Two Way Traffic

People bring me problems and I solve them.  They bring me crises and I manage them.  They bring me broken plans and broken hearts and broken dreams and I fix them.  I believe they are grateful; but, only a scant few concern themselves with who (if anyone at all) has my back.  More often than not, there are a few that do.  They are far fewer than those who bring me their issues to address.  Emotionally, that has caused me to run up a deficit faster than Congress at a campaign clearance sale.  I had to throw on the brakes.

Those who do not reciprocate...gone!  Those who feign mutual dependability...put on a leash.  New arrivals with more troubles to manage...stiff-armed and rebuffed.  I would love to give way the best of who I am freely to everyone I ever meet.  I tried doing that actively for nearly two years.  I got used.  I got hurt.  I lost literally thousands of dollars in being that person.  Some have claimed they "intend to pay me back"; I have faith in only one of them.  I wish their intention for repayment were as obviously sincere as their intention to "borrow" the money in the first place.  Lesson learned, and most of these people are no longer friends.  Word to the wise.

Then there are the women.  I don't know what it is with so many women these days, but they want to be wined and dined and complimented simply on the premise that they think they are so incredibly extraordinary.  Guess what, ladies.  A pretty face and a nice presentation gets you in the door.  If you want to stay there and have a decent guy who treats you well, try meeting them half way.  Try earning it!  It seems far too common among women I've dated from 25-50 that they want to be taken around and put on a pedestal and to have me (and other guys, except for the d-bags, of course) simply content to bask in the glow of their presence whenever they are in the mood to be adored.  You want to be treated like a princess?  Start acting with the grace and class of one; it might further your cause.  Until then, cut your own damn grass or hire a kid to do it for you.  Either way, until you show up to cut my lawn, I really don't care to hear your bitching about how nobody cuts yours for you or changes your oil.  Oh, you want my help with that?  One, try asking; two, its called Hillside Lawn Service and Jones for Life.  I have both numbers if you'd like either one.

I have learned that trying to get away from your problems is pretty much a fruitless endeavor.  I took a trip to Puerto Rico to try to escape my thoughts and fears and worries.  What I came to realize is that wherever you go, there you are.  You can't get away from your own self.  I am trying to incorporate the practice of mindfulness into my daily living.  When you have trained yourself to be a default worrier, this is difficult.  I have found a certain aura of peace when I drive around in the car listening to my iPod.  In those moments I have found a route to escape worry.  I have found a satisfaction and reassurance in who I am and the choices I make.  I have found the courage to stand alone in my own dignity, rather than to compromise my self-worth for anyone else's external validation.  This change has been a tough learning curve for me.  In a way, I feel like a total dick for having had to set boundaries.  I think, when it comes to interpersonal relationships of any variety, but especially romantic ones, I want a mutual effort.  I have severed connections with several people who wanted to be friends as long as I was picking up the tab.  I have forged deeper connections with those I pulled away from, but who stayed to see me through my rough times, anyway.

I am not looking to adore anyone or to put them on a pedestal, and I would certainly never expect anyone to defer to me in those ways.  I've tried "loving enough for the both of us".  It doesn't work.  I'm as good a man as you will find, but I am done doing other people's bidding for them.  If you want to be my friend or my confidant or my lover, or important to me in any other meaningful way, then show me that I am important to you.  Meet me fairly close to half way, and there is nothing we cannot achieve and nowhere we cannot go together.  Until then, my iPod, my Hyundai, and I all respect the hell outta me, and I am content, in this moment, with that respect.

"Vehicle", Ides of March.

