surplus of solitude...scary

“They have office all over the world, likely the department I am being recruited for is in San Francisco, but who knows. P so would come with too which is awesome, I will know more tomorrow” the roommate says while making dinner. I fight the urge to say “but we were supposed to buy a triplex together, that was the goal” and instead wish him well during his interview tomorrow and I look forward to hearing more about it.

In two days I will have 10 extra hours of alone time on my hands, for a month at least. The roommate is going on one of his extended cross continental trips and work will finish, both presenting me with more quiet then I have become used to.

People at work keep asking what I will do next, and I say truthfully “looking forward to some serious time off, rest relaxation etc”. For the most part that statement is true. I am ready for a pause and I am ready for what is next. But I am also really scared. Not about paying my bills, but rather soothing my social needs. I am one of those people that use work both vocationally and as a tool to meet and form bonds. I am not on of those hidden in his cubical types, I actually like to learn about my coworkers lives, their families etc, all of it. I bond. As well at this job especially, my coworkers have helped foster so many things in me that have built such self confidence, I am trepidacious of going it alone. I know its what I have to do, this I know by gut, but my head panics now and again as the day approaches.

The same can be said for the roommate. During our three years together he has served as my in house rational during a period of time when a sound spiritual grounding was needed. He gets credit for so much of the confidence I have today. But again fear finds me when the plans we made are put in jeopardy, when he will leave me for her, etc. He will leave me for her, San Fran or not. Fear finds me. In two days I will be alone, the roommate will come back, but it really is only a matter of time.

Its funny I have traveled the world. I have relocated thrice and successfully made friends in all ports of call. Never once facing fear. I know I will be fine; I am not losing the plot or anything, just a bit nervous.

I also hear my gut speaking and I can’t ignore it. “Its time for you to find your own.”

Perhaps it’s that which scares me the most.

maybe I do eat the red ones last

I had picked the red smartie, the day had been shit and yet I had to have picked the red smartie.

It was a game designed to encourage sharing amongst all the new volunteers at the orientation night. I was there to offer my services to under privilege kids with tutorial services in math and physics, but in order to do so I had to pick a smarty first. I picked the red one.

The day at work, my last Friday before the lay off, had been taxing. Fear had found me in the morning and I worked the rest of the day fighting off the doubt about my success in figuring out what exactly to do next. My drive was nonexistent and I was truth be told looking forward to this orientation as a distraction from all things ‘next steps’. This anticipation thwarted as the volunteer coordinator explained why I had to have picked a smartie.

Each smartie corresponded to a question each potential volunteer would have to answer in an attempt to introduce each volunteer to the group with a personal revelation. As she posted the color coded legend on the chalkboard in front of us I gasped and uttered “fuck off” under my breath when I discovered that the question for the read smartie was ‘What is your passion and why?’.

I am not sure I have a single passion other then masturbation that defines me as a person. In fact I have spent my life searching for that definitive goal that pulls me out of bed always and clearly focuses my vocational trajectory. I have not found it yet. Earlier in the day I was told by two coworkers that I should be prepared to discuss in my next job interview the jump I had made from career one to career two. Discuss it almost to justify it like I had done something wrong or was to be considered lucky for the job that was very shortly laying me off.

“So Bradley, what is your passion and why?” the lovely altruistic volunteer coordinator asks of me as I hold my candy coated red pill. I wanted to throw it at her.

I bullshitted my way through something about cooking etc, it was a socially acceptable passion and appeased the group. It was my neighbors turn next and she had the pink smartie, the ‘what makes you laugh and why?’ smartie. I giggled and uttered under my breath ‘my inability to own the red smartie’.

One day.

perfect presence

This weekend past was my birthday. I say weekend as it was just that, a nice long weekend full of celebration starting on Thursday and ending Sunday night. I want to write about as cohesive bundle but cannot find synergy amongst the days, which is odd. Regardless the whole weekend has left me with such a holistic smile.

Thursday found me fatigued and tired by the thought of the three weeks of work that lied ahead. I was was due to go to a concert and even though a fan of the band, I so wanted to just crawl under the covers for an rainy night snuggle with my duvet Plus earlier in the day the Love Lady took me through myself yet again in a way that left me with points to ponder further and the duvet would have helped with that as well. But I had committed to go so I went. The band played, my ass jiggled as I danced about for a couple of hours and wandered home cleansed from the fatigue that found me earlier in the day. I was so glad I went as though the official weekend would start tomorrow, that night I fore-played.

