WINTERTemplateTWELVE ONE FIVE

by Ryan Michael Sirois

This Blog is about Self Help Motivation, Addiction Recovery Steps, Self Development, and Self Help for Depression, Achievement, & Etc.

February Sixth: I didn’t sleep in my own bed until I was thirteen

Birchwood place. That was the name of the small street where I spent the beginning of my childhood. My parents owned a townhouse that I still dream about today.

Birchwood proved to be an awesome street to grow up on when doing those Facebook quizzes that tell you what your porn name would be. See example below:

Name of your first pet: Baxter

Name of the street you grew up on: Birchwood

My porn name is apparently Baxter Birchwood. And that makes me very happy.

We lived in the townhouse until I was ten. I slept in my own bedroom a very small percentage of that time. From early on I was terrified of the dark. Not a little scared, I’m talking nighttime tantrums and crying fits if my parents wouldn’t let me into their room to sleep on the floor.

My bedroom was on the second floor adjacent to the staircase. I remember one night sitting on my knees in the twin bed, holding tight to the guardrail that held me in. I had to have been no more than a few years old. The lights were off except for a dim glow from the kitchen downstairs. I would watch the shadows that lined the staircase wall like cave paintings from hell. I was so sure that as I watched those shadows, I would begin to see one move as a man slowly walked up the stairs. I would be able to see the top of his head surface as he ascended the steps slowly. Then his face, cast in darkness. I would see this man in my mind so clearly, waiting for him every night.

He carried a large knife that would be used to stab my 4-year-old body repeatedly. All while my parents slept in their bedroom, door locked and completely unsuspecting. But they would be next. He would manage to enter their bedroom and murder them while I lay lifeless and bloody in my bed.

I could feel his presence. His cold and evil intent.

But he never did come.

Night after night I would watch the darkness, the shadows, the staircase.

Some nights I would brave it out for an hour. Most nights I would cry until I was granted VIP access to the safety zone. Usually it was just a given that I would be sleeping in my parents room. I slept on a floor for most of my childhood until about age thirteen.

How I understood that kind of emotion and fear so young is something that I take pride in. It makes absolutely no sense why a three or four year old would piece together horrific scenes, feel such intense emotion. I don’t know where it came from, but it paved a path as I grew up.

That fear is an underlying force in my life. So much so that even as I write this entry alone in my house, lights off with a single candle lit, in the back of my mind I imagine a man quietly breaking into my home. He is standing behind me, peering ominously though the closed glass door that separates this room from the living room. He is completely in shadow, but holds something in his hand. Some kind of knife or gun, I’m sure. My heart begins to race, but I keep telling myself there is no way. I know myself and my overly active, dark imagination. But what if this is that one time. I hear the dog growling in the other room. Shit. I turn around and walk out to inspect the house.I guess some demons never leave. But then again I wonder if I ever really want them to.

February Seventeenth: The storm passing

Sometimes I feel like life is this thing that kind of just happened and I’m part of something that keeps on moving and moving and moving. Like I am this weathered vessel that rests out in a storm to witness the earth’s spin cycle.

The trees move. The wind surges. Cars flip. People run and scatter. Lightning hits ground. The sky is grey. Thick and dark.Oceans are lifted. The ground breaks.

I sit in the center of this change, the uproar and chaos, squinting my eyes as rain veils across my face. My hair dances in the wind, a brown ballerina against an ominous, operatic backdrop.

I am a direct extension of the earth, my body is a mountain planted firmly, legs crossed. Everything around circulates, moves, debris flies around my shell. Cuts, scrapes, blood glistens like metallic red thread against my ash-stained skin.

I watch it all without fear. Like I know this storm in my core. I’ve lived it. Breathed it. And now I am here to observe. To experience it from another consciousness than I have before. It is an extension of my very being, all connected to something from within.

There is a clarity that comes with the destruction that only a survivor could understand. One who has walked these many paths and felt the spectrum of emotion that accompanies it.

But what the hell am I talking about? And what does that mean for now, for this moment? I guess the truth is that I have no fucking clue. It seems like the older I get, the more I realize that nothing remains constant. There will always be change, always be variables and storms that blow through my beautiful house of cards [cue the Radiohead song]. No one likes a stagnant snow globe.