You Have to Kiss a Few Frogs

Well, come to find out, some of the "horrible" things that Erica said about me were that she could never date me because I look like a frog, and there was something about me having no chin - whatever.  With distance from our supposed friendship, it all just seems kind of juvenile.  The words don't bother me, its the fact that she said them that hurts, still, a little.  I have self-image issues, and I mention that on here quite frequently.  I confided that in a more in-depth and meaningful way to her.  She betrayed that confidence.  She bragged to her friends that I told her she was beautiful, and that I really loved her.  Both are true.  I told her she was beautiful, because she seemed to listen to me and have my best interest at heart.  I did love Erica.  But I didn't love Erica because she looked like some Vogue covergirl.  She didn't; it just didn't matter to me.  She seemed to be a good person.  She seemed to care.  She perceived my attention to be confusion that she was more superficially beautiful than she was.  To me, the beauty was in what I perceived as her lack of superficiality.  Erica thought my attention and admiration and love was an endorsement of her looks, when it was an endorsement of her.  Sadly, my confidence, love, and trust were grossly misplaced.  I wish nothing bad for Erica, but I can't say I'm hoping for much glorious luck and splendor to visit her either.  Its been about four months since we've been estranged as friends.  It was clear to me after a month that whatever it was that we had was over.  I have grieved the loss of the woman I perceived Erica to be and moved past it, and I am happy to be rid of the girl she actually proved to be.  We had some fun.  Hard knocks: 1; Hoffman: 0.

As I have put distance in time and emotional investment between myself and Erica and her minions, I've gone through several phases of processing the loss.  I was stuck.  I couldn't move or think or feel anything other than hurt.  Then, I started to build up momentum.  I had the gas, but lacked the direction.  I ended up spinning in circles for quite a while.  I damaged many good friendships.  I ran more than a few people out of my life who had never been anything but good to me.  Only a few have stuck by me.  Some consciously, and some just by always being there without question or specific knowledge of what was going on.  They just stayed.  I would be remiss if I did not single out and extole the inexhaustable friendship of my best friend of nearly 30 years (some of those years more nearly than others), Steve Jenkins.  He stuck by me when I tried to shut out everyone around me.  When I tried to actively push him away, he yanked me by the arm and pulled me in closer, as if to say, "Kid!  What the hell are you doing?!".  The whole Jenkins family have really been a blessing to me, and being welcomed to the table at their family reunion made me feel the same way the returned Prodigal Son from Jesus' parable must have felt at his celebrated return home.  I consider all of the Jenkins men to be brothers from another mother.  In that moment, and in the company of those wonderful brothers, I found the strength to channel the already realized momentum of my reclaimed individual identity.  Now, I had traction.

The final piece of the puzzle for this journey back to standing firmly on my own two feet was to find direction and purpose.  My dear and wonderful, amazing therapist, Kerry Richie, gave me a friend's lovingly swift kick in the ass that can only come from someone who truly does have your best interest at heart.  I am following her lead.  I am connecting more deeply with friends like Jack Radcliffe, Chris Heard, Phil Laubner, Jeff Rollinger, Doug Rhone, Pastor David Franklin, Jennifer Packard, and Colleen Lyons Dunnigan who seem to be worthy of the investment of my trust and confidence.  Knowing, too, that I enjoy the support and encouragement of the very special individual for whom this vehicle of thought and feeling is named, Vickie Diamond, is a continual source of strength and reassurance. 

The best of who I am is because of who I am, (toad)warts and all.  The reason I am able to continue to be that man is because of all of you - even Erica.  Love to all!

 "Brothers In Arms", Dire Straits.

Preface to an Epilogue

My social circle tends to break down at seven to ten year intervals.  Recently, that has happened again.  Every other time this has happened, it was always with the idea that a new circle of friends would emerge.  This time, it just seems final.

Kerry, my therapist, suggested I use this down time - ostensibly between close-at-hand, socially connective relationships - to imagine what the life I have wanted might feel like.  She told me to imagine what it would be like to have a girlfriend who was genuinely interested in me, and the man that I am, and the things that are important to me.  She told me to imagine spending time with some woman like this, who would want to earn the emotional investment that I have previously given up so freely to women who really didn't wish to reciprocate.  She told me to imagine what it would be like to have that person around in the next phase of my life.  She told me to do this in the hopes of producing a directed and focused intentionality, an exercise in "acting as if"; Vickie tried to get me to do the same thing when she and I worked together.  This is supposed to bring about some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. 

