Life always seems to silence me.

Another lock me up and throw away the key.

A bitchslap, a pimpsmack, a “what in the fuck did you just do?”

A heartbreak, a pindrop, a “fuck  me and a fuck you too.”

Life always seems to silence me.

Another get what you put in.

The final line, the one more time,  a “well at least I’m not the only one.”

The end of an era, the means to an end, a”well thats finally fucking done.”

Life always seems to silence me.

Another silence I never achieve.

A purposeful mistake, a “whoopsie!”, a “no way thats getting in”

A “been there!”,  A  “done that!”, a “never going back again!”

Life always seems to silence me.

Another “go to fucking hell.”

The moment of doubt, the piece of your mind,  a “well…I dont fucking  care”

The other side, the inbetween,  A part of you left bare.

Life always seems to silence me.

Another “you’re full of fucking shit.”

A  uh huh, a yeah, yeah, yeah, a I’ve heard this all before.

A drip drip drip, a tweet tweet tweet, a “kiss my ass!” and slam the door.

Life always seems to silence me.

Until it fucking doesn’t.

I can’t move forward without going back first.

2016

There’s defining moments in each of our lives. Ones that make us, break us, tear us down, and  those that build us back up. 2016 was a series of these moments for me.  And it seems impossible to start a blog without getting everything that happened onto the table and out of my head.

One night in February, in the earliest hours of the 22nd to be exact…I was working at the bar that I’ve worked at for the last thirteen years.  My oldest sister was out enjoying a night of drinking and relaxing. Her husband was working with me as my security guard, and my husband was out too. It was like a cute little family thing.

I don’t remember alot from the night, to be honest. I know I’d gotten slammed, and my sister Alisha came back and helped me out for a bit. When it finally slowed down, we shared some cocktails together, and were having a nice night, when my brother in law and husband pulled me outside.  As I said, I dont remember alot, but I remember the look on my husbands face. And it instantly gave me a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach.  My brother in law said it’s Angel. Shes gone. She died.

Angel was my baby sister.  A beautiful human being. Full of love, yet full of pain. Full of hope, yet full of despair. Full of potential, yet full of addiction, and hurt, and so many other things. She was a diabetic, like myself. And, took very, very poor care of herself.  She was a heroin addict. Though trying to face it and fight it.

Thats just who we are as a family. Fighters. Survivors.

We are good people, full of love. Yet, life and circumstances have also made us full of rage in our own ways.

My sister Angels fight was over.  She was 22 years old, with nothing but potential and a whole life ahead of her. And none of us were prepared to face what had just happened.

The rest of the night is kind of blurry. I remember crying alot, and my sister Alisha being inconsolable. Alisha playded a large role in raising my other two sisters…So her connection is both as a sister, and as a maternal figure. They’ve always been closer because of it. (all three of them)

See, my sisters grew up together with my mom (youll get posts about her, dont worry) while I grew up with my dad. We didnt have much of a relationship for many years, so I’ve never been as close to them as they have with each other.

I came out as a gay man at 17, and faced alot of struggle from my family. I went on my own journey to find myself, and..unfortunately made the mistake of distancing myself from them. From all of my family, actually.

I went through some terrible experiences when I first came out and had to make  a decision to put all the hate and mistreatment aside to discover who I was without the pain of disownment, name calling, shaming, and all the other things I went through. In retrospect, I wish I’d not distanced myself, but I felt it was what everyone wanted. I was ostracized so much, that I felt I was doing what everyone wanted me to do. Disappear. This was a severe miscalculation on my part. But, I didnt know it at the time. I felt their words were coming out of hate and disgust, and not out of fear and misunderstanding of what it would mean for my life. I was also misled by my father. I think he thought he could manipulate be, by telling me everyone hated me or was disgusted or ashamed by it, and in turn I would magically not be a homosexual. So, I kinda severed all ties with everyone.

In the moments ater learning my beautiful baby sisters life was over…all I could do is think of all the moments I wasnt a part of. All  the missed opportunities.  I beat myself up for days, weeks, months….even sometimes to this day I break down and wish things would have been different. I didn’t know. I was never taught how to handle things like this. I’m confident that I’m not the first in my family to have homosexual tendencies, but I’m certainly the first to be honest about it, and live my life openly as a gay man.

I’ll always carry with me an immeasurable amount of regret for all of this. But, I thought I’d have more time. I thought I’d make it right one day. I thought, we’d get close. I thought we’d  get to be there for one another. But that wasn’t the case.

We buried my baby sister. And it was the hardest week of my life. I buried myself in sleep, weed and depression. The whole experience was awful.

Ontop of it all,  my father had recently relapsed into his addiciton with crack.  He and I had a big arguement over it before my sister passed, and then on the day of the funeral, we spoke and I told him…I can’t lose you too. I need you. And he swore to me he was clean. He said he had recommited his life to God. and that we could start over and build a relationship that we hadn’t had since I came out. I got off the phone with him feeling relieved. And, excited to rebuild our relationship.

