tedbedlam

2010 almost, just a couple of months away. Almost two years since I left Athens, almost three since Caitlin and I went our separate ways. A year or so since I've talked to her, a little less than two since I tossed myself in the Costa Rican waves on six hits of acid, hoping to drown. About the same amount of time since I started running every other day, working out, lifting weights, pushups, pullups, cruches. Four years since I saw my first psychiatrist, two since I saw my fifth and my last. Four years since I was first falsely diagnosed as an alcoholic, three and a half since schizophrenia, depression and attention deficit disorder, two since manic depression. Three years since I grabbed my right forefinger in a state of panic and bent it ninety degrees to the left, snapping the second joint out of its socket. A little less than two years working minimum wage, swimming in the recession, six months since making my last new friends. Two and a half years of promising to kill myself one day, twenty four years of failure. One and a half years moonlighting as a videographer, six as a moonlight purveyor of substances. Four years since my first legitimate arrest, one and a half since the last bullshit one and three until I'm unarrestable for things that nobody should be arrested for. Twelve or thirteen years in this godawful fucking state, in its schools, its jails and on its fucking roads. Three quarters of a year until Athens again, two to three until I leave. It's been uncountable years since I've been legitimately happy and years until I will be again. One real date in two and a half years, two weeks since my last possible love interest blew me off for the fifth and final time. Twenty four years of observation and you'd think I would have learned something to shed some light on why things are and why I am. Twenty four years and the best I have done is learn to feel as little as possible so as to avoid feeling more or worse than I'd like. These timelines are strategies and these strategies are flawed. The outcome envisioned is much brighter than the one received, the one received is never dark enough for legitimate change. Almost one quarter century and I am still where I was when I began. A babe in the woods, no nails on my fingers articulating the gestures of trees trying to make right with the dances of light through the shadows and skins of the leaves.

This has been an update. Athankew.