Secrets Uncovered

When you think you want to know something, but when you finally find out, all you wish is to rewind and make them to stop before they tell you... But now you can never go back.  

All of my life I have wanted to know more about my Fathers side of the family. Since the day he left I have felt very distant from him, and distant from the real truth. I felt that I deserved a right to know. Anytime I saw my Grandparents after that, which I could  only count on one hand, I would try to get as much information as possible. Not about my father though. I didn't want to know anything about him. He made his own bed in what he did, and I wanted nothing to do with him or his new family. Plus I knew too much about him already, and most of it was ugly.  

No. The things I wanted to know about were only these two. More about my Native American heritage, which my Grandmother really knew nothing about, and also of what my Uncle was like. Before he killed himself. I was five years old when my parents got the call. I cant even imagine what my father was feeling after just finding out that his identical twin brother shot himself in the head while in the shower. I remember my mom telling me that when he heard, he laid his face in both of his palms and hunched over in great emotional and physical pain. I can vividly picture what that must have looked like. 

Since then, I always wanted to know more about who my uncle was. My Grandma on my moms side describes him as being the "nicer twin", my father I guess having more of a spunk to him. I also know that he was a lumber jack. I remember very plainly watching images of him cutting down trees. These videos were on slide shows, so they looked especially vintage, and his face was hard to make out. I knew it was him though, because he always had a mustache, and my father didn't. My father did however grow my uncles signature mustache after he died. You can imagine how confusing this was to a young child. My father would walk through the door and I would think it was my Uncle. But how could it be? He was dead. And I wondered why we didn't visit him anymore. I didn't understand. 

My father quickly took on his twins persona. He grew the mustache, adopted his music taste, bought drums and taught himself to play, as my uncle must have done, and he even bought an old Ford Ranger and had the license plate bare his brothers name. Aside from these things, the only other things I knew of my uncle, were the teddy bear that he gave me close to when he died, and the straw hat that my father had for a long time until my brother inherited it. I still have the bear. He sleeps on my bed every night, as he is right now sitting on my right. Whenever I want to feel close to my uncle, I hug my bear and say a prayer, and even talk straight to my uncle, like maybe he can hear me somewhere up there. 

I constantly wonder what life would have been like, had he not committed suicide. Would my father still have gone off the deep end? Would I have actually had an uncle who cared enough to be in our lives, unlike my fathers other brother, who couldn't give two shits about us kids, and never did. In my heart of hearts, I feel that my uncle who passed would have been a wonderful person to have in our lives. One early memory, and one of my only memories I have of him, was when my brother, father, uncle and I were camping somewhere in Washington State. I was very little, and we had to cross a strong river. My uncle hoisted me up on his shoulder and carried me across like the river didn't even phase him. I looked up to him as being strong and unstoppable. On the same trip I remember him and my father pushing down rotten trees with their bare hands, then climbing the massive trunks. I didn't know that the trees had died, and thought they were both strong enough to push down trees at their own will. As a kid, I was in awe of both of them.

I have fuzzy memories here and there, but I doubt any of them are correct. I wish they were, but I for now can live off of the memories I do have. And to have my teddy bear, is like having a physical and emotional part of him. I can feel his presence. Not in a scary ghostly way, but in a peaceful way. I have created what his presence must have felt like and have put that onto my childhood toy. No matter what, to this day I can hug my bear and feel an immediate sense of relief. I even had him with me in the Mental Hospital, but after a while the nurses told my mom I was too old for a toy to comfort me, and they made my mom take him home while I stayed in the hospital. That was a low blow in my opinion. But thats beside the point. 

Everything that I have known about my uncle has been good. I don't know what any of his faults must have been. Obviously I know that he was hurting very bad to have done what he did. I can't say I understand what he was going through, but I too have hurt so bad I just wanted to end it all. An unfortunate truth just came out to me today. I learned from my father, that my uncle was molested as a child, by my great grandfather... I was absolutely disgusted by this fact. From what I understand, it was a continuous thing. I wanted to immediately rewind and never learn of this. Because now I feel that icky feeling, the one I can't quite explain. And now my heart hurts even more for the uncle that I can never reach out to and try to comfort. I feel like he is still in pain, despite being gone. I feel like there was such an injustice done to him, that the memory of him may never be peacefully laid to rest. How could it be? 

