Ordinary World

“But I won’t cry for yesterday. There’s an ordinary world somehow I have to find…..”

As I drove to my new apartment this afternoon (in my new city after moving cross country again), those lyrics came on the radio. I found that fitting for a couple of reasons.

First, I’m now back in my old college town. And in my early years there, that was one of Duran Duran’s new hits (as they reinvented themselves with the dour sound that was the new rage in the music industry then). Good for them, I thought. Most ’80s bands never pulled that off in the ’90s. Anyway, I digress.

But the main reason it struck a chord is how all the lyrics describe my past and present. Even though they’re talking about losing a lost love interest instead, just substitute in my lost success and (currently) losing the city I call home for the time being.

“What has happened to it all?
Crazy, some’d say
Where is the life that I recognize?
Gone away.”

When I first decided that this move was necessary last year, I thought I might be able to stay in a decent enough frame of mind to improve life here (despite not being “home” anymore). But as the realization of it all hits deeper now, unfortunately I have my doubts about that.

I’m just not in the right frame of mind to move forward here. At least not yet. Given how much of my life that still needs fixed or improved, that’s a major problem. I find myself expecting to stay mired in my usual nostalgia and longing for the past. Wishing I was back where I want to be.

Wasting away more and more life. And slipping into an even deeper depressive funk.

At this point, I’m just hoping that this last lyric from the song will apply:

“And as I try to make my way
To the ordinary world
I will learn to survive”

The next stage

After a year living in my “target” city, I’ve now moved back across the country again (to help out with family matters). Found an apartment and will get moved in this week. It’s 30 minutes from the family’s house, which is close enough to always be easily available and make this major relocation worth it….while still giving the space that I really need.

Everyone keeps telling me not to think back or torture myself about leaving my old place again. But obviously that’s much easier said than done. At age 47, every year spent away from “home” is going to feel like one that I can’t afford to lose. And it could be many years before I can go back for good.

I’ll try to help my state of mind by making one or two long trips back per year. It won’t be nearly the same, but at least that will make the transition easier.

Still though….I’m concerned about how I’m going to react to this in the long run. It hasn’t hit me completely yet, but it will once I get completely settled in to the new apartment. A depressed person with little structure in life (living in an area that has too many toxic components) isn’t exactly in the best spot to improve and enjoy his situation.

So I’m not sure if I will be able to make the most of this. Or even avoid a much worse downward spiral.

Guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Depression and therapy….a still deeper look

This evening I watched a one-hour lecture on youtube by a leading clinical psychologist and depression expert called “how to recover from depression”. At least they got right to the point with that title, eh?

Here are my conclusions from it and how they relate (or, should I say, DON’T relate) much to my situation.

When it comes to making breakthroughs with someone’s depression, it was clear that this psychologist, who has been in the field for 40 years, is used to having to focus on these two factors:

People are often very poor at critical thinking and staying logical. It’s kind of sad how limited many are at those skills, and how often it keeps them stuck in a world of unrealistic and inaccurate feelings and thoughts.

And, lack of awareness. Naturally that one is even more exaggerated with those who are the most self-obsessed. Not just a lack of awareness of themselves, but also of the world around them.

So when you combine those variables, poor decision-making and focus obviously gets pretty severe. Especially when you factor in the negative emotions and moods involved with depression. And when it comes to therapy, basically they need to be taught practically everything about what’s going on and how to attempt improving themselves.

How does this compare to my own battle with depression then? Unfortunately, not too much.

Why? Because while my own demons and faults are naturally also quite lengthy, those factors above are two of my biggest strengths instead.

My main issues, as I’ve noted in this blog at times, are (going to greatly summarize here): willpower, caring enough about life, and subconsciously avoiding being happy on a regular basis.

And in the full hour that he spoke, guess how often he brings any of that up?

Yep. Not once.

This reinforces most of what I’ve learned and experienced before about this topic. Most therapists’ comfort zone is figuring out your issues, teaching you more about yourself, and recommending steps to solve the problems.

But what they don’t spend nearly enough time on is: how do you muster the energy and willpower to consistently DO what you should? I know that’s a lot tougher task than setting up the basics, but that doesn’t mean it should play second fiddle like it usually does.

Especially for someone in my situation.

And as far as that goes, I should also add that in addition to realistic analysis and awareness being some of my greatest strengths, you can also throw in how the lifelong work (in my very unusual career fields) goes back and forth between functioning as a career and a degenerative addiction. Hint: it has little to do with simply being addicted to your work. There’s another deeper and complicated level to it; one that I won’t belabor now.

While I’m sure they encounter the former occasionally, good luck finding someone who’s ever dealt with the unique career/problematic addiction combo.

Sooooo when you put it all together, you can see how after just one session learning my life story, situation, and strengths/weaknesses, every therapist I’ve ever tried is caught way off guard (and totally lost about what it all means and how to proceed).

And when that happens, I wish I could just scream “Don’t worry about it! I’ve already got most of the problems and probable solutions figured out. I just need to learn more about what actions to take for what’s holding me back (willpower, happiness, etc)”.