I tried.  When I try to imagine the next phase of my life, there's nothing there.  Now, before you go sounding the alarm bells and orchestrating an interventionary Chinese fire drill, hear me out.  I don't see my current chapter ending anytime soon, but I see things continuing as they are, in perpetuity.  I am trying to change things for the better.  I had scheduled two interesting and engaging social events for myself this weekend; both were cancelled by others for reasons beyond my control.  Sometimes, it feels like even God is saying, "up your's". 

I have self-image issues.  When struggling with dating, I had one really good friend tell me, "it can't be everybody else".  I've had one close female confidant who said  that, "maybe women just aren't attracted to you", and another who equated my appearance to being "gross".  Having already been down on myself, these statements made things worse.

So, it seems that trying to imagine some kind of future happiness is not working for me.  I can't even imagine wanting to be happy at all anymore.  It would be quite enough for me, at some point, to stop feeling sad.

"No Time", The Guess Who.

Social Reawakening

Its been a rough go.  Friendships that I once thought I could not live without have dissolved.  I fought it, but I had to let go - or, let it ride - as my lunch companion said on Tuesday.  She, of course, was right!

Tuesday felt like the first day in a long time that I have gone out and lived life, instead of letting life happen to me.  I had lunch at a lovely tea room in Bel Air, with a gal whose stunning intellect is often - and, quite unfairly - underestimated because she also happens to be very attractive.  Those who underestimate this lady do so at their own peril.  I'm an exceptionally smart guy, and without being too self-inflated, I often find myself in situations where I might well be the smartest person in the room.  That never happens in this friend's presence. 

Our conversation had depth and ease in ample supply, and in equal measure.  This is how I am supposed to interact - equally, and with a reciprocal sense of respect.  My friend is happily married with a family of her own.  So, there is not the stress of worrying with winning of affections, or having to impress the girl; and, my friend is going to help me better vet my choices of potential dating partners going forward.  That will be fun, and hopefully she can talk some sense into me when I start short-changing my own needs in favor of simply having someone around even if it were to be at my own emotional expense.  I know I don't need to do that; I'm going to count on my friend to remind me of that fact!

The place we went was really neat.  It is a tea room in Bel Air, decorated in the style of an English country house.  The tea was really good.  The background music was nice.  What I liked best about the place is that the entirety of the atmosphere is such that it encourages polite and engaging discourse.  I can see the tea room being useful as a first date/date-ette venue.  It was definitely something refreshingly different!

Today, thanks to enough time away from bad company, and thanks to keeping the kind of company that seeks to empower and to encourage, I took my first steps back in a positive direction with forward looking momentum.

I have a plan going forward.  I am looking to meet a good woman, and I even have a lady in mind, maybe.  But, now, I have greater demands of a potential relationship partner beyond simply being mutually available.  I am looking for someone who is at least 35 years old.  I am looking for a woman who, like me and my friend, could easily get lost in a three-hour, five-pots-of-tea kinda conversation.  I am looking for someone who possesses similar values, so as to avoid being unequally yoked, socially speaking, like it says in the Good Book.  And, this gentleman prefers redheads!

It is hard to let bad relationships that once felt good die.  But, sometimes you have to gentleman up, take the hit, grieve the loss, but ultimately find a way to move on.  I think, for me, lunch with my friend started that journey!  Hurt and worry, for me, have obfuscated my ability to realize and enjoy the abundant blessings I am fortunate to enjoy.  My happiness should never have been about acceptance from others.  Self-acceptance is still a challenge for me, but I'm going to try to walk in those new shoes for awhile.  Hopefully, it will eventually prove to be a comfortable fit!

"Four Seasons: Spring", Antonio Vivaldi.

Ch-ch-ch-changes!

Sometimes, I surround myself with the wrong people for the right reasons - a need to increase the scope of my social circle, to broaden my horizons.  At first, its great!  It feels like what I have been looking for.  The unfortunate truth is, these situtations mostly end up having been an opportunistic situation that saw me coming.  Popularity has never been my domain.  I am, in and of my own general intention, not popular.  I have friends who are, but I am - by deliberate choice - not.