It is so easy to connect the dots after the fact. To look back at thirty years of choices, decisions, people, events and see that 1 led to 2 led to 3 led to 4. That hindsight is twenty-twenty.

Embracing the storm is what I need in order to continue to grow. And the storm is not a bad thing. It is just the idea of life continuously evolving. We are not sentient beings with flat line minds. We manifest and create every moment. We create the people around us, the environment we live in, the conversations, the memories. Everything is a direct extension of who we are and what we want, we can choose to be conscious of that fact or not.

This idea can relate to something as simple as a color. The color blue only exists as my concept of the color blue. It is my perspective that ultimately shapes what blue is in my reality. There is no true shared experience because our experiences are never the same.

The color blue immediately brings me back to my bedroom when I was in High School. Crayola, brilliant-blue walls, deep royal blue shag rug. Nirvana and The Doors posters, magazine collages, art prints, glow-in-the-dark stars and photographs all inhabited the room with me. It was my escape from the outside, the place where my head could quiet or go crazy. It was a four-walled haven that protected me from the fear and insecurities that lay just beyond my door.

I can close my eyes and go back to that bedroom. Hear “The End” by The Doors playing as I lay in the navy shag carpet, feeling it in between my fingers, staring up at the stars on the ceiling. A blue light illuminated the room from a large Chinese ball lantern that hung over my bed. I watched the fan rotate round and round as I faded into blue atmosphere, my body melting into meditative oblivion. This feeling was safety, it was comfort. It was the closest I could come to being right back inside the womb. It was no judgments. Acceptance. A spiritual embrace that kept me level during some of my darkest years.

That is the color blue.

It’s through my associations, my personal memories and experiences, that this color is shaped into existence. I will never understand what blue is to anyone else, just like no one will truly understand what it is to me.

The same applies to people. My partner, Chris, acts based on his own set of experiences and associations. His actions and responses are a product of his journey, brain processing, perspective, spirituality. But my concept of Chris is my own. No one will ever know Chris the way I know him, not even Chris himself, because he is ultimately an extension of me. The Chris in my reality is also a product of my wants, my experiences. That Chris will never exist to anyone else, I have created him based off of his canvas and my perspective.

That thought can be unbelievably isolating or incredibly liberating.

Chris and I were on a plane home from LA yesterday. I had my head on his lap, the Virgin America purple glow filled the interior. We took the red eye back to Fort Lauderdale and we were both in that 2am haze, ready to be home. He was listening to their in flight radio and placed one of his headphones in my ear.

As I lay on his lap, swept away by BellX1’s “74 Swans”, I felt like we were sharing a moment. Both listening to the same song, confined in the same space, having had an amazing trip together. But he sat upright, facing the seat screen in front of him, while my head rested on his lap facing the floor. My mind gets wrapped in the music and I feel like I am living in a movie. The chords resonate within me, striking up emotions that could be dissected into feelings of love, of happiness. On a more epic and dramatic scale, I could close my eyes and see five years ahead. To us having children and living in California, a beautiful home with a perfectly manicured front lawn. It was the feeling of hope and solace that took me more than the mental imagery.

I felt like everything I had ever wanted without knowing that I wanted it was in front of me. And the chorus picks up and I get chills. This whole moment was timed perfectly to the song and I realize that life should have a soundtrack.

That experience was solely in my mind. As Chris squeezed my hand and I looked up at his face, I know that I was in that moment alone. He will never know what just played in my mind, never know the feelings I just felt. And even if I told him, it would not mean to him what it meant to me, nor would he feel what it felt to me.So it goes. We are alone.

But that is why finding those key people in life who appreciate you for your unique perspective, who nurture that individuality and oftentimes charming weirdness, are so important. Because without them, that experience would not have happened in the first place.

It goes back to needing mirrors in our life. Surrounding ourselves with people who reflect back who we are, what we are doing and where we are in our lives today.

Chris may not understand my blue or know who he is my mind, but it does not matter. He encourages my blue. He appreciates who he is in my eyes. Just like I love who I am in his eyes. That is the most beautiful thing about a loving relationship.

We create each other while creating ourselves.

When I was in rehab at my lowest point, I asked Chris why he loved me. I was a complete mess. He pointed to my heart and said it’s because he knows what’s in there.

And just like that, the storm passes.