But that’s not how they seem to work. Of course they have their usual plan and procedures for giving their therapy. And it’d be completely unfair for them to have to deviate much from those. So I totally understand and accept why they don’t want to get so far out of their comfort zone.

Unfortunately though, it leaves me right back in my usual spot: having to tackle all of this on my own.

And regardless of how much you can figure out (and how much of a loner we are), everyone needs some support to dig out of a depressive hole this deep.

Which is just not there.

Family and stability (or lack thereof)

Been thinking some lately about how the absence of having people close in my life (especially family) has evolved over the years. And how that’s going to affect my future at this stage in life.

I grew up with mom’s side of the family; dad’s side lived two hours away and we never really meshed much. Lots of only children on that half of the family tree (including myself), so it was just dad, mom, her parents, and her aunt.

Starting with my teen years, naturally you start losing your older family members one by one. First my maternal grandfather, then her aunt and her mother. As you can imagine, that made things a good bit different.

Then about 15 years went by before I started to lose my dad’s side. Even though I wasn’t that close to them (other than my father), it still has some effect. In just a few years (during my early to mid 40s), my grandfather, father, and grandmother all passed too.

So now, at 47, my mother is all who’s left. I’m single with no kids, no siblings, and just an aunt and uncle (dad’s brother and sister) who don’t even know me that well.

Basically it’s just mom now.

And despite how many things about her are toxic and drive me crazy (and the fact that I’m so emotionally distant from the whole world), she provides one thing for me who no one else can at this point: stability. Having her constant involvement in my life keeps me and my volatile choices somewhat in check. Not entirely by ANY means, but enough to really help. That help doesn’t come from much direct involvement; it’s more about wanting to avoid the shame of her seeing me destroy myself too much (and also how that would affect her). All that matters is that it works, though.

But as you can imagine, this makes my longer-term future even more precarious that it would be otherwise (given my life situation). Because once she is gone, the main barrier that keeps me from more severe life lows will vanish. Obviously that is very concerning.

Especially since I still never find the willpower (or care enough) to try and improve myself and tame any of my demons. And I don’t know if that will ever change.

What IS known is the consequences if it doesn’t.

Rush, rush

“I wanna see…..I wanna see you get free with me”

It was the summer of 1991, and I was fortunate enough to be on a Carnival cruise (family vacation). At the back of the ship’s nightclub with some other teenagers that I’d met a few days prior. We shouldn’t have even been in there, but the DJ had been generous enough to let us use that back area of the dance floor each night.

And we took full advantage. I still remember being locked in a slow dance with a girl named Jenny (as Paula Abdul sung her great new ballad that was being heard everywhere). The girl I would soon have my first kiss later that night.

I was 16 years old. My whole life was in front of me.

While the “and without a care in the world” cliche doesn’t apply (I never had that kind of easy and happy teenage life, other than rare escapes like that cruise)…..the one that does is how the future still seemed bright.

Never did I ever guess that I’d be typing this kind of blog entry 30 years later. Especially in this frame of mind about myself and the much more depressive and troubling life situation and future than I ever could’ve expected.

Not to mention off the heels of a huge pandemic scare a couple years ago, and fresh into a new huge worldwide conflict scare just a couple hours ago.

So now that I’ve brought back the Paula memory, it might be time to channel another popular ’80s artist next. Mr. Eddie Money.

“I wanna go back and do it all over. But I can’t go back, I know.

I wanna go back. Cause I’m feelin’ so much older.

But I can’t go back, I know”

A flashback to a past accomplishment

Even though this blog is my outlet for expressing the frustrations and difficulties that I don’t subject those in my “real life” to, occasionally it’s healthy to bring up something positive from the past too. Especially since writing about it gives my mind a short break from the mental hell that I’ve often been in for many years.

I’ve shared old baseball stories here briefly before. But while I’ll always be a baseball player at heart, a lot of my focus switched to tennis and pickup hoops during my teen years.

Was never a natural at either, but I was a good enough athlete to still improve over the years. Ended up being on the tennis team (and one of the top seeds on the team) throughout high school, despite how I was just a self-taught hack who didn’t have the polish and experience to beat the country-club type kids who’d been taking lessons their whole life, etc etc.

The perfect example of “that” type was our high school’s #1 player when I was a sophomore and he was a senior. Roberto. He destroyed most people in the area and went on to compete for the state championship. A big guy with a huge serve and nasty strong groundstrokes.

You watched him play and thought about how that was a level that most people never reached.

So when I went to college (a huge university), I continued to play recreationally all the time. By my senior year there, I’d honed my baseliner-esque skills as sharply as they could get. But when I entered the yearly student tennis competition, I never assumed that anything too memorable would come from it. Cause there were always a few people around who were just too advanced and skilled for me to handle.

That was what made the following six weeks so surprising.

Here’s how the competition was done: everyone who signed up was randomly thrown into groups of six. You played the other five people in your group, and then the top two (from each six) would advance to a single elimination tournament.

