Breaking the Southern Secrecy Rule

These are my real goals:

1. I live in a beautiful apartment in New York City (or now it appears, perhaps LA)
2. I weight 260 lbs and have 15% body fat.
3. I lift or do CrossFit six days per week.
4. I write for four hours every day.
5. I have written 25 movies, 10 TV shows, 25 plays, 5 novels, 5 non-fiction books, a book of poetry and a short story anthology.
6. I am married to the man of my dreams.
7. We have three sons.
8. I make $110K or more every month.
9. I live off 10% of my income and direct the rest to do good on the planet.
10. I head a very successful non-profit that helps Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. We teach Pure Peer Support techniques at weekend retreats, sponsor creativity workshops, and offer paid internships in projects we produce to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans helping them to find work that fulfills them inside the entertainment industry. It has a big, beautiful workspace and headquarters in New York City (or LA).

Here again is my Life Mission: I co-create a world of Excitement, Wonder, Magic, and Mystery to positively transform the consciousness of Planet Earth in a good way by unleashing the Powerful Warrior Poet who lives inside me.

My Life Affirmation: As a Queer Poet among the masses, I am powerful! 

So I haven’t look at these goals in a few days.  That’s no good. How many days have I been in California? Boy, has this been a trip! I mean not just a trip, but a trip. How long was I with Adam before I left California? I think we were together a year before we left, maybe more. I’m shitty at remembering that sort of thing. No matter, the point is it has been a very long time since I have been single in LA. And there are a lot of hot guys here.

My self esteem got slaughtered being married to Adam. Not his fault. He’s sick, not bad. I let it happen. I should have never put up with any of that shit from the very first time— the emotional abuse part I’m talking about. When the physical abuse started I sure have shit should have left but I didn’t. That’s part of my karma for judging women who don’t leave. I was always like “if a man ever laid his hands on me, there wouldn’t be a second chance!” Now I understand. And has horrible as it was, it’s one more thing where when somebody who’s suffered in that way says, “You just don’t understand,” I can tell them that I do.

Anyway, being in an abusive relationship, even for a short time can have longterm negative effects. The damage doesn’t have to be permanent either and I don’t intend for it to be in my case. I gave myself a year and a half after leaving Adam to even consider dating again. For the most part, my first six months in New York, I put most of my sexual energy into rugby and depended on jacking off to relive tension when it got to be too much. I don’t mean to say I didn’t have any company. When hot little 20 somethings hit on you on the subway, it would almost be rude to turn them away. I have to do my part. But for the most part I wasn’t interested in, as my friend Hank puts it, “interfacing” with other guys. I was in some kind of healing period around my marriage to Adam. I still am. There’s still shit that needs to get cleaned up, mostly my residual resentments around the financial part— but all in good time. I continue to do the work and I’m ready to date now.

“Dear God, for every good thing I’ve ever prayed for for myself, I pray for for Adam Nelson MD a thousandfold. If only one of us can have it, I pray you give it to him. Amen.”

Enough about him. This is about me. So since I’ve been back in California (three of four days I think) God is working Its miracles in peculiar ways (as is so often the case in my case) by helping me to know that maybe I’m not the hideous, old, out-of-shape queen that Adam made me fee— no, no, that I allowed Adam to make me fee— wait a minute here! I said we weren’t talking about her anymore. You damn well better know that she ain’t sittin’ up there in New York City with her new husbands thinking about you tonight! (Referring to gay men as “she” is a form of insult and is also extraordinarily misogynistic. Way to go Mr. “I want to be an ally to women.” FAIL.) Okay, one more thing about Adam and then I’m moving on, I looked at the back of that fucking bald head in bed more nights over seven years than— that is to say he rejected me sexually more times while he was— okay that’s enough buddy, get back to what you were saying.

Oh! I ran into the gave David Bauman (did I spell that right?) last night when I was headed out (alone) to sport my costume of Santa Monica Boulevard. David and I were friends years ago when I lived here. We may have even gone out on a date; I can’t really remember. That’s no reflection on David. He’s a sweet guy— was hot then and is hotter now. I just don’t remember a lot of things from certain patches of my life. 0-5? lots of memory. My thirties? Not so much. The sad part of that is that I was sober through most of my thirties. Maybe I’m wrong. If I started to tell the story, I bet I remember a lot of my thirties. My entire prostitution career was during my thirties. All that is beside the point.

