In the years I have lived

And in the days I have seen

Some days I will see again

But they will come with all the pain.

= Harry Patrick

Behold, My Freedom Comes

I watched a TV talk show this afternoon that was almost impossible to sit through = it was heart-wrenching and seemed to be without hope, but I watched it anyway and I'm glad I did.

I saw the future for a lot of people who disappear into the background and no one seems to care about where they are or what they are doing.

One of the great actresses I have seen, in my opinion, was just quirky enough that I thoroughly enjoyed her films. She was magnificent in The Shining, with Jack Nicholson and in Popeye with Robin Williams.

When Dr. Phil mentioned Williams' death, the actress said "He's not dead, he's shape-changing".

The actress is Shelley Duvall, battling an incomprehensible mental illness that has ravaged her appearance and her mind and left her a shell of her former self. 

That was Shelley "then" and this is Shelley "now".

You could tell she was deep in the throes of her own reality, she was not living in the real world, but at times she was lucid and intelligent and somewhat funny. I don't know what happened to her except that the illness has taken over her life and people who don't understand mental illness or who refuse to try to understand, the illness will take over your life. Her prospects for recovery are slim.

My mental illnesses are somewhat helped by medication, but some of them do what they want to do and I can't control them. Each day is a struggle and a battle to remain sane, to be able to fight another day to try to make the "chattering" in my brain go away.

I have little tricks that I finally had to put to use today to attain a little peace in my mind = it worked for a while, but a trigger set if off = I won't tell you what those tricks are I use and I won't tell you what sets me off. Don't want people to know that part of my life, even though they know a lot about me at this point.

But more days than I would like to count, my mind is jumbled like this =

= or this =

For those people who shun me or don't understand me or judge me or criticize me, you should get on your hands and knees and thank God you are not like me. There are those people who say they "understand" what I go through, they don't really know, they only say that to fill the silence.

Memories haunt me, my emotions run rampant, my logic is flawed, but I do have compassion for the ill-trodden of this world and I do have compassion for any human being or animal that is in distress.

I have memories of a lost love I found at the age of 35 = he was 13 years younger than me, but I truly felt I had found the person I wanted to spend my life with. I met his parents, ate dinner at his home, took drives with him, shared lunches with him and exchanged Christmas presents with him. We both wanted to commit to each other, but I wasn't strong enough to be my "true" self back then and I walked away, a broken and heartsick man who felt like my life ended = I didn't know how to live without him. I was married at the time and my poor judgment led me into a chaotic-filled life for 9 more years. I was finally free of her, but I had lost "him".

Scarred in mind and soul, I have traveled the last 35 years with that memory of my love burning in my brain and it will be with me until I draw my last breath. That memory haunts me to this day, my walking away with tears streaming down my cheeks, not strong enough to live my life the way I wanted to live it.

I can now live my life the way I want to live it, but the victory is bittersweet.

This is one of my favorite poems (by Maya Angelou)  = sums up my feelings of the internal pain =

I pray for the day God sets people like me and Shelley Duvall free = we will be at peace = then and only then will our inner demons be silent.

Pedro and the Old Man

I found two new friends online this past week = one was a mere baby and one was an "old man".

I fell in love with both of them after hearing their stories, in the platonic sense, and it was through them, I think I have found my calling.

In this time of chaos and uncertainty in this country and my own questions about my role in this world, it finally dawned on me the answer was maybe right in front of me.

Through the friendship I have attained with Pedro and the "old man" named Garfield, I have found a purpose in life.

Ever since BabyDoo died back in July, my world has been shattered and still feels like it is tiny little pieces laying on the trailer floor and will always be that way, but a sliver of hope emerged from the ruins and I hope I am capable of making a difference this late in my life.

My body and spirit are weak right now and my motivation is challenging. My life has taken a toll on me, but my voice and my words are still strong, at least in my mind.

This is Pedro =

Pedro is a young fur baby right now in residence at a high-kill shelter. He was adopted and then returned to the shelter because he didn't get along with the older cat already in the home, so I came to his aid and it was going to be a one-time thing for me, sponsoring him and paying for his adoption and vetting fees, but it turned into a cause. I pray my efforts save his precious life.