Friday found me attending a book signing for the new book from on of my favorite gay authors in one of my favorite bookstores. The writer, a charming man skilled with words typed, was hindered in words said by a nervous stutter that found him the moment he took the mike. I watched him read aloud the words he assembled gracefully on the page but now faced in defense of his own battling tongue. The stutter would attack his emotive momentum anytime passion would find him. I wondered what that must be like, to be the art thief in one’s own gallery, your own work created and stolen by the same hand. I wondered only for a second until it sunk in, I have done this to myself for years now but not with my tongue but with my own thoughts. Initially as the authors stutter snuck out the first few times I felt sorry for him, but this ultimately became envy. I started to envy this man for his self destructiveness literally had a voice different from his own so the battle he would face became easier. When its one’s own thoughts that stealthily erode the secure foundations of self, the battle has to be that much more strategic. Watching this man I was relieved to see him successfully battle his own attacks, it would ultimately serve as inspiration for my own.

Saturday started bright and early at the car rental counter. I had no clue what to expect with the Ms and even more so M and D. The thing is we are relatively new friends, new friends that have never road-tripped or spent a significant amount of time with each other. A full day in the townships would change this and though I was not worried as these are warm welcoming people, the day could have gone a myriad of different ways. Last year I filled a bar with people and made a lot of noise, drank a lot of booze and started my 31st year with a list a mile long of expectations that 365 days later would prove greater then the year could full-fill. I did not want noise this year, I wanted calm. On this Saturday the autumnal sun shone the mature heat of the season as we drove about the vineyard. Its warmth creating a comfortable coddle in car where conversation flowed as easily as the wine. There was no aggression, no expectation, just a languishing calm.

Sunday brought me the inherent whimsy and play that is F. Mexican and desert was had in her neighborhood as gleeful chitter-chatter chewed away five hours in a heartbeat. She is a ray of optimism even when she is being a cynic. Having known F for going on almost 20 years, there is a warmth with her much like that of a comfy sweater. In her space my past and my present fit just right and for that I forever grateful. The perfect nightcap on a weekend full of calm.

Cohesion, maybe? Calm, for sure.

23 mins and 18 seconds

It took 23 minutes and 18 seconds to complete, the whole 5 K. A small race, a quick race; a race, for me, moving.

The night before I was at a friends house for a games night and as we sat and played away I found myself distracted. I would like to say it was nerves about the race, about my performance etc, but it wasn’t. I was entering the race for the sense of accomplishment so the time was irrelevant. If it took me a day to complete the 5K I would have been fine with that. I just wanted to own the accomplishment. At the games night I was so agitated though and for reasons I couldn’t name even with the evening itself lovely with the company enjoyable calm.

A week earlier I was due to run my initial race, a plan to be thwarted by my father’s illness. Even though I was happy I went home, part of me still feels so robbed of that weekend, a weekend that held the race and a concert full of camp play. No one was going to try to rob me of this race, or so I thought. Yet as the race day approached I would realize that it was myself I had to worry about the most.

It was five pm on the Saturday before the race when I decided to check the website to review the route etc. On a page I viewed many times before I only now noticed a procedural note about registration and racing number pick up. A location was specified down town with only an hour remaining for me to pick it up. “Fuck Bradley!” I said allowed as I quickly grabbed a cab and rushed down there to pick up my registration information. Once inside I wandered the conference center set up with heaps of marathon information, excited and worried in equal measure. Excited as I was ‘one of them’ those that run, that have that sense of empowerment etc, or rather I was going to officially be one. Worried that they would sniff me out and reject me. The worry was irrational I know, but so was my inability to pick up race information earlier, I am never tardy or late.

Later that night I would return home to bed and prepped my clothes and tomorrow’s breakfast so I would be mere minutes out the door come the morning. As I laid in bed trying to sleep the same anxiety found at the party found me. Its voice entirely my own, its message unclear but threatened. Thoughts akin to ‘what are you doing? why are you doing this? you know what this means for us’ kept going through my head. No sense was found or rest for that matter. It was pure ego, thrashing about like a petulant child. It wasn’t nervousness, I have been nervous. This was a defensive energy not a timid or shy energy.

Eventually I would slumber a wee bit and awake the next day race ready. I set my alarm so I had heaps of time to get to the race, this punctuality typical for me. What was atypical was my ability to lazy about with no awareness of the actual time to a point where I was late and had to catch a cab last minute in order to make it in time.

Once in the cab idle chitchat was had about the race and my participation in it, all the while I heard the voices from the night before asking the fear loaded questions in wonderment as to why I was doing this.

I get behind the starting blocks, I am with the fellow racers and the gun goes off.

Being around the other racers does something to you. Yes there are the competitive instincts that come out and make you a better racer, but that is not what I am talking about. There is a validation in sharing the experience or a run with many. Running is a solo endeavor with motivation and discipline entirely self-owned. The reward is all yours.

