From my journal yesterday, immediately after finishing this painting:
I’ve got some cute little one-liners. I’ve got some snappy phrases that sound cool but don’t really mean anything. I don’t want to bullshit and I don’t wanna tag this with something that doesn’t represent it.
It took FOREVER to paint. So many layers, so much starting from scratch.
The truth is I’m sick, on the couch, and nothing is in my head. The truth is I’m not always SUPER BRILLIANT. And I don’t wanna not create just ’cause [whatever]. But I don’t really know what’s driving me right now. Maybe it’s just ’cause it’s what I feel like I’m supposed to do at this point. Which is lame but maybe that’s okay. I don’t know. Do I take a break or do I just keep going? Having a cold sucks. Feeling crummy physically is fucking with my ability to DO, which is fucking with my emotional well-being. Tomorrow I’m gonna get dressed and pretend I’m fine. Maybe I am. I guess?
I HATE giving the impression that I’m not doing well, especially when I’m not not doing well. I just have a cold! But if “success” is doing well (being happy) maybe it’s also being okay with acknowledging little hang-ups and demonstrating a progression beyond the pink cloud.
Maybe I’m too caught up in impressions in the first place. Living under a spotlight (even a little one) has its drawbacks. I hate feeling like (or realizing) that it’s influencing me in what I do or how I do it but – honestly – I wouldn’t be pushing myself like this if I didn’t feel like there was some expectation that I “produce.” Is that good or bad? I wanna call it ambition but it makes me feel small (I’m not a famous/important artist); it makes me feel like a joke. But I’m not. I’m okay. I just need to chill out.
It’s a fine line between humility and insecurity – between arrogance and self-esteem. I get carried away in both directions. I don’t need to “tenth step” my every thought / impulse. Hey, Sam: relax – everything’s cool. I know.
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I saw this article today about creativity. There were two statements I really identified with.
“The study shows that if you have the sneaking suspicion you might not belong, the act of being rejected confirms your interpretation. The effect can liberate creative people from the need to fit in and allow them to pursue their interests.”
“To live creatively is a choice. You must make a commitment to your own mind and the possibility that you will not be accepted. You have to let go of satisfying people, often even yourself.“
That last part seemed especially relevant right now, given this new painting and last night’s journal entry. As I wrote about it, on the canvas [near top-center], “I can’t get to a place where I feel okay with what I’ve done.”
It made me think about what it means to be “beyond the pink cloud.” I think it means accepting that life isn’t always going to be 100% awesome all the time. I used to think that the most a person could hope for was “to be happy 50% of the time.” I don’t think that’s true anymore, but I still think it gets to something that might be true. I think a good aspiration might be “to be 50% happy all of the time” – by which I mean: even when things aren’t going so great, to be able to pause and recognize that I’m at least 50% okay… that some thing might be wrong – but not every thing is wrong; most things are okay.
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“Fragile is the hell we make for ourselves when we acknowledge that the spotlight’s on.” – from Fuck You, Ms. Rochelle by Dillinger Four
The range of textures (and the shadows they project) make this a difficult piece to photograph. I’ll be getting a better photo when I go to the print shop so I’ll replace it then.
Signed 12×16″ prints of “Beyond the Pink Cloud” are available in my webstore. Hit me up if you’re interested in purchasing the original 18×24″ painting.
“Snowflakes Anonymous.” 11/22/13. Acrylic, watercolor, and spray paints, food coloring, markers, pen, resin sand, cardboard and EBT card – on 24×30″ stretched canvas.