I hope for others to see in me qualities I refuse to see in myself.  I look for other people to validate for me the man that I am.  I give (and practically force upon them) the very best of who I am, I guess, in a subconscious attempt to have them validate the worth of that person as someone to be proud of and to cherish.  I go to great lengths to keep that validation coming, often to the point of excessive generosity, without the expectation of any other type of reciprocity.  Invariably, this always turns into a situation where my own largesse becomes expected, the validation that I receive gradually dwindles, and I end up feeling used by people whom I thought were, and who may very well have honestly intended to be, my friends.  I blame this paradigm shift in my friendships on my own lack of establishing boundaries with others.  For me, there are no boundaries.  I do not accept myself, so I need others to accept me.  So, I pick up tabs, and overlook spoiled plans, and ignore small, hurtful things that are said and done.  Then, it gets worse.  The friends end up getting annoyed.  Once I put them on a pedestal of worship, I subtend my own quid pro quo expectations of the friendship to the acceptance of them simply allowing me to be around them, as though I were some socially inept pariah, and they were some beatific benefactor of social inclusion for me.  It seems to me that once I diefy someone, I can no longer exist at an equal level which rightfully seeks out an equal investment into the relationship, which is what I ought to demand from the get-go.  When that equal investment is withheld, I feel slighted.  This time, it has gone really quite horribly wrong.

A year and a half ago, I fell in with a group who were all, by age or by mindset, much "younger" than I.  Inasmuch, these folks haven't taken the lumps in life of someone who has worked in the same career for 15 or 20 years, or taken the lumps that one takes simply along the journey to crossing the threshold of 40 years lived.  That is not their fault.

What is their fault, I think, is that at some point they must realize that they have devalued - quite possibly by way of my own actions - my sense of worth in their own eyes and minds and hearts, yet they continue to willfully reap the benefits of my continued excessive generosity toward them.  Then, when I have tried to call them down from the pedestal I've placed them on, they get irritated.  For the most part, they want to do what feels right for them, without any thought of what I need from them as a friend.

When I try to process with them my lack of acceptance especially in regard to trying to find a romantic relationship (not with them), they casually say things like there has to be some kind of chemical spark of attractiveness which they generally think I do not possess; or, that women are not going to be attracted to someone they consider to be "gross", which is apparently a quality that at least one of these friends from the last year and a half thinks I have a lock on.  Yes, that person used the actual term gross. 

That always and invariably brings me to the point where I find myself now.  A point where there can exist no common ground or reciprocal care, compassion, or loyalty.  I am an introvert.  For the last year and a half I have tried to take on the persona of an extravert.  In the process, all I really accomplished was to don the emporer's new clothes.  There were a few manipulative suitors who hoodwinked me into beleiving I had a place of equal standing in their world; but mostly, there are just alot of otherwise and generally good people who clearly see my attempt to "fit in" for the fool's errand that it proved to be.  Then when I tried to reassert my true self and to establish the proper reciprocal boundaries among this group, it seems they were no longer interested and would rather make mockery of the folly of my own creation, and would rather laugh at me than to laugh with me - and, I most definitely am not above laughing at myself. 

These are not bad people.  In fact, I still, in many ways, consider each of them friends.  Unfortunately, many of them showed themselves to be more opportunistic than empathic, more using than empowering.  The relationships became toxic.  I found myself in a situation where the best thing for everyone was for me to remove myself from the situation, and to move on, away from them, and in a new direction.

Now is the time for me to salvage the few, true, undamaged and uncompromised friendships that remain, and to move on to establish a new social presence that, this time, does not rely on trying to cajole other people to buy into my intrinsic worth, but rather relies upon buying into it, and eventually owning it, myself.

To the friends who remain, and to those from whom I now must take leave, I wish to express my ever grateful, and heartfelt appreciation.  Although every friendship did not work out well, you all have been a blessing in my life, each in your own special way.  I wish every one of you all the very best that life has to offer, and mostly, I just want for you to be happy!

"Don't Come Around Here No More", Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Let's Dance

Fair warning:  this will seem trivial to alot of you.  If you wish to avoid that, move onto the next entry or another page.