Immediately my mind started to race, started blaming and wondering what the hell my grandparents could have done to have prevented this. I know they are not the most functional people in the world. In fact they are the most dysfunctional people I have ever known. And somewhere in their dysfunction, a helpless boy was being sexually abused and they were too blind to see it. I also wonder what they must feel like now. Do they feel like failures as parents? I suppose I pity them given that fact. I always thought my uncle took his own life because he was depressed, and because his wife cheated on him, but never could I think of something so dark and ugly happening to him. I want to go back in time and prevent this from happening, from completely changing the fate of an entire generation, and also an entire generation after that. Or maybe I should go back and strangle the man responsible for all of this pain. Does God punish these people for what they have done? Is there really even a God up there? Its hard to believe in him, especially when he allows for such mortifying behavior.

I may never know much more about my uncles past, and that may be because I don't want to know. I feel that I just want to remember him the way that I have created through the years. I don't know what more detail would do to me emotionally. Should I know everything for the sake of his memory? Should I learn about it to honor him, or should I only allow for the good memories to be shared? These are some things that I may never know the answer to. And maybe thats okay. It has taken such an emotional toll to learn such a deep and dark secret. One that I never thought would plague my family. 

To my uncle Marv. I love you. As a child, you were like superman to me. So strong, manly, kind, even my savior when you saved me from the rivers current that one summer day. I looked up to you, not more than my father, but in a different way. I always wanted to be around you and know more about you. And I am heartbroken that I never really got to. I will forever cherish your memory, even if those memories are something I falsely created as a child. Whenever I want to feel close to you, I will hug my bear, think of you, and say a long prayer in honor of you. Rivers will always make me think of you, and old two tone brown Ford Rangers will always be something I look out for, hoping that maybe it says Marvmbile on the license plate. I am sorry for the pain that you had to go through, and how alone you must have felt in those last hours of your life. I wish you could have gotten help, and maybe even had a family that talked about their problems, and didn't stuff them down inside. It is my believe that you deserved much better, but you were unfortunately never even given a chance. I hope that one day, somehow I will see you again, and wrap my arms around you, and give you the comfort that I so very badly want to give you now. May you rest in peace and happiness. To say that you are greatly missed is a tremendous understatement. My heart is broken for you, but I will keep on praying, as long as I'm alive, you will live within my soul, and I will try to live a better life for the both of us. If only it worked that way. In the name of Rush, your favorite band, "Fly by night away from here". Goodnight uncle Marv. 

Regrets

No Ragrets? Really? Not even one letter?