This piece took me over a week to finish. That left a lot of time for different issues to pop up, play off each other, and rearrange my ideas. I started it one nigh while I was thinking about missing Tranquil Shores. Then I thought about how I might like to work at a place like that except… For starters, I don’t have enough clean time. I’d have to pretend like
I didn’t fuck up at any point. That made me sad. You know what I eventually realized though? Fuck that. Someone recently complimented my honesty / willingness to be vulnerable through my artwork – “especially for someone with so little clean time.” That threw me for a loop! There was nothing mean-spirited about the comment (it came from someone that’s been really positive and supportive) but still – the implication is that I’ve only recently started getting well. In reality, most of the pieces she had seen and read about were created before that – sometime after my previous clean date (the day I got to Tranquil Shores: August 17th, 2012). And I didn’t really start getting better ’til December 12th. The vast majority of honest text in my pieces was always scribbled out up until that point.
So – yeah – I may have fucked up over the summer, but that didn’t hit the reset button on my recovery; I didn’t fall down into a gutter with a needle in my arm, desperate and miserable as ever. I made a mistake, called myself on it, told the people I needed to tell, and carried the fuck on and moved forward with the things I know to be good for me and good for my mental health and emotional well-being. And you know what else? The dangerous position I allowed myself to be in (that led to my relapse): it was worth it. That month I spent working on that project – it had incredible highs, some (very obvious) lows, I learned a lot about myself, a lot about the world around me, and – overall – was a better stronger person when all was said and done.
And it still affects me today (both positively and negatively). I wouldn’t say I regret any of it. Life is for living and anyone that’s really living is gonna fuck up every now and then. That’s not a preemptive copout for future relapse, it’s just reality. You can count on my not repeating that mistake but I’m sure as shit gonna fuck up at one thing or another!
Back on point: on Tuesday, I was reading the NA literature and I realized that so much of it really has nothing to do with me. It’s totally undescriptive of my thinking and my behavior. Not all of it, but enough of it. Does that mean I’m gonna quit going to meetings? No. But it explains why I stopped going more than once a week back in February – and why my
counselors at Tranquil Shores didn’t throw a monumental fit about it the way they’d always done with everyone else. I may not be some beautiful fucking snowflake, thoroughly unlike all to come before me, but – you know what? I am different than a lotta people and meetings, meetings, meetings isn’t the fucking cure-all for everyone.
And if you wanna get technical – it’s got nothing to do with the twelve steps as they were originally written (and are still written in the AA text). Same with sponsorship – there’s nothing in the original text about going to meetings or finding a sponsor. It’s just about working with / helping other alcoholics [or addicts]. And I do that shit constantly. I hate a lot of the attitudes that dominate the rooms of AA and NA: “Do this or die” (especially when “this” isn’t even part of the program). You know why they think that the only people who succeed in recovery are the ones that continue going to meetings for the rest of their lives? Because the people that come back are the one that fucked up and needed to come back; they never hear the stories of the people that leave their group and succeed because they don’t have any reason to come back around and tell their tale. It’s right for some people – not everyone. And fuck the notion that “clean time” is the only measure of success. I do pretty okay. I like myself. I like my life. And it’s been that way for a while now. It didn’t start ’til I got clean (and then some) but it didn’t go away just ’cause I had a lapse in judgment. I still have that time. There are documents of it – all over my walls and all over this website.
SECOND (reason I can’t get a job at a treatment facility), I don’t think I’m cut out to work anywhere. I’m not some wild, outta control basket case but that’s ’cause I know what I need to do to keep my grip. When things get rough, I’ve got tools I can use to get ’em back on the right track. But mental health is a chore and I can’t schedule my emotions. Being on the clock, being on someone else’s time… it doesn’t work for me. I have too much to do – sick or well, fucked or not. So while I might like to do some volunteer kinda stuff now and then, I don’t think that “getting a job” is anything that’s ever gonna work out for me.
From there I was thinking about something that’s occurred to me before: that I could almost certainly qualify to receive disability payments. Up ’til my “recovery” began, I’d have taken those without a second thought; I had (and still have) no moral objections to something like that (even if I were/am fully capable of working). But getting disability doesn’t really seem in line with what I’m about these days. My brain might be a little off but I’ve been creatively building a life out of that, through my artwork. I’m not sure I want a label like “disabled” on me.
