The Fundamental Things Apply, as time goes by.

It’s time to blog, time for the clearing of musty airs and the dancing of skeletons from deepened closets. Not really, nothing to dramatic for yours truly. But I digress from the typical fare on this post to simply vamp some ventilation onto the ivory parchment, or black keys as the case truly is.

This past weekend marked the end of a year for me. November has always brought great change in my life, last November was exceptionally relevant. Over the year since I have gone through great changes in my life, all having the majority of their catalyst in the cool winds of November, and I take stock of the evolution of me and what it has meant.

I took no small measures in the past year. I am a person often crippled by self doubt, confusion, and trying to reconcile the “right thing” with the right thing. Cause no matter how many times they tell you in Sunday School that things are black and white the simple fact of reality is that very few things in life are black and white. It is a very grey world and rare is the occasion when one of life’s questions only has one right answer. Does that mean morality is relative? I would say no, I think there is a standard of behavior we must adhere too, but there are a great many exceptions to any rule, and if we are to grow as people we have to be ready to accept that sometime the “Right Way” is not the right way.

I was taught all my life to embrace a black and white standard of right and wrong and while it has helped at times it has also been a disservice to me just as often. I was programmed to believe that certain things are “right” and certain things are “wrong” and the sorting out of that caused me much pain and hardship. I got married when I was eighteen because I thought it was the “right thing”. It was the moral thing to do. But anyone who knows me will tell you that it was the wrong thing for me, and it was. And I struggled through 9 years of a soul crushing abjectly abysmal marriage wherein I didn’t really even love the person I was with, I just felt responsible for the situation. I took oaths, I made promises, and to retain my honor I had to see them fulfilled… didn’t I.

There’s a line in a song that says “belief is a beautiful armor, it makes for the heaviest sword.” And I would say that’s true. It was out of belief in my religion, my home grown ethics, and my outdated infatuations with ideas like Bushido and Chivalry that I held on to the sharp rocky crag that I dangled from for so long. And while I haven’t lost those things, they have changed; they have been adjusted to better gel with reality.

And one day those things weren’t enough anymore and I just wanted out, I needed out. I even sent my spouse away to another state to facilitate it. I was on my way; I would manage to do both. I would escape my less than gilded prison and I could do it in a way that she ended up happy in her far away place without needing me to prop her up. Foolish of me I know, really truly foolish of me. But I never got to see how it would all play out. Because after 5 years all of the sudden the words came… I would be a father.

There is much about motherhood I will never understand and never can. Everyone knows that. What many people don’t realize is that Fathers go through something that no woman can ever grasp. So I swallowed hard, I embraced the woman I had long felt nothing but numbness for, and I tried, god how I tried. I had to didn’t I? 9 months later my son was born and my life was forever changed for the better. It was my first true epiphany, the first time that a realization hits you so hard that are never the same “I am not a man… I’m a father.” It is a responsibility I hope and pray I never betray.

So there it was one big happy family. And for the first time I was happy in my marriage, because I loved my son, and she loved my son, and our mutual love for him bonded us. Errantly I thought that would be enough.

The rest of the story involves my children, and the love I discovered through them. I thought myself a blackheart of the highest order, but when it came to them I was filled with joy and optimism. This is what true love means. But I was still the old blackheart when the light of my children didn’t shine on my face. I still walked out the door for work, picking up the old burden as I slow danced to the car door and went about the day. I still dreaded; I still felt nothing other than what I felt for my children. And yet I resigned myself to numbness in all other things. I could do this, I was strong, I was not emotional, and I could pull this thing off. I was wrong.

Fate is a conspirator, a meddler, a thief, a bitch, and an inspiration all in one breath. And fate conspired against me, to show me my errant way, to prove to me once and for all that everyone needs emotion, everyone needs love, everyone needs to feel and be felt for. And a light shone in the dark corners of me and my second great epiphany came. I was no robot, no emotionless machine, and I did have needs that had to be met, or this numbness would destroy me utterly and in doing so I would fail my children. I would pass this numbness on to my son, I would pass my indifference on to my girls. All the sudden the “Right Thing” and the Right Thing were far from one another. It is a story I keep close to me, too close to tell it here in so public a way. But those who know me well know it, and those who have come into the story and out of it from act to act know the parts they have played in my growth, in the evolution of me. There are thanks to be laid at the feet of the players, more so than I am likely to be able to give voice too as time goes by. But everything was different. And the fledgling year of 2007 beckoned as Novembers winds of change howled in my ears.

And here I sit, and November is once again upon me, and once again there are developments unlooked for, there are new people walking into my life, a new path in my career lays before me and all the plans of last November have come to naught and I am probably the better for it. So I plan nothing, I play the song by ear, I look no further than my responsibilities as a father dictate and I am much the better for it. Plans too often come to nothing, or god forbid everything you planned comes to you and its not what you wanted at all. And experience comes to me in hurried and tiring pace. Its as though life has decided I am in need of the experiences I cheated myself of for so many years, I suppose they are things everyone must do. I have lost battles, won wars, loved truly, broken a heart and been broken, obsessed myself with something I could never have, spurned the affections of someone I should have embraced, I’ve been to the dizzying heights and tumultuous depths of emotions I had never felt before, I’ve made mistakes, and I’ve decided justly, I’ve gotten out of my comfort zone, I’ve thrown caution to the wind, I’ve slow danced in a coffee shop, I’ve turned a phrase or two, I’ve felt the warmth in another’s soul, for the first year in my life I’ve truly lived rather than just survived. And I am better for it in a way I can’t describe. I’m centered now, not just on the outside, not just in the eyes of others, for the first time I’m centered on the inside.

It’s been a rough year. I’ve been happier than I’d ever been and I’ve been sadder than I’d ever been. And in the midst of the greatest storm of my life I found oasis and comfort, I found myself, I found good people to share the pieces of my life with, and I found the balm of Gilead that had been so lacking in the entire sum of the rest of my life. And I face forward, awaiting the direction of the wind and the cool November.

Till next time.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at and is filed under J.J. Sunshine's. You can follow any responses to this entry through the
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