"What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you." That is a quote by Richard Wilbur. Wilbur is an American poet and college professor who has won two Pulitzer Prizes for his poetry; one in 1957, and another in 1989. Unfortunately, I have never read any of Wilbur's work, although I plan to correct that error at some time in the near future.
To get back to Wilbur's quote, it really hits too close to home for me. In my mind, I need to modify it a bit though to really make it fit. "A lonely me, a dead you." The holidays have been a tough time for me over the past few years, and no matter what I do, it doesn't really change. I seem to be the type that can be lonely in a crowded room. I don't seem to be lonely due to a lack of people... I am more lonely due to a lack of people to share my heart with. I miss the closeness of knowing one person really well. So well, that I can say anything to them. That feeling is the main thing missing in my life right now, and at times it can make me sad. Sharon and I had our troubles, but we always had the ability to communicate with each other with just a look or touch. To know someone understands where you are coming from on all levels is a great comfort. It's a comfort that I find very hard to come by. Sure, I talk with people. Although I jokingly say I am a recluse at karate, due to the fact that I work from home, and rarely go out during the week accept to go for coffee or to workout at the dojo, I am not really a recluse. I can easily talk with most people and keep up my end of the conversation. What throws me off occasionally, is the why of the matter. Usually, I understand why a conversation is going in the direction that t is going, and whether it is something serious or just idle chit chat, I usually know what's what. It is those odd times when a conversation takes a step towards the bizarre where I really get lost and feel lonely (oddly enough). Something will be said, and I will feel like I should be getting some kind of connection from what was just said, and instead I get this feeling of confusion and nothingness. Those are moments that are best shared with someone you love. A look or a nod would be enough to let me know that I wasn't really the crazy one. Now, I hit that point, and I just feel like what happened was really weird and I have no clue what is going on and no way to really check to see WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED! You know, the sad part is, that really isn't it. That seemed like a way to start to describe what I am missing, but it really isn't that. There just seems to be a really huge empty hole in me where my feelings used to reside that is now just an empty cavern. My thoughts go to where these feelings used to be and gets lost there. They wander for hours in a cavern of what was and what might have been. Memories can be a great comfort, but they can be a private hell as well. I guess what I am trying to say is that there is a type of loneliness that being around people really can't cure... and it happens a lot around the holidays. At least for me. Sometimes being busy can be a balm. At the same time, it can also be a scourge. I think at the holidays many people miss the power of two. I know I do.
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"When watching after yourself, you watch after others. When watching after others, you watch after yourself." That, of course, is a quote by Buddha. The interesting thing about Buddha is that everyone quotes him, but he has no actual writings of his own. In fact, the first sayings written as Buddha's were written about four hundred years after his death.
Have you ever played a game of pass the secret? That's the game where one person starts with a message and then whispers it into the ear of the person sitting to their left. Everyone is in a circle by the way... Well, by the time the "secret" gets back to the original person, the secret is nothing near to what was actually said to begin with! Well, now think about doing that for four hundred years. I am guessing that if any of "his" sayings ever got back to Buddha he would have a Yogi Berra moment. .. "I haven't said half the things they say I said!" Anyway, to get back to the quote, I don't care if Buddha actually said it or not, I believe there is some truth to it. It is particularly true when you are watching after others. Here is a personal example: As many of you know, my wife was an alcoholic, and she drank herself to death. What you might not know is that I am also an alcoholic. I have been sober for seventeen years. When I first met my wife, we both drank. While I drank socially, always with other people, my wife was more of a sneak drinker. So much so, that I didn't even know she had a drinking problem until we were already dating for a couple of weeks! It was at that point that Sharon told me she was an alcoholic and asked me to help her to stop drinking. She asked me, because she did not know how heavily I drank (since I did it mainly on the weekends and occasionally after work). At first I just thought she meant that she drank too much socially, and I told her that in the two weeks that I had known her I only saw her have a couple of drinks. It was at that point that she opened her pocket book and showed me her bottle of vodka. She had a one liter bottle in her pocketbook and it was about halfway gone. She was drinking daily, then, including while she was at work... and I never would have known. At that moment, I promised her that I would help her to quit, and it was then that I had my last drink. That was back in July 1999. Sharon never stopped drinking, even with all of my "help". I literally took hundreds of bottles from her over the years, but it did no good. In 2013, she died of esophageal varices, which was caused by the damage she did to her liver while drinking. To bring it back full circle, in trying to save my wife, I ended up saving myself. (When watching after others, you watch after yourself.