But – also on Tuesday – I realized that I use food stamps and… is that really any different? It’s basically partial-disability with no questions asked. “Oh? You don’t make enough money? Okay, here you go. No – we don’t care why, just take it.” Strangely enough, the very next day, I met a girl who does receive disability payments (and for borderline personality disorder!) That had me actually considering it for the first time but it wasn’t ’til later that night I realized that – immediately after meeting her – I volunteered to pick up a shift at Sun-Ray over the weekend if they needed any extra help. AND THEN(!) I had to modify my offer to exclude Saturday because I’m going to some kind of seven hour “personal growth” / mental health thing tomorrow.
Just like that – I went from ruling out work because of my obligations to myself and my mental health but rejecting the prospect of disability payments on principle, meeting a girl on disability with the same issues I have and starting to reconsider, to unthinkingly offering to work, and then realizing I couldn’t because of a (very concrete, specific) mental health obligation.
For now, I’m gonna keep on as I have been. I already have everything I need. Well, maybe not a sense of security but what fun would that be?
—–
Hey – speaking of “clean time,” “clean dates,” and what a beautiful fucking snowflake I am… When someone completes their treatment plan at Tranquil Shores, they have their coin-out ceremony and they get a little keychain with their clean date on it. Here’s the one they gave me back in February.
Yes, that is an “X” in place of a clean date. No, I had no idea that mine was going to be different and – no – of all the people that have been through the program, no one else has ever gotten anything other than their actual clean date.
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Something I wrote in this entry reminded me of a lyric from a song I haven’t heard in a few years. “She asked me if I want to die / I said of course I do sometimes / Anyone who never wants to die / must not really be alive.” And now that I’m listening to it, I’m realizing that it’s right for this entry in more ways than one.
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I got the Like Bats cassettes in the mail today. They’ll be the first new Traffic Street release in more than two years and will go on sale tomorrow! (This is a one-off sorta thing though; I’m not picking back up with Traffic Street for real – not anytime soon anyway).
I’ve had that box of inserts and covers for three years now!
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Fun fact: Did you notice my (expired) EBT/foodstamp card glued to the top-right corner of the canvas? Did you notice that it says “ASK FOR VD” on the signature line? Just below that, it says “ARTS SUBSIDY” which I added after the card was on the canvas). I wrote “ASK FOR VD” on it back when it was still valid though – back when I first got it in March. I am a ridiculous human being.
This piece is available for purchase as a 12×15″ print. The original sold in December 2013.
“Spotlight on Mental Illness b/w Drink Bleach + The Barney Generation.” 4/27/13. Acrylics and ink. 12×12″.
I made this piece on the least successful of my four art-fair-days back in St. Pete. The text on the left says, “Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go drink bleach.” From the top, it’s a little more sincere.
Embarrassingly so, actually. It says, “I think I’m special and that my artwork is really different and really great. I think my story is really interesting. I don’t know how much of that is self-esteem, how much is pride, and how much can be chalked up to my being a member of the Barney generation. I get really impatient though. I suffer from the same sense of entitlement as the other brats my age.”
Went to the Hexagon last night for the first Dave Strait Fest show. It was cool and it was fun and it was really great getting to see a lot of the people I haven’t seen in the last two years. Everyone was really sweet and supportive and – though it shouldn’t have – it made me a little uncomfortable at times. Not because of anything that anyone said or did, but my own response to it. It’s still hard sometimes for me to receive that kind of support/encouragement/love. I wanna say “thank you” because that’s how I feel – I feel grateful. But at the same time, I still struggle with whether or not I really deserve that kind of love and support so I get kind of awkward and sometimes sort of dismiss it with a shrug and a little self-deprecation. I need to be more cognizant of my behavior in those situations and force myself to respond authentically and gratefully.