I then found out about the "old man" at the same shelter = didn't know his name at the time I heard his story, but found out later his name is Garfield. He is a senior citizen fur baby, with no teeth and some serious medical issues. He was in danger of being put to sleep because of his age and his medical conditions. I came to his rescue and offered to sponsor him, too. As of tonight, Friday, November 11, 2016, he has been treated for some of his problems, but his prognosis is not good. He is loved and his life matters, no matter how much longer he has here before he crosses the Rainbow Bridge. Apparently no one wanted him and that's why he was put in the shelter, as a stray to await his fate. I hope he does not die there.

This is  Garfield =

It leads me to a brief story about myself and I don't know if my readers can connect the dots, but here goes . . . in 1965, when I was 20 years old, I was sent on a Greyhound bus, with other young men, to Ashland, KY to be drafted into the military. I passed all the physical exams and all other tests they put me through, but was not allowed to serve because of my sexual orientation . . . in other words, I was "unwanted" because of who I was. I was cast aside like a stray who didn't matter and at times, I still feel that way.

The elderly in this country, whether you are a human or a stray cat or dog, you are dismissed as a soul who doesn't matter to the rest of the world. This world apparently has no place for us "strays".

I am thankful I live in a country where I can live my life as I choose and I thank the people who fight for my freedom every day for this privilege. I thank the people who once scorned me. But I have no thanks to the people who have no conscience and no soul who abandon the animals of this world to be left to their own survival. I am proud to be an American but I am not proud of the Americans who can be so callous and inhumane. Their actions leave me to the point of being speechless, because I can think of no words to describe them.

On this day, I put a flag in my window and am trying to move forward in a positive way, but it's a difficult step to take, not knowing where my life is going to take me. But I do know this = I will be the voice of those souls who cannot speak, whether it is a homeless person or a homeless animal looking for a forever place to lay their head, I will speak for them, loudly I will speak and use the words known to me to relay my message to everyone around me.

I know realistically, that all of these souls cannot be saved, but I will do my part to make a difference in their lives, no matter how small it may be. I hope the ones out there who are looking for their forever home, I pray that God surrounds them with His love until their journey is complete, whether it is on this Earth living their life or crossing the Rainbow Bridge, where they go when their struggles are over.

Nineteen years ago tomorrow, November 12, 1997, I held my beloved Benjamin in my arms as he crossed the Rainbow Bridge. His spirit lives to this day, in my heart and will be there until I cross that bridge.

This is Benjamin =

He was a stray when I rescued him in 1981, he was one of the unwanted souls in this world and he was near death when I rescued him, drove eight hours from Kentucky back to Georgia and took him to a vet who saved his life. He was a month shy of his 17th birthday when I had to end his struggles.

Ironically, today I got a statement from the hospital I was in on July 9th of this year and it stated I was "near death" when I was admitted to the ER. The doctors at the hospital saved my life, but I am still weakened from the bout with pneumonia and don't know if I will ever completely heal. I am weak in body and in spirit tonight, but I hope my new cause can give me some sort of motivation to do good things with the time I have left in this physical world.

Me and Pedro = me and Garfield = me and BabyDoo = me and Benjamin = linked together by similar circumstances in this chaotic and cruel world. But all five of us have lived in an America that gives us freedom and privileges. The people who don't respect the differences of their fellow human beings and don't respect the lives of the "strays" of this world, do not have the right to stand up for this flag and for what it stands for = and they are the ones we must fear, 

Which one do you align yourself with?

This ?

or This?

When Forrest Gump said these immortal words to the woman on the park bench = "Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to get until you open the box' = can be said about everything new that comes into your life or about a chance you took when the odds were stacked against you or when you overcame incredible obstacles to be where you are today or when the world treated me as a "freak of nature" because of my sexuality.

I don't consider myself a victim, even though my life has been filled with tragedy and triumph, laughter and tears. I am a cynical, hard-nosed, outspoken son of a bitch who is now emerging as the "real" me, not willing to take anything else from anybody else. My life has become my own, off limits to anyone who betrays me or treats me like an "old shoe" you can throw in the corner.

I talked to a friend in Georgia last night for about an hour and she put a face on the feelings I've been having recently. I tried to explain myself to her, but she stopped me and said, "I know exactly what you are talking about" = "I've felt the same things before".

What we both are talking about is when the heart is shattered into a  million pieces, you can't explain that to another human being = today, I find myself living in another dimension, disconnected from the "real world", trying to move forward, but finding it difficult to do so. Unless you have had your heart and soul and life broken into a million pieces,you can not understand where I am coming from.

My world has shifted, it's off-kilter and a "normal" life doesn't make any sense to me any more, actually it never did, but right now, for sure, it does not.