} In the end, although I tried my hardest, no one can really save anyone who is caught in an addiction...they must save themselves. BUT, in trying to save Sharon, I ended up saving myself. Sharon and I divorced in 2011 to protect the children. I have raised Maddie alone since she was seven and Ashleigh since the day she came home from the hospital. It pains me that I could not help Sharon. Psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, in patient, out patient, AA... none of it worked with Sharon. It ended up she had addictive personality disorder, but we didn't find that out until it was way too late. I held Sharon for the last six hours of her life after they removed her from life support. She died in my arms. When we first met, I never thought that our last embrace would be in death. I didn't realize how badly she needed help, and I never guessed that I would not be able to give it to her. I was naive, and I felt that if I just stopped drinking myself, I would be able to provide all of the willpower she needed for her to do the same. The other night, someone on Imgur put up a picture of the token they received from AA for being sober for one year. It really touched me, and made me think of Sharon, and myself. I congratulated them, told them how long I had been sober and said "Take it one day at a time, my friend." For those of you who are not afflicted with alcoholism, I can tell you from experience becoming sober is not an easy thing to do. In fact, some never quite make it. Like my wife. Rest in peace Sharon. For those of you still suffering with alcoholism, seek help. AA is a great place to start, and there are in-patient programs that may be of help as well. "Goodness is the only investment that never fails." That's a quote by Henry David Thoreau. I am always a little leery of a person that uses three names. It always rubs me the wrong way. I can't think of any reason why this would be. Other than John Wayne Gacy, I can't think of anyone in particular who was evil and used three names. Well, maybe Hillary Rodham Clinton might fit in that category too. At any rate, I don't really have anything bad to say about old Henry so I might as well get back to the quote.
I can see how it would be easy to think that being good would lead to good results, but this is not always the case. The problem is, that not everybody defines good in the same way. Also, sometimes good won't work... Take addiction, for instance. Addictions are very hard to beat, and although you may think you are doing good you could be doing the opposite without realizing it. My wife had addictive personality disorder. This was just a way of saying that she had many addictions going on simultaneously. While we were married, I only really knew of two of them... while some of the others were there, I just thought they were really odd behavior tied to the two or three things I knew about. The ones I knew about, I naturally tried to help her fight. I would sweep the house for bottles of booze, keep her away from social situations that would trigger bouts of drinking, and try not to say things that would trigger excessive dieting (she was an alcoholic and also fought anorexia). It ends up, the psychologists called me an enabler since I didn't kick her out of the house and tell her that her behavior was unacceptable. Well, for the last three years of her life, Sharon was not in our house. She lived on her own and she only had supervised visits with the children. Listening to the psychologists, you would think that Sharon would have gotten better. "She needed to hit bottom" a number of them said. One went so far as to say that she would not see Sharon anymore since she was not following her instructions. This little end came once Sharon fell off the wagon and had gotten drunk one night. Given Sharon's inability to stop drinking was the key reason we were seeing her, I found this social worker's reason for abandoning working with Sharon pathetic. The one positive thing I will say about working with that particular social worker was, she was the only one to ever diagnose Sharon accurately in my opinion. She is the one that diagnosed her with addictive personality disorder. Up until that point, we thought we were only fighting alcoholism and anorexia/binge eating. So what was really good and what was bad? In this instance I don't really know. I divorced Sharon to protect the girls, since her behavior was getting too erratic and really was