Ah yes. The nights where you ruminate over every single decision, every word, and everything you have ever done in the eternity of forever. 2:00am and you're wired awake by something you said to a very unimportant person 6 years ago. The time when the last thing you said to the first guy you ever dated was "live long and prosper", as you idiotically held up your Klingon hand and gave a Vulcan salute while walking away. Yeah, that wasn't horribly dorky or painfully embarrassing. "Thanks for the sex, don't get killed out in space!" I would like to say that I don't have any regrets. That I believe that everything happens for a reason. But sometimes, some things just happen and they fucking suck.  They didn't necessarily have anything to do with anything. As a wanna-be comedian, I try to hold onto these embarrassing moments, because at some point they are going to make a damn good joke. So I literally shit my pants one day after work in 2014. So I thought when Trump said he wanted to drain the swamps, I literally thought for a good amount of time that there were literally swamps surrounding the White House and he literally wanted to drain the water out of them. So I once believed that I couldn't lie about my weight at the DMV because they would see my real weight on my birth certificate. And yeah, that one time in band camp... See what I'm getting at? Some things are embarrassing, but seriously like WTF, you actually did that? There are those stories, the ones that can get the laughs, and then there are the stories that are much more private. The ones that you completely want to forget about and pretend like never even happened. The stories that not even a comedian will dare share. How much sanity do I want to keep? Do I even give this one credit and share with a close friend? Or do I keep it bottled up for fear that it will come back to haunt me and the shame will never go away? Now, most would say I am a very open person. Sometimes too open, whatever that means... I mean can you really be too open? Yeah, I suppose in some cases you can. I have yet to figure out what those cases are however.
The regrets that I truly have, and ruminate on, those are the ones that hit home. Those are the ones that I am truly ashamed of. The times where you finally go out on a limb, and get totally and utterly rejected. When you finally get the courage to ask that guy out, and the feelings are not even close to being mutual, and you say something stupid like, "just kidding! Don't worry, Im asexual. I don't actually have normal human emotion. Gotcha!"
My biggest regret? Reading into everything. Thinking that I know whats going on and that I can read minds. Thinking that I know how other people are feeling and are acting a certain way towards me for a reason. Like how in the hell are you supposed to tell if someone is into? I sure as hell don't have that one even slightly figured out. "Oh he agreed with me on something? I know we've only known each other for five minutes, but we're probably getting married."
IDIOT! You think you know these things. You think you read all of the signs right. You think that there were even "signs" to begin with. You thought he was into you, you acted on it, and none of what you thought even existed in the first place. Excuse my while I go crawl into a hole and die...
Usually at this point I would come up with some great realization or epiphany. I would tell you what all of this really means, and what things you should actually be focusing on, but I'm afraid that I cannot do that. I posses neither the knowledge nor the wisdom that it takes to understand these things. I can tell you numerous things about mental health. How to take care of yourself, and how to be an overall good human being. I can share some pretty great morals, and beliefs to abide by. I pretty much have that all figured out. But when it comes to matters of the heart, I can not even begin to tell you one single thing.
So while you lay awake at night, ruminating over a guy, a girl, or a guy/girl, and are wondering what those "signs" meant, don't ask me because I too have absolutely no fucking clue...
Now get out there, live long and prosper!

Dismal

Under moonlit skies, I find myself once again. Sitting on the ocean wall, my hands resting and experiencing the roughness of the cold cement beneath them. My feet dangling over the edge, swinging back and forth with no ground to comfortably rest upon. The intensity of the waves below dare to consume me with one swift movement. In and out, the tide arrives, then flees just as fast as it once came. I wonder as I watch the water sway back and forth, will the ocean ever make up its mind? All of this rising and falling, does it ever grow weary? Does it ever want to stand still for just a moment? At the surface it seems like it only inhibits two sides. The high and the low, the meek and the wicked. I suppose in a sense one could call the sea "Bipolar". In high tide, all of the rocks, creatures, shells, and the clutter is hidden beneath the surface. It has a calm and docile tone. You can not see the muddle nor the confining dissaray underneath. In low tide, it reveals the horde of the phantoms below. living things wedged halfway in the sand, each squirming in the blaring sunlight, desolately struggling for their fragile lives. Many may think, "how could one see the ocean in such a dismal way?" Well I can. Because I know both sides in rather a mundane manner. I have been to the depths of the ocean, and I have seen the other side.   

Societal "Norms"