I breezed through those first five matches. And when the tournament bracket came out (which had about 60 or 65 players in it), I noticed that whoever set it up must’ve noticed how I and one other player had dominated so far. Because even though there were no formal rankings, you could tell that I was unofficially the #2 seed in the tournament. While a very familiar name was on top as the #1 seed:

Roberto.

Yep, there he was. Probably in med school at the university already or something.

Both of us kept advancing. By the time the semifinals came around, I was still in my best form and hadn’t even lost a set throughout any rounds.

Won my semifinal in straight sets too. So as I was on my way to the finals…..this huge tournament that I’d never come close to winning anything similar before….you know what’s next, right?

After 10 years of my game slowly improving step by step, it was time to see if I could come full circle and beat the guy who was the standard for tennis excellence growing up.

However…..once I got to the match, there was just one problem: the other player wasn’t Roberto. I’d just assumed that he’d win his semifinal; hadn’t even checked. But this other guy had just knocked him out.

Bet you didn’t see that coming?

Anyway, it didn’t even matter to me. I was there to try and win the tournament; there was no tying my ego to having it be directly through him.

Which I then did. In three tough sets, I pulled it out and won the championship. To absolutely no fanfare and no one watching, I’d just accomplished something that I never thought would happen.

I’d beaten the guy who beat Roberto and (out of over 200 players at the beginning) was the last one standing.

While this wasn’t the athletic moment that meant the most to me (as much as I respect the tennis court, those will always be baseball)…….it was definitely the most impressive.

I really miss that feeling. Success. Feeling like I was at the top of something. Pride. Accomplishment. It’s something I haven’t had for so many years now (and especially into the beginning of this midlife crisis).

Can only hope that someday, I can put together some life redemption that turns me back into that person. Even if it’s just for a short while.

Because I miss him.

Stepping into the darkness

I sit here on the couch. Looking straight ahead into almost total darkness as midnight looms.

Haven’t even turned my TV on today. Or yesterday. Don’t care enough to. Maybe not until the pro football playoffs resume this weekend.

In a couple months, I will (once again) be leaving the city that I call home. This time likely for a good while. Family obligations make that necessary. But there’s no deluding myself: I wouldn’t have survived here yet for the long term regardless.

Add the last year here to the string of failures that I’ve experienced over the last 14.

Where exactly will I go? That’s still to be decided. Though the region will be where I grew up.

What will I do there? Also a mystery. Don’t know what I will do with myself going forward. As usual for recent years, the options will be very limited. I’ll have to figure something out.

But for now, I sit here alone. Taking a break from my new book on the kindle. It’s one of the those save-the-world action dramas that gives a needed escape for people with lives like mine.

Soaking in the final weeks of the preferred solitude in my home base.

Before stepping out into the unknown darkness again.

As the loner mentality deepens…

With my future looking more uncertain than it ever has lately (and that’s saying something), I find myself shutting out the world even more than I normally do.

Outside of immediate family, the only person I’ve kept in regular touch with recently is the woman who I’ve known a long time and have the strong “opposites attract” connection with (and even that isn’t daily). Other than her, I just have no interest in talking with anyone right now. Especially any communication on a regular basis.

It’s led to just ghosting some people who I’m somewhat close to. With two of them, it’s also because they recently said something that really rubbed me the wrong way…..comments that I never would’ve expected from them. Normally I would either brush past it or confront them (and see if it can be worked out), but not while I’m in this frame of mind.

When anyone asks if I’m alright, I’ll eventually give them an ok. And then just hint that I want to be left alone. So that’s as far as it goes.

This has happened once before at a similar level, but then I snapped out of it pretty quick. That was much different though, because I was in my late 20s then. So despite that particular deeper depressive pit, I still subconsciously knew that there was plenty of time for possibly better years ahead.

But at this stage in life, that’s not the case anymore.

I still occasionally make quick, quirky comments on people’s FB pages and stuff like that. Both friends and strangers. Guess it’s the need for at least one outlet apart from my self-imposed solitary confinement. Though in keeping with my usual MO, it’s just surface musings about various topics.

Because it’ll always be just me looking on at the outside world.

And barely (well, now JUST barely) being a part of it.

It really is a dog’s life…part 2

As someone who has to live vicariously through other people’s pets, occasionally my mind wanders back to former times where I was an honorary pup uncle.

There isn’t much that I miss about my prior apartment complex. Except that not long before I moved out, my neighbor got a shelter dog. His name was Oxley. About a year old, and he was a pretty big guy of some mixed breed that I couldn’t figure out.

The first time I met him, he came right over (like he knew we’d be instant buds).

But what I remember most is that one of those first couple times that I saw him, they were going down the elevator with me. And as I was petting him, he just rested his chin contently in my hand and was looking up at me (in a way that can described by just two words):

Total trust. Even though he still barely knew me.

And you know what? I wish I could see the world in that way. With such a bright outlook and only seeing the best in people. Especially considering that since she got him from a shelter, I doubt his young life had always been easy.

So Oxley….it’s been about a year. I hope you’re doing well and getting as many walks outside and belly scratches as you like (which means millions of each).

And that maybe someday, this human can have your outlook on life.