My Body is a Ruined Temple

There’s a bizarre disconnect when you start aging and you body begins to fall apart. I mean, I know it’s happening and I feel it happening, but it makes me realize that this is the meat suit I’m riding around in. I’m more than the man.

I’ve been developing infections over the last year. One in my leg in May and one just a couple of weeks ago in my jaw. I’ve watched my general health sort of wear away but this last time was sort of as an observer. I’ve watched the shape of my face change and the way my mouth moves will never be the same. I never considered myself vain until then. See what was a sort of youthful face start to change into something I’d see in older people.

But I feel better about it. This is the meat suit. I’m still me inside. Hell. I’m probably more “me” right now than I have been in almost a decade. I’m still the same person that’s been on this journey the whole time and even if I have to change a tire or get a new paint job, the car is still running.

The only difference is the mind’s eye.

Advertisement

Back Once More to the Breach. . .

Been a while. I’ve had a rough year and a lot going on but I feel like maybe it’s time to turn a corner. I have a lot to say and I’ll be doing that this week and next for sure.

I’m working on getting Errant Apprentice back up and running and I’ll be going back to recording our podcast this week.

More tomorrow.

Acceptance

I’m not the best there is at accepting things as they are. I never have been. My whole live has consisted of lamenting the world not being what I want it to be and not being where I want to be in life. I had a five year plan for my comic book career in high school that I’m currently on year 27 of right now. I’ve basically spent my entire adult life yelling about the unfairness of it all. Particularly when it’s related to me.

Today I started group therapy for the first time and was given homework. First, meditation. I’ve done some meditation before and found strange things inside myself when unguided. That I’m looking forward to. The second part of the homework was to research the phrase “Radical Acceptance”. Imagine my shock to discover this doesn’t involve a skateboard. Radical acceptance is about truly accepting reality as it is and rolling with it. I’d probably prefer a written report.

I had to really think about this as a concept. It’s an alien idea to me because I’m constantly looking for the narrative in a life of chaos. I have preconceived notions about how the world should work and how people should be which makes it hard for me to really look at life objectively. People should be kind, the good guys should win, the world should be fair. It’s all actually bull shit, but it’s been planted firmly in my head. 2020 and the previous six years have been hard lessons in relation to that and they’re lessons I’ve been refusing to learn.

Sort of. . .

In 2004, shortly after my mother passed away, I took my only trip to Disney World. I went down there knowing that the crowds would be huge, the lines would be long, and there was nothing I could do to control that so I may as well accept it and let myself have a good time. So I did.
THAT is radical acceptance.
I need to look at life more like Disney World. Accept that things are going to happen that I don’t like and that I have no control over it. Deal with the pain and move on.

Who knew you could learn from vacation?

Lately

 There’s so much that’s happened. I’ve lost my mother, my father, my sister, most of my aunts and uncles. I’ve been through more jobs than I can count. I went from being hopeful and on a career path to feeling hopeless and working in a liquor store because that’s all I can find for work. But I continue on. 

I’m on antidepressants right now. I’m not sure how effective they are. They numb some of the feeling but haven’t really helped me control the self doubt. I’ve changed therapists and am currently doing Internal Family Systems. It’s interesting and it seems to work, but I have doubts. Which isn’t unexpected since I’ve had doubts about therapy for a long time now. I’m also going to start doing group therapy next week since they have a scholarship spot open and I’m definitely interested in anything that can help me.

The one thing that really concerns me right now with group is that it’s at my old therapist’s office. I used to work in that office. I was fired from that office. The day I was told I was being let go was the most shattering experience of my life up to that point. I thought I’d found the job I’d be at for the foreseeable future and then to find out that the owner was extremely unsatisfied with my work? It literally destroyed me. I put on a happy face when I finally found a new job but it was a lie. I was miserable. I’m still not over it. I’m just constantly waiting to get fired at every job I’ve had in the last two years. And now I’m going to be back there. I don’t know how this is going to go. I don’t know how they’re going to feel having me back in the building. They’ve probably moved on.
I haven’t.

My motivation to create has taken a drastic hit in the last few years. I feel defeated and like there’s no reason to keep going with comics except out of an obligation. I started it. I have to finish it. It’s hard to regain and then keep my enthusiasm. The world has moved on. I’ve been at this for 21 years and I’ve missed all my opportunities to get somewhere with my art. Conventions have been total failures for several years now and I can only assume my art just isn’t “it” any more. I guess that’s fine. Just got to finish Errant Apprentice and then maybe I’ll be done. We’ll see.