Ten days after my baby sister died at 22 years old, my father passed away in his sleep at the age of 59. Four days afgter her funeral, I got the call from my cousin, that they found him.

In that moment I lost it, like I’d done so many times that week. I fell to the floor and I sobbed. My life was shattered.  My heart was broken.  And being his only child, and only immediate family member, it was on  all me. Not only the responsibility of handling all the arrangements, but the financial burden too.  While my sisters friends and loved ones donated so much money through GoFundMe that there was money left over after everything was taken care of, my father didn’t have as many generous friends. And, if he had, he’d already screwed them over to support his crack addiction. Ultimately, after cutting all the corners that you feel terrible about cutting when it comes to your loved ones, I was able to make it all come together.

I’d just buried my sister. And then I had to bury my father.  (he was creamated actually) Lots of family bullshit ensued, lots of stupid things went down amongst his friends and family members, and when it came down to it the family had picked through his things and took whatever they wanted. Their excuse was that  I hadnt been there for my dad while he was still alive. But, they didn’t know what we’d gone through. The love, the hurt, the amount of shit he put me through. They also didnt know how much I loved him. He was my ..everything for so long. And then it was different. Once I came out his love for me never ceased, but his shame for me overpowered it.

And then he was gone.

I probably didnt grieve as much as I should have, but I’d literally spent the entire ten days before his death, crying my eyes out over my sister, that…there just wasn’t alot left. I’d been depleted of my emotions. And Im pretty sure I was a zombie for the however many days passed before my fathers funeral.

It was literally the worst 3 weeks of my life.

I’m still not over it. I’ll never be.

My fathers ashes still sit inside the box they came in, ontop of my bookcase, just waiting to be dealt with. I can’t bring myself to scatter them, not yet. And I can’t bear to look at them in an urn on display. My father didn’t want to be creamated. But I had no choice.

Lots of family and friends donated money to help pay for it all, and honestly if it wasnt for my friend Tonyas mom Lynn, My dads body very well may still be in the freezer of the morgue, because I’d never have had the money to pay for everything.

A few months later, I was able to sell my dads prized possession, a Harley Davidson motorcycle. I paid Lynn back the money she’d loaned me for the funeral, and saved a couple thousand that would later go to towards the down payment on me and my husbands first home.

Less than a month after the funeral, And facing all sorts of uncertainties with mortality…my now husband and I went downtown to purchase a marriage license, which we were going to fill out and send it whenever we decided to get married.

As we left the courthouse with it in our hands we came across the minister who stood and asked us if we were ready.

And, in that moment, in jeans and hoodies, with no plans of doing it then, we said our I do’s. And just like that, in an instant, without even wedding rings, we were married.

We started dating in 2009. And in 2016, 20 some days after my dads death, and 30 some after my sisters, eight days before our  7th anniversary, we were officially married.

To this day, we still dont have rings. We still haven’t had a ceremony, and we’ve still not had a house warming for the home we purchased just less than a year  later in March of 2017.

We’ve never needed those things, but.. because of the way it all went down, I still carry with me the shitty feeling of having not had a romantic proposal. Having not had rings to slip on each others fingers. Of having been so sad that even on my “wedding day” I was an in emotional turmoil.

But, we do have alot of love for one another. And, if it weren’t for Jacob, I’d be probably be dead right now. Not only because of the depression I faced during 2016, but because of a low blood sugar incident, that left me with a blood sugar level of 12 and could have led to a coma, and brain damage had he not woke up and called 911 to essentially save my life. Its the only time something like that has happened to me, and I’ve had diabetes since 1995. I’m lucky that he was there. It just makes me appreciate and love him even more.

Literally,  I had the worst and best year of my life in the same fucking year. I don’t know how many people share that weird situation with me, but..its weird to say “yeah 2016 to 2017 was the worst year of my life”. Even though I married the most amazing person I’ll ever meet, and bought a beautiful home with him too.

I feel like sometimes it takes away from him and everything great we have, because there will always be that cloud of losing my loved ones too.

I spent many months unable to get out of bed. So much, that..it became my routine, and as we approach the two year anniversary, I still have trouble waking up and getting out of bed because of it.

But, each day it gets easier. Each day I  move closer to getting myself back. Or, what’s left of that person I was, before all the shit happened.

There was a time I used all the bad things that have happened to me as an excuse to keep living in that pain.

Luckily, I’ve matured and grown enough to know that I won’t ever be happy if I can’t toss it all aside. And I have.  Finally.

Maybe not entirely, as it will always be with me, ready to rear its ugly head. But, I’m far better than I’ve ever been. And, maybe that wouldn’t have happened had I not lost two more people that I loved so dearly, so closely together.

