Self image: A Letter

Well tomorrow’s the big day. I was just playing my bass. The song I wound up with was “Yours Is No Disgrace,” an oldie by Yes from their third album. Now I’d like to listen to that one again soon… I thought last night that I’ve been under a great deal of pressure and stress since this year began. I agreed to do a lot of things that I probably should have refused to do, so it wouldn’t turn into a runaway train. From the start with Misty I got talked into stuff I didn’t really want to be involved in. For some reason I couldn’t say no to her. I spent the last weekend feeling pretty miserable, remembering the way I drank 18 packs in 2017. That was the year I finally quit drinking. I’m not sure what triggered these memories, unless it was just being stressed out.

You know, with the schizophrenia and everything, sometimes my life just seems hopeless and not worthwhile.

I think I’ll go take a nap right now and write more to you a bit later.

I’m quite certain that I feel so lousy due to having been manipulated and forced into this situation. Maybe I shouldn’t blame myself but rather Laurel Hill and all these government organizations that steamroll right over your human rights, shoving their version of what’s appropriate down your throat. And of course I feel mad and resentful about all that. So maybe the thoughts I had about drinking 18 packs were a desperate attempt to rebel and feel free. The same is true for reading Native Son. Underneath it all, I have very strong libertarian feelings traceable to my teens and twenties.

Perhaps I’m just a divided person? There’s the Robert before schizophrenia and after schizophrenia, but I want to believe in the continuity of my identity throughout my life.

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Impasse

Midnight hour. I definitely dreamed about a religious end of the world tonight. I had to make a wager on the existence of hell so I bet there was no such place. The upshot was basically that it is so if you think so. What you don’t believe can’t hurt you.

I’d like to really call it quits with my family after everything that has happened since Mom passed away. Write it off as a big mistake. My parents had a different surname and a different worldview from the rest of the family. And a generation separates me from my sister. This December, my mother will have been dead for twenty years; it seems like a good cutoff point with the past. My mind has been working on this problem all this month in piecemeal fashion, and now the objective is made clear. But do I really have the heart to disown my blood relatives to be free and happy? Ugh. The answer is likely yes, because of the conversation with my sister just two weeks ago about human rights versus religious freedom. Unfortunately, the phenomenon of mental illness goes with the territory of the former. As an example, last Thursday I saw a T-shirt at the agency that read, “We’re all human,” the last word filled with rainbow colors. It seems that my family and I are at an irreconcilable impasse as long as they follow the lead of my fundamentalist Christian sister. Either someone has to compromise or else our relationship is doomed— at least until Pride Month is over. And even then there will be further hurdles. We can expect this for the next four years… 

Sanctuary

Eleven o’clock.

I’m having a lousy morning. I hear more and more people mouth off about sexual morality, the attitudes they learn from a literal interpretation of the Bible. Where would these people be without the Bible to do their thinking for them? I wish this ancient and dated book didn’t exist. I doubt if my sister even knows what language the New Testament is written in… Oh well, I just have to keep living and fighting for my right to a place in this world. I walk around the house and say to myself, This is not my house and this is not my life. I’m not in charge of my life. Instead, it is controlled by intruders… Stupid people get up in arms for stupid reasons. LGBTQ is the new political bone of contention, after the old one of abortion. A voice in my head says very simply, I want to go home. Home would be a place of safety and sanctuary, of comfort and security. But the house I inhabit feels nothing like that. If I could fast forward my life to the very end, maybe I would do this and get it over with.

Noon. I remember the article in Equality magazine about Rev. Fred Phelps, the demonstrator against human rights, with a photo of him holding a sign saying, “God Hates Fags.”

Obviously I feel very strongly on this topic. I also sympathize with Jewish people for what they have to go through. I will go ahead and publish this post, and damn the torpedoes. 

Pride: a Letter

Another interesting kind of day today. Polly said some astonishingly bigoted things just as we are kicking off Pride Month. Now I think there must be at least two Jesus Christs in the world: one who loves all people and a second who hates a great many people. Polly’s Jesus is the latter. I guess that’s all I want to say about that for right now. But it surely infuriated me this morning. My temper cooled off later when I played my blue Fender bass for probably ninety minutes. I tightened the truss rod to ease playability and eventually I forgot all about my sister. Next, I went online and ordered a really nice Di Marzio pickup for the same bass I’d just been playing. They were only asking $69 for the part, so I couldn’t resist. I love the Model P pickup: it produces a very creamy bass tone using a ceramic magnet under the pickup housing. Currently the item is back ordered from the manufacturer until probably August. I imagine they sell a lot of them, which is great for such a great product.

Church tomorrow will be with a substitute pastor, if I even decide to go this time. It would be rather difficult for me after hearing Polly spout off this morning. Ugh! I think I’ll stay home with Aesop and maybe read a good book. The only truth I know is people and their conflicting opinions. And just for the record, Heidi has a daughter who is a transgender guy!

There’s an excellent line in Lord of the Flies where Simon suggests, “Maybe the beastie is only us.” The other boys laugh at him, but I think he hit it on the head.

I think I’ve said before that the world is making it much harder to be just a person, whatever you are. It isn’t fair and it isn’t right, but all I can do about this is write and publish my thoughts and feelings.

Sunday of serenity to you.