March Fourth, March Seventh, March Eleventh: A Chink In The Armor

Chris and I are on a cruise ship somewhere in the middle of the ocean en route from Jamaica to Mexico for his birthday.

I am sitting on our balcony that overlooks a basketball court. About twelve kids are playing an unidentifiable game that requires a lot of running around in circles and throwing a ball back and forth to one another. Sneakers squeak like little mice, echoing up to our room.

It has been a long few days on the ship with several more to go. A much needed break from work and life. Note to self: those two are purposely being kept separate,

as they have been synonymous for too long.

I keep closing my eyes every few moments and the exhaustion that has been plaguing me feels like it settles momentarily. Each blink extends a few seconds before I open my eyes to manic children throwing balls and screaming.

[Extended blink and I feel better]

This lingering fatigue is like day two of a pill bender. Awake but not awoken, dragging my body through the motions while yearning for a moment to sit and close my eyes. A human slug being propelled solely by the need to not feel like a human slug.

[Extended blink]

The most amusing are the surreal in-between-blink-dreams that I can only equate to the “pass out game” we used to play in high school. Where one kid chokes another until he blacks out. In that split moment, vivid images and plotlines play out like epic movies you’ll never see again and forget in the following minutes. You drop out of consciousness for only a few seconds. Your tongue suddenly tastes bitter, head feels fuzzy and you begin to see pulsing lights that float through the air like particles of glitter shaken in water. The oxygen that quit flowing to your brain now begins to make it’s way back and the out of body experience fades just as quickly as it came.

I absolutely loved that game.

So much so that I would strangle myself just to experience the dreams. Alone in my bedroom, I wrapped my hands around my neck and squeezed tight until darkness

crept in from my peripheral vision and my head began to tingle. I was convinced that I was accessing some past life or parallel universe. Crossing a plane that was meant to be hidden from the human realm.[Very extended blink that triggered an image of the Cruise Director dressed as a construction worker saying “Hey, come here” in a Groucho Marx voice.]

• Three days have passed since I wrote the above few paragraphs. *

I have since made my way over to the ships chapel while Chris gets ready for dinner. We return home tomorrow and what has been a weeklong escape from the crazy of reality will close. I feel that this vacation comes just before the storm hits. There is so much change brewing back home that I know this was our time to crawl inward and find whatever it is inside ourselves to move full steam ahead.

I used to hold on to the idea of childhood with clenched fists. I never saw myself as an adult, just this kid getting knocked around and told where to go and what to do next. Not that anyone necessarily was telling me what to do, but I would find myself in situations, play the part, then watch as it crumbled and let the stream float me on to the next thing. Because it’s easier when I’m not the one making the decisions. Taking responsibility.

This chapter in my world right now is one where I actually feel like a big kid and an adult. I’ll never lose the kid, nor do I want to. But I needed the responsible side to kick in.

• Four days have passed [a very long extended blink] We are now home. * 

So much of my personal growth was halted when I began the drug dance at fifteen. I was this insecure, fearful kid with no friends who was followed by the dark cloud of homosexuality no matter how hard I wanted to hide from it. Lonely, introspective and isolated, drugs incubated those feelings for the next fourteen years of my life. I kept secrets, ran from responsibility, lied about everything and gravitated toward anything that had even the smallest possibility of making me feel something other than empty.

I’m sure I held onto childhood so preciously because it was what I knew of a carefree life. A child who was loved so unconditionally by family, who could do no wrong and was treated like a direct extension of the Grand Master. I was special in my own mind and treated like a prince by my family. There were no obligations to worry about, no commitments or relationships other than my immediate family. I was filled with imagination, escaping in fantasy most of my adolescence.

But at some point I began to feel like I let that kid down. Let down that little boy who was still dancing and singing to Michael Jackson on Birchwood Place somewhere in time. I disappointed myself as I grew to see that my isolation was a concern to people. That the inflection in my voice and my less than masculine walk was not so warmly accepted by my peers as I entered middle school. The light that shined so bright within me as a kid faded with each passing day I had to walk the halls of Walter C. Young Middle School. Like a candle deprived of oxygen, my flame slowly retracted and extinguished into a thin line of smoke that dissipated almost as quickly as it came.

I entered what my parents refer to as my “Dark Period”. It was the beginning of the most beautifully tragic time of my thirty years on this planet. A pain that I can look back on now with such an appreciation for. There was a complexity and depth to what I experienced for years that makes me who I am today. It allows me to tell the story with an insight I never would have had without walking that path.

