometimes they want me to cover myself head to toe in whipped cream, act like I am hanging myself with a black trash bag while I shuffle my ruffle.”

I am thoroughly defeated but I attempt one last futile stand. “Is it mostly men or women that are your fans?”

Andrew responded with “you’ll have to pay the subscription fees to figure that one out.”

I was done. I could no longer even attempt to stand toe to toe with this absolute giant of a man on the battle field of the absurd.

I had to find Bill to tell him the story.

Bill was even more dumb founded then I was. Bill only passively believed my story as he thought that only something that absurd could come from my mind.

Bill, vowed to talk to Andrew himself.

Later that day, Bill comes into my office and sits down like he had been outside digging holes all day in the scorching heat. Bill looks at me with an exhausted face and says “what the fuck was that?”

Tells From The Other Side

Well, a lot has happened since the last time I wrote. Sorry about that. I made it to the 200 mile mark on the AT before I got off trail due to over use injuries and a poor choice of shoes destroyed me. The start of my journey of recovery and healing started the day I decided to walk the AT. I can say since then I have experienced a spiritual awakening and am no longer haunted by or am running from the experiences that I have had. My life is no longer concerned about running from or attempting to numb my traumas. My life is here now; as in the present, here; like right fucking now, here, and it is beautiful. I get to enjoy the now. I have laughed more in the last 5 weeks than I have ever laughed in my entire life. Life is good.

I am thinking about getting back on the AT this upcoming spring. And, if I do, I’ll continue blogging with the original intent of documenting my journey on the AT. Until then, I’ll use this blog as a depository of my short stories. Fictional, non-fiction, auto-biographical, biographical, who knows, I’ll never tell. I’m excited about this new journey. Off to the mountains we go, fuck the yellow brick road, we know that shit leads straight to hell. Spur that horse and make like a tree. Yippie ki-yay mother-fuckers we’re off to the races.