18

Wednesday 23APR2008

Now that I have my Toughness I notice how my reaction to other men has changed.
Even ones I like and respect --- I still don't want to be like them. I like my way.
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If universality really is true, that means your family is not connected to you.
It means you came into this world all alone and totally free.
Because Universality, that Space between you and your life, that Stillness, that Privacy (what I used to call it when I was nineteen or so) that Masculinity of June 1st, that Toughness, that Wildness -- is true and that bit of you that is the Real you is everything. It’s the whole you.
I prefer myself. I like the shape of my bones and the curve or my muscle. I think it looks good; of course I like the way it looks. Of course I like the structure of my face, I like the way my eyes are, they're mine, and, I think they look good. Same for my mind. It's mine. So of course I like it, and think it's as good as any other's.
I came into this world alone. I was a whole person, I was myself. And I was born, calm and not crying into a tumultuous existence.
In the middle of that story so much had happened that I forgot who myself was, and could not remember, couldn't even register that there was a myself to remember.
I was born and it was naturally a Shock to myself to be born .. There was nothing to Ease the Shock. There was no Love. There was no Goodness..

Right now I see life as levels like of a video game. You're supposed to start out at level one and continue on to level two and with each level things get more challenging and that's what makes the game fun.
For some of us there was no level one or two or even fifteen we started out at level 25 and played catch up for a good twenty-odd years.
Yeah, it's nice to finally graduate from level 24, and have your life back on track. And now I'm supposed to move on to level 26, and be happy to finally move forward with my life.
No distraction can keep me from noticing the great loss of the other 24 levels. The moments of Ease that there would have been.
A chance to catch my breath, a moment where I, at eight years old, could've been proud that I'd passed level eight, and was on to level nine. But instead it was the chaos and horror of level 25 all throughout and there's no going back and changing that.
On the inside I was a boy, and on the inside I did know what it was like to be eight and nine, and three and four, and lived that part on the inside-- they can't take that from me.
But those years, those days, they are gone forever. It's like some part of me won't accept the loss. All the numbness I have known, the 'depression' psychiatrists call it, the aggressiveness, it's all acting out and I know it. It's childish. I don't mean that in a stern way. I mean it comes from a child-like place. And that's okay.
But it's over now. I'd rather have the loss of it, know the profound sadness of it, carry it with me in a mature, honorable way. Be the Toughness. Rather than to be acting out, refusing to feel anything, refusing to accept the great loss.