I will share more about that period at some point. But not now.

I got lost on this tangent because I recently realized something that I have not yet fully digested. I am growing up. The years of melancholy incubation is shedding from me like the molting of an old skin that no longer fits this life.

I just Googled “molting” for a visual reference and was lead to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge. There is a .gif timelapse clip of a cicada molting. An arguably repugnant looking bug that breaks open it’s exoskeleton to emerge as a slightly more attractive creature with large wings. The metaphor is quite beautiful actually.

That exoskeleton, the full-body armor that I shielded myself in has slowly been disassembled over the past few years since rehab — one appendage at a time. Maybe just a pinkie at first. Then a thumb. Pointer finger. After a couple of months, my entire right hand was free. Bit by bit the self-loathing, uncomfortable, sad and bitter shell began to fall. With each chink in armor, the light I lost from childhood began to shine again.

I have my bitch moments. My victim days. Whine sessions. I want to tell people to fuck off more often than I should. I struggle. I get in my head and have a hard time getting out. I’ll always love dark days with deep emotion because that is what I’ve always known. I listen to sad music with heavy lyrics and sullen voices. Tortured artists make me smile and blush.

I think the point is that I’ll always be that squeaky, bouncy little kid who performs for his family in makeshift tank top dresses. I’ll always be that awkward sixth grader who

wrote poetry about his purpose in life. I’ll always be that preteen who read books about Witchcraft and attempted spells as revenge on kids who bullied me. I’ll always be swimming in blue shag rug under glow-in-the-dark stars, because that is where it began. I will always be the drug addict who found solace in pain and pain in solace. The artist who found a voice by losing himself.

For so long I had to compartmentalize these things as who I was, who I am and who I wished I could be. The past was painful because it was something I could never have again, the present was miserable because I was never happy, and the future just seemed like it was always out of reach. I was this being who treaded water in limbo, waiting for something that would ultimately never be enough.

But I am beginning to see that I am all of these things. I am past, present and future. Nothing is lost because it all shapes me and in turn I shape what lies ahead.

This is my fabric — all the tears, patterns and beautiful imperfections. With it I have everything I had been searching for all along.

This talk of growth and personal revelation is so much easier said than done. But I guess that’s the whole point of the journey. To keep on walking, experiencing and learning. From the balcony of a cruise ship seven days ago to sitting on my couch at home with The Walking Dead paused on TV. Shit changes so quick, but at the end of the day I’ve always got me. And that will never change.

And so the story continues.

[Extended blink]

March Eighteenth: When We Cease To Exist, Hi Dad

Faint snores rise and fall next to me, filling our otherwise dark and silent room with signs of life. Chris’ bodily hums and groans gain momentum then again slow, fading into our night-drenched bedroom. It’s oddly comforting. Continuous sounds that let me know he is still here — alive and not possessed by a disgruntled spirit from Paranormal Activity. Because sometimes I think either of those two could randomly occur during the night. Doesn’t everyone?

I’ve got Max, our lab-mix, resting at my feet tucked under the covers. I feel his rapid heart race as his little body rises and falls every second. Emma is laying quietly for a change between me and Chris, curled in fetal position,

her paw extended out onto my leg.

Then there is me, typing letter by letter on my iPhone since I still have no desire to pass out before midnight.  But the fact that I just closed my eyes for a moment and had a full lucid dream that I was making pot brownies at a girl’s house from High School makes me think I should go to bed.

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. In my post REM haze, I half thought the default ring was the alarm letting me know that 6am had arrived far too quickly and Chris and I were due for our bi-weekly morning walk on the beach.

But it was no such alarm.

It was in fact my phone ringing. Before I could totally comprehend what was happening, Chris told me to hurry and pick up the call. It was the alarm company. They had just received a panic signal going off at our office. The police were en route.

It is now 3:48am and I meet Chris over at the studio. The police had arrived and were parked side by side like two sharks patiently waiting for Nemo. My heart still races every time I see police cars. A moment of, “Oh shit I’m gonna get caught, hide the…”

But then I realize it’s ok and I awkwardly overcompensate by waving and thanking them for their service so I come off as cool and calm with absolutely nothing to be suspicious about. There are no drugs in my system, officer.

