2019 has been a year. In the story of me there are lots of years. 2014 was a year. 1972 was a year. There have been 47 the universe has gifted me. Years. 2019 is special though.

I began the year in Pottstown, PA. I didn’t much like Pottstown. James Carville once described Pennsylvania as Philadelphia to the East, Pittsburgh to the West and Alabama in between. Pottstown is Alabama.

I love Tempest. I love that she gave me a safe place to rest my head. I love that she gave of her time and resources to keep me alive long enough to consider something different, something else. Losing the apartment on Manheim St was something I didn’t think I would come out on the other side of, but there have been many of those moments in my past that I’ve lived to write about.

I didn’t like Pottstown though. What Pottstown did give me was the current gig. That commute into Center City was too brutal and the hours weren’t sufficient so I got off my ass and found the current gig. The current gig is nice. It’s not where I will retire, but it keeps me in rent money and Marlboros so for that I am more than thankful.

This time in 2018 I’d just begun to work from home, and I didn’t see the depression that was headed my way. Do I ever though? Anyway, it hit and harder than it had in sometime. I didn’t see it until my first visit to the Summer House. I came back from the Summer House with a different spirit, transformed. It was only a matter of time before I was going to leave Pottstown, I just didn’t know then the Universe was going to hit my ass with a 2×4.

I knew after leaving the Summer House for the first time that to be – whatever it was my spirit was reaching for – it meant I had to leave the Blue Room. In my heart I think that Tempest does love me, and that she does want me to succeed. I just don’t think that she’s ready for the reality of what that looks like to her. Our conversations Thursday and Friday showed me that and that is what it is.

Except…..

You Can’t Win.

I packed up the truck and headed south this summer. I wasn’t sure what I was walking into. I knew I needed to be safe, I knew I needed the change of scenery. I was strong enough to make the move, I could never have imagined things would happen as they did. This summer I finally saw the version of myself so many of you have seen over the years and I liked her. I thought maybe she was just visiting because of extreme need, but nah…she’s me. I know she is because she’s still here. Old me still visits from time to time, and that’s a thing, but it is a thing that I am managing and eventually she won’t need to be managed any longer.

Those last couple weeks at the Summer House were brutal, but as I told MM in those days, I’ve learned the lessons, I’ve listened, I will fly. You don’t just fly like you’ve been doing it all your life though. Well perhaps some do, and can. Me? I’m awkward with it. I’m also fat and 47 so sometimes I need to sit on a branch for a moment and catch my breath. I get back up and fly again though.

I didn’t expect Daddy. I thought I was perfectly content to do some bald headed ho shit and not ….fly. The Universe came by with her 2×4 and knocked me off that branch though.

If you’ve been here the past nine years, you know I am a romantic. You know I believe in ‘love’. You know that I’ve lied to myself that I’m good with surface connections, and casual situations. You know in this place where I’ve always tried to be the most authentic, that I was lying to myself. Bless your hearts, you didn’t pat me on the head and tell me I was lying to myself. That’s fair though. You can’t live this life for me, you can only visit me here and watch the sausage being made and hope that when it’s sliced and fried up that it tastes good.

Lots of you have hoped that I would eventually see things for what they were, and I can hear you cheering.

I was preparing to settle down into the winter months after my birthday and contemplate the meaning of life. The 2×4 knocked me on the side of the head and I woke up wanting that which I told myself I did not.

Over 30 or so years I’ve crafted and created a me that can deflect most connections, avoid most entanglements and was designed to protect little me from being hurt. Little me did get hurt though. She fell in love with Grant. When Grant turned out to be… well Grant, I packed her up again and promised her that I wouldn’t let that happen to her again.

I have to break that promise, and that’s usually something that would trouble me. Not being able to keep my word is a problem for me, because of who I am. That is not a design flaw, that is a feature and it is one of my best. I have to sit her down though and explain to her that yes, I promised her I would lock her up and keep her safe, but that she has to be out now. In a similar way I had to explain to my Clyde that even though this separation hurts it is what is best for him, little me has to hear that this is what is best for her.