I saw Ryan, one of my best friends from when I was living in DC. He invited me to come hang out with him at Extreme Noise today, but we’re staying on the outskirts of the city so I’m not able to get over that way until we all head out for the show tonight. We talked a good deal last night though and, at some point, he mentioned the “Diazepam” painting/blog entry. No one said anything when that went online, but it made me realize that more people probably saw it and were affected by it then I thought. I think I might have alienated some people with that. I think people were/are disappointed in me for that slip. But it happened and I’m glad that I was able to be honest about it, even if it is damaging to people’s impressions of me. I’m not proud of my behavior that day but I’m not upset that it happened either. It is. It’s real. I’m not perfect and while I’d like to be the shining-star-success-story that everyone can be proud of… this is real life. It’s not a narrative in three acts with simple conflict and resolution. Sometimes the path winds, sometimes things get messy.
None of this is to suggest that Ryan made me feel this way. It was just in his bringing it up that I got to thinking about it. Sometimes I’m so caught up in each new day that I forget that I have a past and that certain impressions from different days will last longer than the time between each post to my website. And – let’s be real – I’m talking about something that happened two weeks ago. It may feel like a lifetime to me, but – really, in some ways, it might as well have been two days ago.
I don’t want to take my focus off of myself, but there were two people I saw last night that … sparked different sorts of thought or concern. (A luxury for someone like me, I know). One, a close friend; the other, an acquaintance. I journaled a lot about it last night, but I don’t think there’s any way to share any of that without compromising somebody else’s privacy.
I know I’m not the champion of mental health, but I’ve got a little something and it makes me sad when I can’t give that to someone I care about. I wish there was more that I could do to help. Maybe there is, but I don’t know what it looks like. I might have to risk hurting some feelings for the sake of honesty. That’s being a better friend than keeping my mouth shut and letting someone fall apart without so much as a word. I’m not talking about “calling anyone out” but just genuinely expressing real concern. I need to tell the people that I care about that I care about them.
Anyway, I’m doing well and I’m looking forward to the rest of my day, which has already been nice so far. Andrea, Mike, and I went to the grocery store and brought back a feast of a breakfast, which Pete, Luke, and I then cooked up. Right now, everyone’s just resting up for tonight or doing their own thing. We’re staying at Natalie’s house with Servo and the Lipstick Homicide kids and it’s really nice and relaxed. It’s pleasant. Sometimes, on tour, in someone else’s home, it’s easy (for me anyway) to feel like an imposition or intruder, but Natalie does a great job of making everyone feel welcome and at ease.
Hit me up if you wanna buy this painting (assuming no one else has yet) or a 12×12″ print.
I feel pretty good today. Not manically good, not hyper-excellent, but just good. Nothing is bothering me or clawing at me. It’s been a while since I painted. I made one piece on the 3rd, but it’s for a record so I’m not able to share it until the release is announced. Still, that was a week ago, so last night I decided to try and paint. Rather than take out a blank canvas, I pulled out one that I had painted a few months back but didn’t really care for. I repainted it and then decided to let what I had dry before I kept going with it. So I pulled out a second piece and repainted that And then decided to let that one dry too. Then I took out a piece that I started when I was sitting on the ledge, looking out over the water, and really having a hard time. I didn’t finish any of them last night.
Today I picked that first one back up and I guess it’s sort of finished now. It doesn’t look quite like my other pieces. Most noticeably, it’s missing any text. Well, it says “OKAY,” but not in any way that most people would spot it. I spent a lot of time on it, but it doesn’t seem quite right. I think that – maybe – I need to move away from paints for a little bit and work with a less fluid medium. And maybe work on some less abstract kinds of projects. I have some cartoons in my head that I’ve been meaning to draw, so it might be a good time to actually put those down on paper.
“Okay.” August 10th, 2013. Acrylics and resin sand on a stretched canvas. 10×13″.