I am not hiding any pills or cocaine in my glove compartment, officer. Or under my seat. In my back console. In my pocket, officer. Smile and sweat. Those days are long gone but the residue of fear and guilt still remain.

A balloon in our studio apparently set off the motion sensor and sounded for the troops. A Mylar birthday balloon that had been hiding in the wooden rafters for the past few months finally made itself known in a big way. I have a love hate feeling toward that balloon now.

So I type away letter by letter on my iPhone again unable to fall back asleep. Something my father said earlier keeps drifting through my head and is taking up prime occupancy. He had major open-heart surgery fifteen years ago. A seven-bypass procedure that changed all of us forever.

He has since recovered and life continued to move forward. Our relationship was strained along the way, especially during those High School and College years post coming out as gay. Throw in my ongoing drug abuse and sprinkle on an array of colorful mental instability. Come to think of it, I can’t imagine I gave his heart much of a break after the surgery.

I was on the way to my psychologist’s office after work today, talking to my father on the phone about a mess of shit he is dealing with. He opened up for the first time since the heart surgery about his own mortality. How the effectiveness of his procedure is not a permanent fix and he fears that more as almost two decades have passed since the surgery. That life is too short to get caught up in the bullshit. How we have to appreciate each other and live positively. The reality of death is in fact a reality that becomes more clear as the years continue to pass.

I lay here unable to shake the idea that my father will not always be around. That I was a total fucking mess of a son who put his parents through so much shit. Heartache and disappointment that goes deeper than I could have understood then. But it is what was, not what is.

Our relationship today is actually a relationship. Not this burden fueled by anger, resentment and ignorance of each other.

As I got older I realized just how much I am like my father, in more ways than I ever would have appreciated when I was younger.

[Max is snoring next to me.]

There is a depth to my father that I recognize today. One that I think became more beautiful as he and I got older. I am able to understand him better, now having life experience that allows us to relate. There is a mutual acceptance of one another, something that was not easy to come by. We battled through most of my teen years, never seeing eye to eye about anything.

I remember waiting at the bus stop in our development at age twelve, I was in seventh grade. I attempted to leave the house wearing a Kurt Cobain t-shirt and safety pin necklace that I had made the night before. My father matched my keen new fashion sense with a verbal slap in the face and an immediate order to change. Clearly he did not understand my deep spiritual connection with the late Cobain whose face I wore on my chest like a neon sign flashing I AM COOL. So naturally I put on a father-approved nondescript shirt over Kurt, hid the necklace in my Jansport and did a Superman-like transformation at the bus stop. I felt so rebellious at twelve years old, shedding my clothes in front of the other kids. Revealing the outfit my parents banned. Showing my peers that I was pretty much a badass and they should recognize my innate specialty, or at least maybe talk to me. There was a lot riding on that Kurt Cobain t-shirt and safety pin necklace. It was my in with the grunge kids.

My secret weapon from total Middle School annihilation. It never did work.

I proudly showcased the shirt that I was certain would define my identity as an angst ridden, alt-rock rebel. But as I stood waiting anxiously for my fellow bus riders to offer their admiration, my father slowly drove by in what felt like cinematic style slow-motion. He glared at me through his tinted Honda Accord window with eyes that mangled my insides very much like that first bare-handed dig when gutting a pumpkin on Halloween. I knew then it was over.

And that’s how our relationship went for many years. He had his ideas, I had mine. He had his opinions, I had mine. I snuck around, lied and kept things hidden. But he always seemed to be a step ahead or way more aware than I gave either of my parents credit for at the time. They knew most of what I was doing, or at least figured out my delinquency fairly quick. I see today he only wanted what he thought would keep me out of trouble. Keep kids from dragging me through hell. But man I just needed to figure myself out.

I can’t shake the sudden realization that this movie could come to an end at anytime. That it will come to an end. My father will eventually die, like anyone, and I’ll be left with memories that become more distant over time.

This man who has been with me since my conception, who knows more about me than I am sure I’d like him to, will one day be gone. And life will continue to cycle on. His footprint will have been made, many people will say things like, “His memory lives on.”  Blah, blah, blah.

But I really don’t want to lose him.

What I’ve learned in time is that my father (and I focus on my father specifically because of our rough past) is pretty awesome. He is a man of strength, understanding, patience and love. He is passionate, dedicated and creative. He is a man of follow-through and experience. I feel so fortunate to have him as part of my fabric, a main thread in my continued creation.