So yeah. That’s where I’m at right now. It’s not the happiest place or anything, but at least I’m still alive. As long as I’m alive I can fight.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Let’s not mince words here. I’ve can be a pretty shit friend. I meet someone, have a great time or conversation, want to spend more time with them, then just dis-the-fuck-appear. There are entire social scenes where I’m like Bigfoot. My appearances are rare, the proof is blurry, and no one actually believes it happened. “Maybe it was a bear” they’ll say. I understand that in the modern era this has become known as ghosting and I think that is shockingly appropriate.

I think part of the reason I keep doing this is because of self esteem. Why let them know I’m a pile of neurotic garbage when I can leave them thinking I’m an aloof asshole? It’s not that I WANT to do this exactly. I really do love being around people and spending time with them but the amount of energy it takes for me to get out there and be personable is in short supply the older I get. My physical health goes down hill along with my mental health. I enjoy my time out but after a few hours I just want to go home and stare at the ceiling while I feel my cells dying one by one. Sure it’s not a great way to spend you time, but we can’t all live the rock and roll life style.

I do want to change though. I know that if I keep this up I’ll find myself old and alone and full of regrets. Well, here’s to getting myself back out there. If I know you and it seems like I ghosted you, I’m sorry. I’ve been having a hell of a time and if there’s any way we can fix this, then I’d like to start now.

-Kev

 

 

What it Takes

A couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a break through in therapy. I was talking about depression like I’ve been doing for the last four years and Byron pointed something out to me.

“Kevin, I’ve been seeing you for over ten years now and in the last four you’ve talked more about depression than ever. You used to talk about your problems and now you just blame depression. Do you know when this started?”
It was a pretty direct question for him.
“When?” I asked.
“No” he said. “You tell me.”
“When my father died?”
“Bingo.”

Now, what Byron was pointing out was that I wasn’t over my father’s death. What I realized was that I’d been dwelling on the depression and seeing it as an outside thing and just accepting it instead of trying to get over it. To use the metaphor, I was feeding the wrong wolf. I was feeding the thing that was destroying me instead of actively trying to get better.

So it’s been a few weeks and I find myself actively fighting against the dark thoughts. If I start downing myself I ask myself why I’m doing that or if I would do this to someone else. If I feel down, I try to find the root cause of it. If it’s something I can control I work on it. If it’s not, I accept it and move on to things I CAN control.

For the first time in my life I feel like I have what it takes.

DHL is the Worst Company in the World

Sometime back in September I went to my Square dashboard and ordered a pack of stickers and a small cardboard table stand to take to conventions to get the point across that I take credit cards. It’s free so I figured why not. The delivery date turns out to be two days after the convention so I figure “Ah well. I’ve got it for next time.”

Cut to a few days later when it ships. The shipping method is DHL. I break out in a cold sweat. I know where this is going. I’ve ordered multiple things and had them shipped via DHL. I have never received those items. Part of it is our local DHL is literally some guy with a van that delivers when he gets around to it. The other problem is that DHL is the most inept company I’ve ever dealt with in my life. We have issues when I worked for GreenTree Properties and I knew I’d have them now.

So the first package started in Texas. It traveled to Jackson, Mississippi which is more or less where I live. It then traveled to Truth or Consequences, New Mexico and went out for delivery. Since I don’t LIVE in Truth or Consequences it went back to Texas where it stayed.
I contacted Square about this and they were very apologetic. They shipped me another one right away. This one shipped from Florida, traveled through Jackson again and went straight to the same town in Texas where it promptly vanished from tracking. I contacted square again and this time received no response. That was by the end of October. The package had originally be ordered in mid September. A small envelope of stickers.

After this I decided to try an experiment. SURELY this was somehow because I was an individual. If I ordered one for a business they’d use a real shipping company. So I bop my way up to the gallery since we use Square there, log into the console, and order another package. This shipped via DHL from Florida, passed through Jackson BACK to Florida and was delivered somewhere. I don’t know where, but it was delivered according to tracking. It was at this point I gave up. Again, the end of October.

About a week ago I received a package in the mail that looked like it had been devoured by Satan’s asshole and sure enough, there inside were what was left of my stickers and stand. This was the first package. A week later I received the second package. This one partially damaged but the contents were fine.

This week, near the end of November, I received our package from Square at the gallery. The one that had been delivered. “Well” I thought, “at least this is over”.

Today I received a second package at work with more stickers. I’m now expecting to never stop receiving them.

So yeah. Don’t deal with DHL. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with those guys but they suck. Hard.