The first KM brought tears, not sure from what, but cleansing releasing tears. Moving about the other runners and establishing my pace I wasn’t trying to out run them but rather trying to find my rhythm within them. Kids ran next to me playfully and pro runners ran with focused intent. I observed.

Then KM two and three came and I the crowd I ran into was thinner then at the starting block and I found myself focusing on myself. I could hear my breath; I could feel my body working as it had been trained to do the last few months. That is about where ownership of it all found me. I realized that my ability to do what I was doing that moment was all me. I was proud, pride once again had organically found me as it did earlier in the month.

I was picturing what this looked like, from above, from aside etc, the image of me running. I imagined myself negotiating the initial start almost metaphorically like the first set of obstacles found at the start of ones life. I was at the mid point in the race where I had to evaluate my ability to finish and the pace I wished to set for the remainder, again analogous to my current situation off the track. Then the last few KM. You can predict how it’s to finish, you can predict your ability, but it is ultimately unknown. This is something I felt as the path turned into the botanical gardens and I couldn’t see the finish line but I knew it was coming. The crowd on the side rails smiling and encouraging you making you feel safe enough to aggressively pursue that ahead still not seen. Entering the Stadium I crossed the finish line. I had finished my first race.

After hanging about with the other masses of runners for a bit I left the stadium and in the mature robustness of the pre-autumnal sunshine I smiled a smile so full of glee. Pure glee. This glee remained as I walked about the city on my way home with number and participatory medal displayed and people smiled at me acknowledging my sense of accomplishment, indirectly proud of it aware of the discipline needed to complete; their pride icing on my own.

I heard no longer the voices of the day before.

old anger barks loudly

Sitting amongst the discarded sunflower seeds and unsorted scraps of paper inside his truck, we waited for Charles to arrive at the storage locker in order to claim his belongings. A bit about Charles first, and a bit is all you will get as I know very little about the boy myself. Charles was the second hockey player my parents would house during the playoff season and ultimately the second player they would attempt to parent to their liking. The first was Juri a 19 year from Finland. Juri left on his own accord, uncomfortable living there for reasons I can only imagine as I never met the man so won’t speak for him. Regardless his departure was the ultimate betrayal for my parents whom in the end saw him as disloyal and only using them to end up abandoning them. I giggled when mom first told me about his departure and I uttered “Did you think you were going to keep him?! He isn’t a puppy he already had a home”. As expected my inability to see the drama of Juri’s ‘betrayal’ the same way they did was not appreciated and my puppy comment prevented any further dialogue about the lad from Finland ever again.

Then there was Charles. From what I know Charles was not in the need of parental guidance or faux family bond, simply needed a bed and a place to eat; the standard agreement between host family and player. Charles was one of those few that recognize their youth whilst they are in it and play during the period most conducive for it. In other words, he was a young man doing young man things. The lucky bastard. My parents on the other hand saw his age appropriate social development as derailment form the path of the “straight and narrow”. As we sat in the cab I had to listen to my father rage about this boy of 18 years old as if he was darkness personified. “That fuckin ungrateful bastard is late, I said 5:30, he should fucking be here. Brad that fuck is such a waste that one, what a fucking waste” dad barked in the cab. I sat there as Charles pulled up behind us. Completely baffled how this boy made my dad so angry, I attempted to ask him how all this rage was possible but it was too late as he left the cab and proceeded towards Charles car where he allowed the same venomous verbiage he shared with me to be pointed at the source. I could only hear Charles’s voice from afar but did manage to make out him saying “How do you think you can talk to a person like this?!”

We drove into the storage locker compound and opened the locker for Charles and his friend to remove his belonging. When Charles emerged from his car he stood tall and dressed in a playful outfit complete with skater shoes and hat as was his friend; two fun loving boys. This was not a bad person. Like a hungry old eagle my father watched with a predatorial eye awaiting a false move on Charles’s part to allow him to spew venom from his lips once again.

Watching this scene played out almost objectively from the cab of the truck I wondered had the rage become a drug to this man? As he paced back and forth the anxiety-ridden steps of a drug addict anxious for his next fid, I realized he needed to yell to feel sane. I have been on the receiving end of dad’s aggression, though not as extreme as Juri or Charles, I think he knows I don’t have the balls for it, but I know what its like to see the dog bark loudly and for no reason and struggle to calm him down.

The locker was closed and we drove back for dinner. The following morning he drops me off at the airport and the perpetual pouty tears appear as they always do when he drops me off, always suggesting he has more to say but no words to say it. These eyes, like his bark have confused me for years. This time I wondered if the plaintiff look was actually a cry for help? Earlier in the trip I stopped him mid rant and asked sarcastically but with sobriety nonetheless “What’s it like being this angry.” He stopped dead in his tracks.