Those unbelievably long talks he had with me as a kid, the unbearable hour long “lectures” that I tuned out, have begun to resurface and actually make sense today. Talks about doing the right thing, treating others with respect, not caring what people think. God I wanted him to stop talking back then. I don’t think I could have rolled my eyes any further into the back of my head or given clearer body language to communicate that I was an unwilling participant in these conversations.

I only wanted to hear what I wanted to hear. Story of my life. I’m sure Chris would say the same about me today. I know Chris would say the same about me today. Stubborn and sensitive, to say the least.

I have never feared the death of my parents. Except for once as a kid I remember waking up crying after having had a dream about my mom dying then coming to visit me as a ghost in my elementary school cafeteria. But other than that, I never acknowledged that they would someday cease to exist. Especially now when Chris and I are planning to have kids of our own, I need my folks to see their grandchildren grow up. I need them to teach what they taught me.

But that’s where I come in.

Where I do what they say and keep his memory alive. Because I am a direct extension of my parents. I am my mother. I am my father.

I will pass on my dad’s love for awesome music, the bands he brought me up listening to. My kids will know The Beatles, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and Motown. They will understand the expression: we all shit the same.

Even in death we are remembered. But in life we must have gratitude for who and what we have. Because death is never a good reason to find an appreciation for life.

My dad is way cooler alive than he will be dead. So I’d much rather him know that now, for us continue growing together so I can pass his message along.

I’m sure I just did by writing this.

Hi dad.

Sean: Part One, The Great Brit

I don’t know how to talk about Sean. Where to begin. It was one of the darkest times in my life, one that had the promise of an epic love story but twisted into something much more uncomfortable. Uncomfortable to revisit. Still shameful to talk about.

Sean was the embodiment of so many things. He was brought to me by the powers that be, to help me reach a point of complete despair. Where I can now understand the depths of sadness, of loneliness, a spiritual pain that still holds scars like trophies of war.

This story is his just as much as it is mine. He wrote it as passionately and recklessly as I did. As I lived it.

I met Sean in December of 2004 while snorting cocaine and talking to guys on the internet. I was a student at Florida State University in Tallahassee, living in a 3 bedroom townhouse with two friends. My token Asian, Kia, and an on-again-off-again vegan bitch named Maria. Pronounced MarEEEuh. An affected pronunciation for an affected waste of space. The two girls were polar opposites, but the three of us connected somehow.

I kept my bedroom locked and dimly lit most of the time. With a mattress on the floor. Ikea paper floor lamps glowing in the corner, and makeshift shelves that held random artifacts with no particular meaning or order. I stayed in that room most days, while most nights I snuck guys in to have secretive, drug induced sex until the sun came up. This hush-hush activity was a normal occurrence through my teenage years. Probably part of my twenties, too.

I kept my computer on a snack table perched next to my mattress where I laid down to watch TV and meet boys online like it was my job. Chat rooms and random gay websites were saved or kept open so I could quickly manage incoming prospective opportunities. It was a hunt, a mission to find the one I was meant to be with. The companion I sought for so long but just ended up with my pants down before the conversation went too far. When in reality I wanted to find my twin, that other self who was an extension of me. Who understood the sadness I felt, the loneliness. Who thought like I did and shared the insanity.

This twin, my second self, was someone I longed for in a brother as a kid, or a friend growing up. Another person who was as broken and isolated as I was. So I met guys online.

Scoped them out to make sure they didn’t like to go to clubs or bars. They exuded a melancholy demeanor that bordered on depression while still maintaining a level of wonder about life. Someone who liked to shell up, lived in blue light and an incubated state of beautiful sadness. Who dissected life and wore his emotions like a brilliantly carved sculpture.

And then he came.Sean messaged me sometime in December as GuyFSU02.  It was a window left open just before the storm swept in.

Light communication back and forth. The standard operation and procedure of guys cruising on the internet.

Name, Age, Location, Stats, What are you looking for?, Pic?

Side note: Modest Mouse’s “Gravity Rides Everything” just started playing on my iTunes as I write and the timing couldn’t be any more perfect. “Everything will fall right into place…”  This song wraps me like a blanket as I type in a blue-lit room nearing midnight.

