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" = = =