Changes From the Move

So a lot has changed since the move. The following is a list of things I can think of right off.

• I can now take hot showers for the first time in nine years.
• The wireless internet is as fast as the old wired internet and the wired internet is amazing.
• When it rains I can flush the toilet without it flooding the bathroom.
• When it rains I can take a shower without it stopping up. (also, a hot shower as previously stated)
• When it rains I can get to my car without having to take a change of socks due to flooding.
• Speaking of, the yard doesn’t flood. The old yard completely submerged after any amount of rain.
• We don’t have bookcase that is important to the structural integrity of the house.
• The house is larger than a third world shanty.
• It’s REALLY quiet at night.
• Did I mention the showers are hot and the toilet flushes?
• Domino’s Pizza will actually deliver pizza to our neighborhood.
•  The neighbors are friendly.
• SHOWERS. HOT ONES.

So yeah. That’s all I can think of right now. Thanks for listening!
HOT SHOWERS!

Movin’ On Up

Some time last year it was really driven home to me that I needed to get out of my home of thirty-two years and out of my neighborhood. Maybe it was the loud music during the day. Maybe it was the fact that the house was in terrible shape. It was definitely the fact that I was getting way too used to gunfire.

Since after my mom died the sound of gunshots had become more and more frequent. Maybe once every few days or weeks. Shortly after my father’s passing it became every few minutes. The worst was the night there were three shootings next door. Mike and I both lept out of bed and hit the floor and crawled into the hallway. I’ll never forget both of us laying there and one of us, I don’t remember who, saying “We need to move. Soon.”

It’s easy to say but not easy to do. Part of it’s money. Most of it’s the fact that it’s one of two homes I remember living in. It’s hard to really let something like that go. I grew up in that house. It was home for all those years. Even now I can feel my parents in there. I didn’t even have an idea of where to go so it wasn’t much of an issue.

In 2015 my boss asked if I wanted to buy his old house in Clinton. I did, but honestly I couldn’t afford it. Then Warren, his son, decided to rent it. We helped finish up some of the work on the house and moved in at the beginning of February this year.

A word on this house. When I first met Warren he and his family were living in this house. I coveted that house from the moment I saw it. It’s amazing to a guy who’s lived in tiny shacks his whole life. It’s got four bedrooms, two baths, a giant den and a basement that’s bigger than the old house. Needless to say, when the opportunity to live there popped up I had to.

Another reason for the move is Kit. Kit and I have been together for eight years now and we have never been able to find work in each other’s area. Well in December Kit found a job here and moved in on Christmas day. I can tell you right now things were cramped. Especially with her cat thrown into the mix. Mike and I had to make room for her essentials with a mind to eventually get out. The house wasn’t made for three grown adults.

So here we are, starting on our second month and it’s been amazing. I never knew a place could be so quiet at night. I’ve never had to wave at so many people before. I never knew my life could be this, I don’t know, quiet before. Maybe now I’ll have more time for writing and drawing. We’ll see.

Hey Kids! Remember Me?!

Yeah. Me neither.

There’s been a lot happening in my life since the last update. First, I spiraled into a world of hurt and depression and anxiety to the point where I wanted to end my life. The dark times were longer, the up times were shorter and dimmer, and I honestly thought that this was it.
Then I saw Dr. Patel. He’s the psychologist at the clinic where I see my therapist. My friend works there and arranged a meeting. Dr. Patel was very thorough with his questions about me and my depression. He asked me if I’d taken anything before and I replied yes and it nearly killed me. He prescribed venlafaxine and I’ve been taking it since April.

That first two weeks was, well, I didn’t know life could be like that. I had no idea how many thoughts, negative thoughts, were going through my head at all hours until they stopped. For the first time in my life there was silence. Blissful, long sought silence. I still got depressed, but instead of lasting weeks or a month or more, it was about two days of sadness and self pity. Then I pulled myself out of it.

The next meeting with Dr. Patel went well. He asked about the depression and I explained how short the bouts were now.
“That’s fantastic! What if I told you we could get rid of those two days?”
I jumped at it.
We upped my dosage from 37.5 to 75. I haven’t been depressed in a month and it’s been amazing. I haven’t had anxiety in a month and it’s wonderful. Sadness? REAL sadness? Like the sadness of losing my father? Yeah. That’s still there, but that’s legitimate sadness. That huge lump of self hatred I’ve been carrying my whole life? Mostly gone. All that’s left are habits and old thought patterns to be disrupted.

So all that being said, I guess I’m back to blogging to chronicle the process of healing and about the things I fill my life with now.

It’s good to be back.