I reflected on how I’m feeling – on how I’m doing, overall – and I decided that I’m okay. During the painting process, I made myself look at the areas of my life that are… awry – in one sense or another. To see if maybe I could pull that into the painting and work with it. The only thing that came to mind was family. I’m not on speaking terms with two of my three siblings. I’m not on speaking terms with my mom. And the last interaction I had with my dad was earlier in the week, via text, and I told him to “fuck off.” And haven’t talked to him since then.
My dad’s done a lot for me lately, so I feel like I need to take a step to repair that but, at the same time, he said something that upset me. Still, “fuck off” probably wasn’t the correct response to that. I guess if I think about it – in each of these situations – I’m waiting for the other person to make it better when – really – if I want it to be better, I should probably take responsibility for that myself.
Which isn’t to say that I want to do that in each case. While it’d be pretty great if I could have good relationships with my parents and siblings, I’m not entirely sure that it’s even possible. Actually, I’m quite certain that it’s not. And that’s okay. I’m not aware of any rule that says I have to get along with everyone I’m related to. Life is easier without some of these people. And while – generally – I’m not interested in taking “easy ways out,” I can’t take on everything. Everyone has a breaking point. Somewhere along the line, what I know (or even what I want) doesn’t matter anymore. I get overwhelmed and negative feelings take hold. I’m not going to push myself into dealing with things that have the potential to ruin my day. Not today anyway. Outcomes aren’t guaranteed and now matter how I approach it…
[I’m done talking about this now]
I’m not stressed out about money anymore. Everything worked out this week and I don’t have a reason to be anymore. Which is a relief. And I’m grateful for that. I have all of the tools I need to maintain an income right now, I just need to remember to use them. For example, I still have a box of antique dolls and other stuff given to me (to sell on eBay) that I get to keep a share of the profits on. Granted, spending time creating eBay listings isn’t all that different from any other job, but I can do it on my own schedule and take time out for myself when I need it.
Having an online journal is tricky. When I was keeping a journal just for myself (with no intention of ever sharing it at all) I wrote differently. There are things I’d mention and things I wouldn’t. There are definitely more substantial, personal examples I could come up with, but – for example – Mike sent me the new Like Bats EP yesterday and it’s really awesome. And if this were a private journal, right now I’d be writing about why I think it’s awesome. But there’s something awkward about switching gears like that, here, online. Similarly, I joked with myself a lot more in my private journal, but – in this context – I find myself forcing myself to be serious so much of the time. Which just isn’t fun. And I like having fun.
Okay, I feel better about it now. That statement alone made me feel better about it. I’m gonna go listen to the Like Bats EP really loudly, smoke a cigarette, and then work on something else for a while. Today’s been good so far and I’m gonna keep it that way.
Oh – also, the fourth painting from “The Weak End” series in in the Gallery. If you don’t see the statement when you click this link, it’s just because you need to scroll down a little bit.
“Portraits of God, Nothing, and Fear.” February 16th, 2013. Acrylics and gold ink on cardboard. 15×19”.
The third painting of ten in my series, “The Weak End,” created in the last few days of my seven months living in Tranquil Shores’ inpatient facility.
The text in this piece (though barely legible) says, “I’ve basically stopped praying. I do (maybe) three real meetings each week. I don’t EVER think of you. And ‘you’ isn’t even you.”
By early February, I wasn’t technically inpatient anymore. Though I lived on property and was subject to a lot of the same rules as before, I had some special privileges. For example, I was still required to go to at least five meetings a week, but I no longer had to go with everyone else. If I could transport myself, I could go to whatever meetings I wanted, so long as I signed in and out, came back on time, had it approved by my counselor, etc.
On the night that I painted this, I left for a meeting. It was only my sixth one on my own. And I ran out of gas on the way there. For the third time. There were no gas stations in that area, but I was still really close to Tranquil Shores. I was too embarrassed to go back and admit that I had fucked up again though, and in such a basic/stupid way. I decided to hide out in a parking lot until the time when I was scheduled to return from the meeting. But then I got anxious and snuck back onto property early so I could go back to painting. Later, I pretended that I had just forgotten to sign back in.