If you had opened a "box of chocolates" that was my life several months ago, you probably would have seen the person you are used to seeing, but what you see now when I go out in public is not the person I used to be = like I said, my world has shifted and it will never feel the same and I'm not just talking about BabyDoo's death on July 29th, I'm talking about the accumulation of my life's journey and the steps I have taken to get to the point where I am today.

I really don't give a shit anymore about what people think of me or my opinions or my truths or my life = it's a place I have created for myself = putting up a wall between myself and the real world and I don't want to take it down and I don't want anyone taking it down for me = I don't want your help to "get on" with my life because what I have created works for me and I am getting on with my life, but probably not the way the public has envisioned me doing so.

When I got out today and bought my Subway sandwich, my coffee and the Herald-Leader, I was completely disconnected from the world around me. I stopped at the Dollar Store on the way back to my trailer and got some items, but the people in both places didn't really exist for me. They were just "there" filling up space.

You know, when I was seriously ill with pneumonia and in the hospital, no one came to see me, no one paid me a visit, no one called = I was the one making the phone calls, making sure my babies were OK and I lingered at Death's Door for about 4 days, not being melodramatic, but that's the way it was. I insulated myself against the people who would say the "right words" to me after I got out of the hospital, because I didn't give a shit what they said to me at that point, but they had to give me an opinion about what they would do, "hang in there" and "you just gotta do what people tell you to do so you can get well". To those people, my phone is "off the hook".

People speak in Pollyanna terms when their life is on track and they don't really know how to relate to someone who is fighting a fight he's not sure he is going to win = still not sure if I'm going to win this "fight" = still not sure, every day is a struggle, a challenge, a new world for me, a "box of chocolates", if you will.

A "box of chocolates" I'm afraid to open as each day dawns, it's like a Pandora's box, these chocolates that represent what my life is like.

The Pandora's Box = a daily battle with MS, my ongoing pneumonia-lingering effects, my blindness, my age, my mortality, my grief, my anger = yes, I do get angry, I am human, don't you know = my little pleasures that get me through this life, only known to me, only makes sense to me and of course, my friend in Georgia = I have known her a long, long time and a phone call to her helps ease the rigors of my daily life.

An assortment of feelings and emotions course through my body, my mind and my brain and my intellect that all is "not well" around me, but I don't want anyone to interfere and disrupt the flow of the steps I take ever day.

I believe there is a "monster" inside all of us, some of us know how to hide it, others do not = I don't know how to hide it, really I don't want to = I "own" it = the side of Dr. Jekyll I have to fight off on a regular basis = having a series of mental illnesses is like having a bunch of marbles rolling around in my head that is constantly "chattering" to me = won't leave me alone = these illnesses are "invisible" = if people don't see them, they don't believe they exist.

I died on July 29th, 2016 of a broken heart and was re-incarnated into a shell of an old man, struggling with life's ongoing chaos. My babies keep me sane, keep me grounded, keep me going, give me a reason to go on, because without them, I have no reason to be here. When I physically die for the second time, it will be of a broken heart. 

I was near death when they wheeled me into the ER on July 8th, 2016 and the doctor said to me = "you almost didn't make it" = they poked me with needles, took my blood, took X-rays, took an ultrasound of my heart and lungs, told me I had Congestive Heart Failure and took my temperature by sticking a thermometer up my ass, making me pee in a cup after washing my penis off with a baby's wipe = wile the nurse stood there and watched me = I had never heard the term CHF (that's a cutesy way the doctors and nurses talk about something that could kill you) = I had not heard that term before with my name attached to it.

But there I was, a big "box of chocolates" that had been opened for the whole world to see.

So, if anyone asks me in the future = "how are you doing, you look good today" = I will tell them "so-so" because they don't really want to know the person I've become = an old man with hardly any teeth left, an unblinking left eye staring into a dark chasm, staring back at the world and seeing a blur and battling invisible demons rattling around in my head and grieving for all the babies in my life that have crossed the Rainbow Bridge = because when BabyDoo died on July 29th, I died of a broken heart = his death shattered my soul just like the 7 other babies I had lost over the years, one over 40 years ago, had shattered my heart = the 8 babies had been placed in my heart and mind and soul and the pain of all those losses will never go away, they are all lumped together and will forever haunt this new person who emerged on July 29th, 2016, the date of my new birth.

"You never know what you're going to find inside" = = =