We got our initial interrogation out of the way, approving each other’s entry exam. Sean said he was 6”1, 20, living in a house about 10 minutes from mine, looking for whatever. Generally that meant a golden ticket for immediate sex, but this time we actually started to talk. Our sarcastic banter began almost immediately. Back and forth like a pro tennis match.

“Do you just want to call me?” I messaged him, noticing an overwhelming build-up of excitement as I felt like he could be the one.

By this point I began to pack a bowl. I stuffed my Pyrex pipe with some of Tallatrashy’s finest selection of pot sourced directly from my neighbor. I held the piece to my lips and sparked the lighter, slowly inviting the burn of smoke down my throat and into my lungs. I held it for a few seconds, focusing on the warm glow that softly illuminated the walls, casting sharp shadows off every shape in the room. I’ve always been a glutton for ambience. Especially when doing drugs, the lighting always had to be perfect. I felt like I was living in a movie, creating an experience. The moment, the soundtrack, the dim but not dark bedroom that encapsulated my everything. Held my emotion, my feeling, my spirit.

AOL messenger chimed and my heart momentarily stopped. That chime was crucial when cruising guys online. It was the sound of interest and approval. That the fish was still on the hook.

“Sure,” he responded.

I sent him my phone number. Every second that passed felt like someone was twisting my innards. Until he called about thirty seconds later. I eagerly picked up the phone but strategically sounded nonchalant so as not to come off like a crazy person.That is until he spoke.

“Hallo.”A beautifully smooth English accent greeted me. Like yards of silk billowing out in the open air, dancing and gliding with every slight gust of wind or breeze that catches its stride. That was his voice. And it immediately became a drug. There are unexplainable connections sometimes when you just know that whatever is going on is absolutely, without a doubt, meant to be happening. I don’t know what it was about his voice, about his accent, but I knew in that very greeting that he and I were meant for something special. But I had no idea what lie ahead.

We talked for hours. Well into the early morning. I paced back and forth in my bedroom, smiling and laughing, occasionally walking outside to smoke a cigarette. His words echoed mine. His thoughts reflected mine. His laughs were perfectly timed to my attempts at witty sarcasm and a cynical world view. His bitter superiority matched with an idyllic isolation was like heroine to me. Sean very quickly began to mold into my lost twin, the phantom limb that I felt for so many years but could never find. My appendage had arrived.

Sean was from London. His father is neurosurgeon who was transferred to Tampa, Florida several years ago. His mother died of cancer when he was younger. He and his father had a rough relationship, especially after his mom passed. Sean lived an extremely privileged life, one that I imagined myself having been suited for. He lived that special, tortured existence that I so admired. A wealthy Brit with a dark sense of humor, studying Psychology to understand his own mental deficiencies. We bonded over depression, loneliness, and a mutual love of music and film. Our conversation would go from feelings of abandonment during childhood to how we would creatively murder someone then to Hollywood celebrities in a matter of minutes. We both had a very dark side that wove its way into our dialogue almost immediately.

“Let’s meet,” I urged him. “I know it’s soon but I really have to meet you.” I lied. It wasn’t soon. I was generally already kicking a guy out of my bedroom after meeting him online at this point. But I certainly did not want to seem like a charlatan. At this point I was not worried about sounding too eager or excited, I knew he shared my kinship.

But I felt the first stab of disappointment by the hesitance in his voice. He had to help a friend move in a few hours and needed to get rest beforehand. He told me how happy he was to have found me. That we would see each other before parting from Tallahassee for winter break in a few short days. He was heading back to Tampa and I would be en route to Pembroke Pines for the few weeks off from school.  I knew my holiday vacation would be crushed if I did not meet Sean.

We talked for another hour or so before finally hanging up the phone. For the first time in many years, I felt hopeful. A smile formed on my face as I clicked off my lamp and curled up on my mattress for the remaining couple of hours of night.

My thoughts went from Sean and I traveling the world together, to us being an unstoppable duo with an innate air of superiority. We were better than everyone.

More special than anyone. We would live in seclusion somewhere in England because we were too good for the world. I had found my perfect mate, my identity, my other self. Nothing else mattered anymore. *****

Winter break came and I never was able to meet Sean. For one reason or another it never seemed to work out. But we talked on the phone everyday. He hated the holidays. Being home was a reminder of his father’s distance and neglect. Being home for me was a reminder of everything I would never have again. Security. Comfort. Childhood.