I didn’t write a statement on this piece back in February and I don’t think I journaled that night either. I wish I had because I don’t even know who the “you” that I “wasn’t thinking about” is. If I had to guess, it was a girl, but it could have been any one of three girls that I would have been having thoughts like this about at the time.
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This was my favorite song that week. I was listening to it at least five or ten times a day.
“Fuzzles” is the second painting in “The Weak End” series. It was a response to something that happened in the “rehab talent show” the previous day. The last performance was by the counselors, who put on a skit, in which one of the characters was me. Part of the costume was a shredded, sleeveless shirt with the words, “I Hate the Easter Bunny” painted on the front (that, as I was told, was their tamer/safer equivalent to something I might wear). So when it came time to caption this painting, I thought, “If I were actually going to make some kind of a joke about a bunny, what would it be?” And the caption on this piece is what spilled out of my brain.
I don’t usually try to be funny when I make artwork. I make jokes through/with art sometimes, but it’s never my main purpose. And when I do make jokes, they tend to be at my expense, poking fun at my real mental and emotional defects. This is somewhere on the line though between honest and silly. At the specific moment when I captioned this, I wasn’t feeling particularly happy or sane, so while I have never had a rabbit named Fuzzles that I put in a freezer, this is definitely a reflection of where I was at emotionally on the morning of February 16th. It was raining outside. I remember looking out the window as I painted and feeling lonely, unappreciated, unloved, and – kind of angry about it.
But when I looked down at my cardboard canvas and saw what I had painted and what I had written, I smiled. Art (even art that’s kind of silly) makes me feel better – about myself and about the world I live in. Life is funny. Life is fun. Sometimes it’s tough to keep that at the forefront of my mind. Fuzzles helps.
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I get to go on tour with Rational Anthem soon. It’s only for a week, but I’m really excited. Especially since it’s around Dave Strait Fest in Minneapolis, where something like twenty of my favorite bands are going to be playing. And, the night that we leave, there’s no show, but we needed to stay somewhere between Sarasota and St. Louis. I hit up Stewart at No Breaks Records to see if we could stay with him in Atlanta. Stewart and I never hung out that much (’cause we’ve never lived in the same state) but back when I was running Traffic Street we’d talk all the time. I talked to Stewart as much as any of my friends back then. The last time I saw him in person though was Awesome Fest 5. Which was a disaster for me. Actually, like two of my last three posts, I’m realizing that there’s a story here that I didn’t anticipate. I’ll have to come back to that. The point is (aside from everyone else I already knew I’d be seeing) I’m excited that I’ll get to see him too. And not be a trainwreck of a human being, alternately high or sick, this time. And it struck me as really rad that even though we’ve barely talked in the last two years, I was still able to message him and see if he’d put us up, and he responded just as quickly that – yeah – of course. There needs to be more to friendship than a common interest in punk rock, but friendships that begin with that, that are built around those ideals… it’s a pretty great place to start. I’m grateful for punk rock, for community, and for friends like Stewart (and Rational Anthem)!
Here’s a song from the record Stewart and I split-released back in the day.
Which reminds me, I’m also gonna get to see Troy (ex-Creases) for the first time in two years. And I’ll get to see his new band, Tight Bros, for the first time ever. Twice! – And I just realized this is only four days away. I have no concept of time… ever. But I’m excited.
Someone made the mistake of asking me to transport a bottle of diazepam for a friend. Sounds like trouble in river city!
“Diazepam (My Hands Still Shake).” August 1st, 2013. Acrylics and ink. 10×10″ block of wood.
Those of you that followed my progress / story / artwork may remember that back in – oh, when was it – April (probably) I made a piece that addressed how it had become more difficult to be as thoroughly transparent about my feelings as it had been back when I was still living inside the walls of a treatment facility. I believe that I addressed it specifically in my piece, “Maybe I Don’t Believe in God.”