Sometimes I think it was my punishment for all the mistakes I’ve made. Of course, that sounds silly, but…unless you’ve lived through it all, you can’t possibly disregard it entirely. Its alot to fucking go through, and…it doesnt happen to just anyone.

But, it did happen to me.

And, while I wish it hadn’t…it has made me a much stronger, though admittedly more hardened individual. You can’t just lose two people so important, without losing yourself a bit too.

But where I’ve lost, I’ve gained.

It’s a very very weird thing to go through.

At the end of 2016, I also said goodbye to my best friend. And, while he’s still alive….losing your dad, your sister and your closest friend in the same year….was an experience  I can’t imagine many have had to endure.

But, I did endure it.

I’m literally the strongest person I know. I’ve faced more things than anyone I know. And, I’m proud of the fact that I’m still somewhat sane, have an amazing relationship with the best possible soulmate I could ever have found and am still able to see SOME beauty in the world. Though, it took me awhile to get back to that place.

Sure, I’ve lost all hope in people, as they elected the dumbest fucking fuck to be president ever. But, thats a whole other blog topic. I can still find joys in life, and I didnt know if I’d ever do that again after my fathers funeral. It was so much loss, so much hurt. So much regret and missed opportunities. That it just consumed me. It chewed me up, spit me out, and left me emotionally vulnerable, which is something I made sure not to allow  for many years.

I  have been changed into someone I wasnt before all of this. And, while most people only see one side of me, there’s a much less hostile, much kinder,much more compassionate person inside of me that a few do get the pleasure of knowing.

Sometimes I wage war with the nice me, who rarely shows himself, and the bitchy, dickhead me that most people experience. I battle with myself over it, because honestly..while I am a good person with these values, I’m also often times a shitty person, who has gone through so much that sometimes its difficult to give a shit about anything but my own shit.

I’m far from perfect, I’m far from the person I owe  my sister and father, and grandmother and so many other friends and loved ones I’ve lost, to be.

but I’m better than the person  I could’ve been.

And noone understands that like I do.

I’ve reached a place where I’m proud of who I am.

And, I honestly never thought I’d do that. So, inspite of all I’ve lost, I’m glad that I’ve gained a better piece of myself.

I just had to get all that out, before I move forward in this blog.

I havent written since before all this happened. So..this is literally the first I’ve written of it. It probably could have been better, and more poignant. But, I didn’t want to get all the way into it all. While I’ve not buried the feelings entirely, I’ve thrown a little bit of dirt over  it all in my head, just to help let go of it all. It was just too much to handle. And, if I didn’t bury it a little bit, I think it may have consumed me entirely.

I’m just glad to have gotten it all out at all.

Growth never stops, unless you stop it.

I’ve learned that more than anything else.

It’s always weird starting over.

This is true in all facets of life; Relationships, friendships, employment, your state of mind  and apparently blogging too.

I haven’t written a single thing since 2014. I’m honestly not sure how so much time passed without it, but it did. So much time actually that my old blog has disappeared entirely from the internet. It’s a long story, and the details don’t really matter. But its all gone. Every blog. Every poem. Every emotional piece. (And, there were alot.) It’s gone. Done-zo.

So, Here I am starting over. Everything I’ve written over the last two decades is gone. And that’s okay. I’m a different person anyway. I mean, I’m the same. But I’ve grown. At least a little bit.

I’m alot more aware of myself and what has lead me to where I am. I place alot less blame on others, and I shoulder the responsibility of being an adult. I’m about to be thirty six years old. I can’t blame Mommy and Daddy anymore. Though, not any less either.

So, here I am, with a fresh start.  My thoughts, My feelings, My rants and rages. It all starts over.

And, I’m not sure where to begin. I’ve got several things to touch on, so bear with me.

I don’t write for anyone but myself. If you’re reading this, know that now. I wont apologize. I wont explain. And, if you are going to expect any of that, just stop fucking reading now.

It will get bitchy. It will put my emotions on parade. And, they can vary by the moment.I hope that you- whoever you are- will read my shit, see my perspective, and appreciate my design whether we agree or not.

If you don’t thats okay too. But, please..fuck all the way off before you think about criticizing me, or starting drama over anything you may read here.

I wont stand for it.

I hope to do myself proud here, but I’m sure I’ll write something inappropriate or embarrassing or shameful.

Accept that I’m not perfect either.  And maybe, eventually..you’ll gain a different perspective on me.

If you don’t know me..I guess you’ll get to read the ramblings of a fucking crazy person. (lol) If you do, You’ll likely relate to this blog at some point. And hopefully some of my shit can help you with some of yours.

That’s all I can do.

I’m excited to start over. Its reignited a fire to put thoughts to paper again. And, that makes me incredibly happy to feel again.

It’s been far too long.