We spent nights talking about a mutual disdain for people. For those who did not understand. Understand what exactly, I am not too sure. But there was certainly something that the world did not understand about us. About our innate entitlement and general superiority. It was a bond over years of pain and self torment. Sadness and loneliness. Lone companions united over a melancholy existence. Sounds all very Smashing Pumpkins. But that is what we were. Living in a movie together, filled with idealized dreams and romanticized depressive tendencies.

I lay in my twin bed back home at my parents house night after night, racking up cell phone minutes as our conversations never could really meet an end. We were one, and without the other life quickly seemed far less interesting. It was just that — life. Whereas together, it was the most beautifully crafted epic novel that had never been written.

And then one day his call did not come.

Then another.

My mounting worry grew into an anxious and lingering disease that manifested as anger toward my parents. Isolation from any friends. I was once again a snail looking for a shell. I must have scared him off. Shown him too much of myself. I am fucked up. What’s wrong with me?

And after two days of self-loathing, the phone rang.

“Hallo.”  That voice. My heart stopped.“Sean what happened? Where have you been?” I attempted to sound less concerned and frantic than I actually was. I doubt I was successful.

He sounded different. Detached. Solemn. I was in my bedroom, midday with the blinds shut. Lights off. The faint struggle of sunlight through the wooden slats resulted in a dim glow in an otherwise shadowed room. A metaphor for my current mental state.

“I had an accident. My father put me in the hospital.”

An accident. It wasn’t me. And my concern for him grew. “Sean are you ok? What happened?”

He went on to explain that he had cut open his leg on the edge of a glass table. It went deep and his father sent him to the emergency room. Ten or so stitches later, he was back home.

In a matter of time we were back to conversation as usual. “There was so much blood. You would have loved it. I want to pick at the stitches. I missed you so much.”And just like that I became human again.  Or something close to it. Life resumed as we melted into each other once again.

“I want to see you. I want to touch you. To hold you.” Sean’s voice sleepily whispered one night as we both lay in bed with the phone pressed to our ear. Late night laughing always became early morning longing for one another. Like clockwork our tone would get softer, eyes would close in exhaustion. Words continued to flow in a dreamlike state, whispers, drawn out sentences. “You are so fucking strange. I love it. I want to be in bed with you right now. Put you in my arms. Feel your chest as you breath. Your heart beat.”

His words were intoxicating. They were a warm blanket that wrapped my soul and made life okay. My need to be with Sean became painful. More unbearable every time we spoke. We planned to see each other immediately after winter break. Christmas and New Year couldn’t end fast enough.

The days dragged on. Sean began to obsess over his wound more and more. “I want to open it back up. I keep playing with the stitches.” I told him to stop. But he kept focusing on this deep cut in his leg, eventually beginning to irritate it. I could hear something in his voice, something dark and irritable.

“What’s wrong? I can tell you’re off,” I said.

He hesitated.

“Sean?”

“Just fucking stop.”

He had never pushed back.

“Just tell me. You can tell me anything. You know that.”

He was silent but I knew he was beginning to open up.

“I’m fucked up, Ryan. We can’t keep doing this.”My heart broke. I went into panic mode almost immediately. “Stop it. You can tell me whatever is going on.  I’m here for you, Sean. Please just tell me what’s happening.”

“I didn’t fall on the glass table,” he said, “I cut myself with a razor.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been doing it for a long time. I didn’t want to tell you.”

I felt a fear and worry that I had never experienced. He explained that he had been cutting himself for years. His father had sent him to therapy, he had been on medication. Nothing helped.

“I don’t think I want to stop,” he said one night, “ I like the way it feels. I like to see how deep I can go.” Our conversations would get darker as he opened up more about cutting himself.

But I followed him down the rabbit hole. I loved the emotional wreckage, suddenly feeling like I was not alone. That I had someone to walk with. Someone I began to imagine sitting up all night with to talk, bringing to my parents house for dinner. The more he opened up, the closer we became. I was upfront about almost everything in my life, from my desires to my demons. I told Sean things that no one knew, skeleton after skeleton crept out from my deepest of closets and he accepted them all. I had nothing to hide.

Continue This Blog Visit

http://twelveonefive.com/sean-part-one-the-great-brit