What very few of you know is that I have been compelled for reasons (somewhat) beyond my control to be even less honest in the last month or so. You see, sometimes the choices that I make have repercussions for people that are not… um… me. And that puts a person in a little bit of a moral/spiritual grey area. On the one hand, I want (maybe even need) to be “rigorously honest” (as they say in “the rooms”). But I live in a world where things can get a little complicated and I’ve allowed myself, recently, to slip into a pattern of lying by omission. I carry many of these lies today. Some of them, some of you are aware of. I have confided in you. Others, remain totally in the dark. Today, however, I am choosing to be fully honest. Here is how I spent my day.
I drank coffee, ate some breakfast, bullshitted around the apartment, ate some diazepam, ran some errands, dyed my hair, ate more diazepam, painted this picture, and then – without any real concern for the paints and painting adjacent to me on the couch, stretched out (lying on top of them), and took a nap for a while. And then I hung my stupid confession on the same wall that I’ve been hanging all my newest “works of art” on. My girlfriend came home (remember: silly as it may seem, since she’s my current girlfriend, I’m not using any real names on this website). From there, we mostly continued where we left off last night. Not talking to or really even acknowledging one another. I love her, she loves me. But things are not going well these last couple of days. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m FUCKING EATING DIAZEPAM. Or maybe that’s a symptom of the larger problem. Either way, I am not happy. And while I recognize that a lot of people are something less than happy a lot of the time, it’s not really something that I’m particularly great at. When I get unhappy, I sometimes begin to behave in ways that have a pretty good chance of fucking killing me. I’ve learned other ways to deal with that discontent, but my usual methods of feeling better are not working out so well for me lately. It’s not for a lack of trying. I’ve been painting like a motherfucker, I’ve seen a mental health counselor twice in the last four days, and I’ll see another on Saturday and another on Tuesday. Whatever the issue is… fuck if I know.
I am tentatively making plans to bail the fuck out of Jacksonville. I love this girl, but I don’t know if that’s enough. And maybe – just maybe – I’d be doing her a favor by leaving. It’s entirely possible that I am not cut out for sharing a life with another human being. My own mental illness is – sometimes – all that I can manage. Having to help someone else with their own… may be beyond my range of capability. It’s possible that I make a better friend than I make a boyfriend. Shit – just ask my last serious girlfriend – we’re doing great as friends! (Isn’t that right, [girl whose name I won’t use]?) It was probably selfish and fucked up of me to ever get involved in the first place. After all, she probably didn’t fully understand exactly what she would be getting herself into. And I certainly did my best, at the time, to convince her that all was well. I was healed, after all!
So, here’s the general game plan… I have way too much stuff and whether I leave or not, I feel like it’s time to slim the fuck down. All of my records, books, etc, are now for sale. And of course ALL OF MY ART IS FOR SALE. (PLEASE BUY SOME OF IT). Ignore the prices in the store. I will cut you a god damn deal.
One last note, as I wrote on Facebook earlier this evening…
Would it be fair to say that we’ve pretty much established that I have no problems when it comes to disclosing personal details of my life to the Internet at large?
Okay, cool. Glad we’re on the same page.
NOW… if something I’ve written means something to you and you wanna tell me about it… Awesome! I appreciate that kind of shit. It’s inspiring, encouraging, and totally welcome.
Similarly, if you’d like to share something *with me* about your own life that you think might be helpful… Awesome! That kind of feedback is also great and I really appreciate it!
BUT if you reach out to me just to ask for MORE details about what’s going on with me… If you have nothing to offer me and you just want the inside scoop for your own weird selfish (probably ego or gossip related reasons) well… feel free to fuck right off with that shit.
My life is hectic enough without having to play twenty questions with every asshole that wants a piece of me.
Love, Sam