I had a dream this morning that has been disturbing me all day.  In the dream, I was at a wedding reception.  I was alone.  I kept getting asked to dance by guys only.  I got several of these invitations, all from guys who appeared to be perfectly polished and pressed, hair-gelled and perfumed, boy-band-stylin'-gay.

I am not the least bit homophobic.  I have many friends who are gay.  Its not a subject that makes me particularly uncomfortable on its own merit, nor is it one upon which I seek to impose my own social, political, or religious agenda, either to support or to oppose.  I have a live-and-let-live approach to the whole gay/straight issue.

Still, this dream bothers me.  My main goal in life right now is to find a way to become half of a healthy, productive, total partnership with a good woman.  I am fighting tremendous insecurities that tell me I will never have that because I am not worthy, or too ugly, or in some other/additional unique or combined way, wholly unappealing to all women.  Given those insecurities, which I am working quite diligently to attempt to manage, this dream was particularly unsettling to me in a way that has affected my whole day.

Now, I get that this is funny.  I know most of you will say, "let it go", that its "just a dream", or that "sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar".  That's probably all good advice; but, I want my cigar to have a pink band, not a blue one, wrapped around it!  I want it that way!

Light 'em up, boys...

"Smoke From a Distant Fire", Sanford Townsend Band.

Souls Re-Shoed Here

What I have learned today, and really in the last several months, is that there are friends, there are best friends, and there are soul connections.  All are blessings.  Only the third is permanent.  With some soul connections, it would be easier, at times, if they were not that; no matter, they are.  I believe you choose your friends and you choose your best friends.  I believe soul connections are brought into your life by forces both Divine and universal. 

I gained this knowledge by learning from the example of someone I consider a soul connection.  This individual showed me that it is okay to let go of some of the people in your life when the shared experience with them has run its course, even if you still hold them dear.

A week ago, a friend told me that I am too quick to appropriate the expectation of a soul connection with the people, and especially the ladies, who come into my life.  Kerry, my therapist, and a few of my other friends, have told me that I am quick to give away the best aspects of who I am to anyone I meet, whether or not they have demonstrated the worthiness of that level of emotional investment.  They are right, and it has been a painful lesson in the course of experiencing my relatively newly acquired capacity for feeling.  I know now that it is okay to hold in reserve the best of what I have to offer another person for those who are truly special - for those who are soul connections.

I really wish we lived in a world where we could all freely give away the best of ourselves to each other, and know that we would always get the same in return.  We don't.  The world we live in is a good one, I just want it to be perfect. I try to make that happen for all those around me.  The lesson learned is that I can only effectively make it happen for some - the soul connections - who are willing and ready to receive it and who, hopefully, wish to reciprocate.

"There's a Light Beyond These Woods (Mary Margaret)", Nanci Griffith.

One Year on 4/4

Thursday was one year since Vickie took leave from her practice.  We accomplished a lot together, some of which I am still realizing as the days go by.  Vickie, I miss you and love you a little more everyday, both personally and professionally, for moving me toward the better man you knew I could be, and I am becoming, even through all my doubts.  You're amazing!

I am twice blessed 'cause Kerry my new therapist is equally wonderful!  I was bound and determined that no one would ever replace Vickie; that part is true, no one ever could.  I was also sure that never again would I find someone to care for my needs from a therapist as thoroughly and sensitively as Vickie; I was wrong about that, because Kerry set quickly about providing the same feeling of empathy and safety and interest that I relied so much upon Vickie as my sole source for, for nearly five years.  Kerry brings her own unique and personal style to our collaboration.  Both of you have earned my complete and unyielding trust, and because of that, you've also both won a substantial piece of my heart.  Like I said...twice blessed!

I hope one day that both of these wonderful women will get to meet each other.  Who knows, maybe we'll all dance at my wedding!

Please click on the link.  I played this song at the conclusion of my last session with Vickie.  I still think of ya, kiddo, every time it comes up on the radio or on my iPod.

"I'll Be Seeing You", Dean Martin.