dangerous for the baby. The psychologists said I needed to show her there was repercussions for her drinking. Three years after we first separated, Sharon drank herself to death. In those three years she was on her own, she never hit a bottom that couldn't fall deeper. After living through it all, I can say that Sharon needed more help than I could give her... or anyone for that matter. The doctors could not help her, I could not help her, the in-patient and out-patient programs could not help her. She needed to help herself. I feel bad that the last three years of her life was spent without me and her daughters by her side throughout it. To this day, my heart is with Sharon. She was my wife and I loved her deeply. She could not be around our children regularly, because of her drinking... And that hurt her tremendously. It hurt me too, and the girls. Ashleigh was never raised by Sharon. I brought her home from the hospital when she was four days old, and I raised her on my own. Ashleigh still remembers her Mom, but more as a friend who played with her. She was three when Sharon died. Maddie was eleven. The anniversary of Sharon's death comes up in four days. This time always makes me look back and think could I have done anything different that would have helped Sharon. My answer is no. I loved her with all of my heart. I tried to do what I thought was best. Later, I tried to do what the doctors said, even though I did not think it was best. Sometimes, the good can be the bad and the ugly as well. In the end, do what you believe is good, but like anything else, know that sometimes being good isn't going to be enough. "Better three hours too soon than a minute too late!" That's a quote by William Shakespeare. Just goes to show that sometimes being a good writer just comes down to saying something in such a way that everyone gets it.
Take the above quote, for instance. What do you think of when you read that sentence? I can almost guarantee that you don't think of the same thing that I do. In fact, you could read that line every day, and, depending on your mood, you may think of something different. If it's early in the morning, and you are in a light-hearted mood, you might think of your first cup of coffee. If you are stressed out, it might remind you of a looming deadline at work. For me, it always reminds me of the same damn thing. And for the rest of my life, I think it always will. You see, this isn't the first time I have read that quote. Indeed, I see it all the time. The words may change a little... or the picture it is attached to. It doesn't matter. No matter how it is presented, it makes me think of my wife, and the things left unsaid between us. My wife's death came as a shock to me. Not that I didn't know she was struggling with problems that could eventually lead to death... I knew that! But just the way it happened. We never think that today may be the last day we see someone. Or, in my case, the last day we can get to say something to them and have them understand. You see, I got to see my wife each day for two weeks while she lay in a coma. She had died three times already by then, but the doctors kept reviving her. To me, those two weeks don't count. For me, the last time I spoke to my wife was on the day before I left for New Jersey with the girls to go to a concert with Madison. This was about two days before Sharon was hospitalized. We had stopped by to say good bye, and we spoke to her for a few minutes. Sharon hadn't been feeling well for the past few weeks and she seemed down. I thought it was because we were going away for a few days. As we got up to leave, Sharon came up to me and gave me a long hug, and whispered I love you into my ear. We were divorced by this time and just giving each other little perfunctory kisses on the cheek when we either came or went... you know, kind of like you do to people who are in your family, but you don't speak to a lot. Thus I was surprised when she did that. I wasn't surprised that she still loved me. I loved her as well. But that she would give me the long hug and say that almost as if she expected never to see me again. I, of course, didn't understand. She was saying her last goodbye. I just didn't realize. Never understood that she was that close to dying. For me, there were so many things left unsaid. So many things that tear me up inside because I was never able to tell her. There is no physical pain that can be worse than knowing you have things that have been left unsaid. Nowadays, I make sure to say I love you to my daughters multiple times per day. I figure it is better to be a lifetime early than even a second too late. None of us really know when we are going to take our last breath. Any of us could die tomorrow. Thus it's better to make sure that you say those things you feel to the people around you. Express love to your loved ones. Friendship to your friends and appreciation for those who help to make your life a better place. You never know when there will be no tomorrow. I learned this lesson a little too late. Don't let it happen to you. They say the early bird gets the worm. To be honest, I think that bird gets peace of mind! |
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