Being a "human" in a society that expects you to be an "adult". In my opinion the two are very different from each other. I am definitely not one for societal norms. I have to tried to abide by them my entire life. Honestly it has never worked for me. My life has not allowed for the typical American culture of growing up. In the past I have tried my hardest to follow the "normal" path. Not once did it go the way I thought it should have. The most normal thing that has ever happened to me was graduating High School. But even then life didn't allow for me to stay in college for more than 72 hours. I barely even made it to my first class. No, life had something completely different planned for me. I look back on it now and think that if I would have known what was coming, I would have probably ended my life. I do not believe that ending it is the answer, but thats how severe the circumstances had been. Am I glad that I am alive and well? Of course! I thank my lucky stars for the space that I am in at this present moment. I have been blessed in more ways than one. It took a lot to get here, and when I say a lot, I mean it took every ounce of my being to even stay alive. For me to be alive and mentally sound right now is quite a miracle. I consider myself as being a miracle, and feel that I have been given a second chance at life. I am glad that I have gone through the things that I have gone through. They made me wake up real fast. They also required me to grow up at a rapid rate. I have better self awareness than most people in their 50s. And I credit that to the years and years of self work I have had to do. Whether I liked it or not, that was what I had to do, and is what I continue to do. The road of thy self is never a finished one. In a way that is terrifying, but also extremely exciting. I wonder where I would be if none of this had ever happened to me. Where would I be if I was able to stay in school, graduate college, moved out at 18, dated like a "normal" teenager, didn't have divorced parents, didn't have a mental illness. Would I have been better off? Or am I better off because I was not able to have all of those things? In a way I am almost grateful that I was given a "disease". It has made me so strong, so appreciative, and greatly compassionate. I know myself very well. I know what I do and do not want. I know the kind of people that I will allow in my life. I am aware of the things that I need and the things that I choose to avoid. I haven't gotten it all figured out, but I have a good idea of who I want to be, and how I want to be remembered when I do leave this world, hopefully at a very old age. I feel that I know more than your average 25 year old (almost 26). I am an old soul, and I have done nothing by the book, even though when I was younger, that was all I ever wanted. Now I am realizing that it may not be the case. Maybe I want a few normal things, but what is normal really? Why would we all strive to take the same path? How boring is that? There are so many different possibilities in the world. Why not explore them from all different avenues? I'm not saying the average path of life is a bad or boring thing. If you have gone to college, had a family, own a home, and have a great job, then that is amazing! You worked very hard for that and you should be given credit for putting in the time to achieve those things. But for me, I believe now that I was born a different kind of soul. I wasn't meant to arrive at societal norms in an ordinary fashion. When everyone veered right, I veered left. And might I say, its scary over here, but its also pretty damn great. 

Journey Of Wellness

On this journey of wellness, I have been given many things. Without going into detail and listing everything off in a monotonous tone, let me focus in on one of the most important things that I have come across and continue to strive towards. A sense of self. To this day, I have never felt more sure of who I am than I do right now. We go through life in a series of stages. With each stage we arrive at, we think "Oh! Maybe this is it. Maybe this is who I am." We become sure of it. How could it not be? And who's to say that its not? It may be who we really are for that moment in time. Don't discount it. We are given these moments of realization for a reason, and these moments add up. Its when they start to add up in great numbers that we start to see where we are actually headed. No one person looks at one single thing and thinks "that defines me wholeheartedly." How boring would that be? Luckily it doesn't work that way. Not to quote the greatest American film of all time, Shrek, but we human beings are made up of layers. Deciphering what each layer means is the business of life. Each layer is as beautiful as the next. One may be completely different from another, but they are equally as important. Even the negative layers help define us. But they do not not solely define us. For example, yes, I have Bipolar Disorder. But does that define me? Hell no! It may be a part of me, but its only one small thing in the mix of many others. The beauty of it is, we get to choose which layers we accentuate. Every now and then a layer I do not want may creep in, but I know how to put it on the back burner and not let it ruin my day. I often ask myself, what defines Laney? Sometimes I do not know the answer to this. It is after all a very broad question to have to ask in such a simple way. But even if I don't know how to answer the question, I do subconsciously know the answer. I always have it within me. In the past when I have been in the hospital or just going through a hard time, I may have felt like I completely had lost my way, but in reality I was still there. I still knew who I was. I may not have known where I was going but I feel that knowing who you are in the moment is better than knowing where you are going next. It is not what we have gone through that defines us, but how we have reacted to the given situation. Did I handle it with grace, determination, and drive? Did I give it the justice that it needed at the time? Did I sit in the hospital and numerous PHP programs and give it my all every second of every day? If yes to any of these, well then damn! Kudos to Laney! I am looking forward to the future, and to building my layers. Until then, I proudly live with the ones that I have already created for myself.