She is beautiful. She is smart. She is innocent and talented. She is hopeful and curious. She is unblemished by this thing called life because I am really fucking good at the things I do when I want to be. She has to live though. She has to have the chance all my years of protection denied her. In this moment I have to trust in the Universe that this is the right moment, and if for some reason it is not that the Universe will stop using that 2×4 on me and start knocking motherfuckers out who kill my vibe. That is scary as fuck, but I am doing it anyhow.

And me being me, I’ve had kicking and screaming and hell no I am not going to do it moments along the way. And then I remember 2 days without toilet paper and well it puts things into perspective.

Thursday and Friday did happen though. The same way everything else has happened whether I resisted it or not. What Thursday and Friday did though was let little me see that yes the world she was removed from looks different that the world which she’s navigating now, but that its okay. I’m still here, but I’m not going to snatch her up and lock her away again. She can run. She can dance. She is just as terrible a dancer as I am but she doesn’t know it and because she doesn’t it’s amazing to watch. Joy.

Joy in the season is not something that I’ve grown used to, but I shall.

I had a freak out moment in the early hours of Friday morning. Look…its me. As I said, I am really fucking good at what I do, when I choose to do it. That freak out moment took me to Tempest. Look…stranger things have happened this is me remember?

I shared something I’ve not shared with her before, because I am committed to little me. I made her another promise when I told her it was time for her to live and this one I can keep. My promise to her was that I would not stop her. I know I will want to, the same way any mother looks at their child and wants to prevent harm from them. Kids still scrape knees though. Kids still fail tests. Kids still lose friends and fall in and out of love and they keep on living. As a parent you want the best, and you also want to protect them. At some point however you have to trust that you gave them the foundation. I will still cut a bitch for little me, but little me has to live so I have to do things like Friday.

I have to tell the story, do that which I’ve avoided for years.

I told the story and since people gonna people, I read and watched the ….as more words were being drafted.

This triangle, well that doesn’t feel like the right word but we gonna rock with it for now…..this triangle is weird.

I told the truth still, and waited to hear what I needed to hear.

The Universe with her sense of humor though told me more than Tempest did, or thought she did.

As the …. continued and I ‘listened’ to the story she told me was my own projection I smiled. It was laughter that seemed out of place, but was there all the same.

As I type this out I have a tinge of sadness that with all we’ve been through, with all the time, she still doesn’t know me. That’s my bad though. That was the me of old who never gave her the full opportunity to know all of me. I cannot fault her for being so erroneous when she’s merely processing that which she was given. What I *can* do though is be different moving forward. The last time that happened I ended up on I95 South with a Rogue full of life condensed into 4 clothing bins, Cola and work from home equipment. This time it remains to be seen what the result will be, and what our relationship looks like after.

There will be something, if for no other reason Daddy.

Houston, we may finally have found the static point of the 180 degree mark.

What she wrote was about her, and one day she will see that. Maybe. For all her work she still has blind spots, and that Constant Reader is true for us all.

I’m not afraid though. You can’t win.

I meant what I said. I avoided that conversation because of how I saw it ending. I had it. It ended. It changes nothing except my expectation of what’s going to happen in the years ahead of us. I do not invite the confrontation. What I am not doing now though is avoiding it. I’ve known this for quite some time, and I am standing here in it, in this moment. Little me is dancing in joy, and the rest of me made her a promise. With all of the passion and skill and ferocity I’ve protected her, I will defend her ability to live. Don’t abandon your live with your bird of prey in an attempt to prove something that cannot be proven. You can’t win.

What can happen is your worst fears can become your reality. I do not want that for you. I love you. As I’ve always said though, and as I am finally living, I love me more. I also love that happy little girl who is finally getting the life which was taken from her, beaten from her, raped from her, abused from her, and for her the rest of me will scorch the motherfucking earth and the adjacent galaxy for her to keep living.

Me