So since I’ve been in California (where there are one bazillion hot guys), God has been using said guys to let me know that maybe I’m not so unattractive after all. In fact, it seems that (and I’m not bragging here because Lord knows…) in fact it seems that there are quite a few eligible, intelligent, attractive men who find me perfectly acceptable to not only fuck but perhaps date or even more! Who knew? When Adam was done with me, I was little more than a beaten down, beaten up, dazed and confused abused housewife of a drug addicted alcoholic and— wait, wait, no more of that! Think of all the beautiful California guys who’ve been sniffing after you for the past three days. But Adam— uh, uh, uh, uh, uh! And James Collins, if you tell me to “let it go” I swear I will fly to New Jersey and choke you out! Not really. I’m non-violent now. And I know you mean well.

Y’all take me too seriously sometimes. The point of all the Adam talk is to reveal something that was in me long before Adam ever stumbled (huhu) into my life. It doesn’t matter if a thousand hot guys are after me. I’m looking for the one I have to “win over” or at the very lest “fix” so that he will love me. This all is a replication of the paradigm set first by my relationship with my father. He loved me from the beginning. But that love was based on a “version” of me and required my editing or changing or presenting a certain side of myself only so that I could gain his approval. It required manipulation and deception on my part. “If he really sees all of me, he won’t like me. Let me do something.” That’s why Adam was a perfect fit and I slid him right in to that slot so I could heal the paradigm, hopefully replace it. Sick. See?  Another part of the seeking unavailable guys, or in this case tonight think about the guy who doesn’t want you (or at least in Adam’s case didn’t love me enough to give up the drugs, booze and other men) the other part of all that— because I have all these hot California boys helping me feel pretty again (sick) and the reason I have to reference the lying, cheating, stealing ex over and over is because that is a character defect set up in the sick relationships of my past— starting with my father and including my molester.  No, no, wait; I made a commitment to stop calling him “my” molester. That implies possession or identification or something— he was the man who molested me. He isn’t “my” anything. But the point is he was also molesting the little boy who I can honestly say was my first crush. It was puppy love for sure— we were only twelve but I was in love with him and I knew that “the” molester was perpetrating on him too. And then there came a point when the molester stopped molesting me but I was pretty sure he was still molesting the boy I was in love with. Even now, how many years later? Thirty-seven. I still feel electricity shoot through my body when I think about it. That all really has more to do with the lying and secrecy part of my marriage than the “winning over the one that doesn’t want you” part. Adam wanted me from the beginning by the way. That was nothing I had to “make” happen.  Wait, what happened? I was telling you about David Bauman (I hope I’m spelling that right but I’m afraid I’m not.) How did I get off track?

So I ran into David on the street last night and he said, “I’ve been reading your blog and— wow, it’s really difficult to read!” and then went on to say something about how “honest” it was or “revealing” or “raw” or something. I get that a lot.  I could tell he doesn’t necessarily read because its enjoyable but because of some benefit he might receive. I imagine that’s why you read too. This can’t be fun for y’all to live inside the tortured ADD/PTSD brain of a—, of an—, of a what? A war vet? A sexual abuse survivor? A survivor a domestic abuse? A survivor of child abuse? How ‘bout we stick with survivor. At least you know how busy it is in here (he means his brain).  Maybe I’m an artist. Maybe lots of artists have busy brains.

Every day someone congratulates me on my “courage” to be so “open” and “vulnerable.” I thank them because I appreciate the sentiment. I can tell you though that I don’t think of it as being particularly courageous. I’m saving my life here. It’s completely selfish but fuck anyone who doesn’t like it. The first nearly fifty years of my life was for “them.” This parts for me. I constantly break the number one rule of the southern, Christian, conservative, abusive culture in which I grew up: don’t talk about it. I’m talking now. I’m tired of keeping secrets that kill, assuming emotional responsibility for those who abused me. Fuck that. You don’t deserve that either! If you’ve been doing that, what’s say we all stop? What’s say we walk over there and turn that knob and walk through the dark door of secrecy and out into the Sunlight of the Spirit.

If you’re brave enough…

I’ll see y’all tomorrow!