So, what happened?

Today's sidebar offering is a video of Elaine Stritch singing "Here's to the Ladies Who Lunch" from Sondheim's Company. Ms. Stritch (is she not just too freaking fabulous for words?) originated the role of Joanne on Broadway in 1970. Although I've never had the privilege of seeing it, I frequently listen to the soundtrack, and the following lyric somehow captures the essence of who I am, where I find myself and, why I went away:

"HARRY: You've got so many reasons for not being with someone,

but Robert, you haven't got one good reason for being alone."

It amazes me (and perhaps the brilliance lies therein) that one line can speak so much truth.

You see, I live behind thick emotional walls borne of fear and shame that stubbornly refuse to fall despite years of therapy - a part of the puzzle of my life that I just can't seem to resolve. Not that therapy has been a waste. Quite to the contrary. It's just that it has taken years of scrubbing my soul with SOS pads to get to the dense and murky depths of my soul where these particular demons live.

So as the story goes, about a year and a half ago, I was in a place where the scab got picked and I just couldn't go there, effectively giving permission to my demons to run amok. Boy were they happy because within me, they were assured a host who would provide them an excellent place to party right on. I vividly remember a particular yoga class during which I actually felt my heart open and I started to weep. In that moment, I was as human beings are meant to be - alive, vulnerable, present and in the moment. If you recall, my last blogs were all about yoga and health and letting go of body image issues (physically, my walls are comprised of fat and the effects of willful self-destruction). Well, my friends, to get there, one has be willing to, as they say, lean into the pain and deal.

Now, to be clear, I don't believe that all of this happened in the space of one yoga class - but during the winter/spring of 2007, I arrived at the proverbial fork in the road and I skipped down the path to Hell because I just didn't have the courage (or whatever else one needs) to walk a journey of love. Moreover, at least some of this can be attributed to that old canard, the mid-life crisis (if only I had spent the money on a little red sports car....instead of on.... ummmm... ok then, moving on....) .

All the while, I was dealing with the stress of my job, the aftermath of a national political leadership campaign and the death in April of 2007 of an unlikely best friend, Marie. She had moved away (to live with her daughter) several months earlier, following the death of her husband, only to find out that she was full of cancer. I never got to see her again or to say goodbye. There are days that I just want to scream at God for giving me so much death and loss to deal with. But, I know that have not been singled out. As my Mother once said enroute to a cemetary - I'm afraid that if I start crying, I won't stop.

I write none of this to feel sorry for myself to throw myself out as a victim. I blame no one for this state of personal affiars - I learned a long time ago that I am responsible for my choices and actions... the good and the bad. It's just that my sack of hammers got too heavy and I couldn't cope - so I did what I know best - I tried to avoid the pain by escaping to imaginary fantasy worlds (quite lovely in the beginning) that one can only get to, by doing things that I'm neither proud of nor that I can describe in a public blog. Suffice to say, I'm lucky that I'm still alive. I come to this tendency to escape honestly; it is after all the way I survived childhood. It's not that I was ever actively suicidal (that's just not how I roll), but I sure didn't much care if my days on the planet were numbered as the result of my own negligence. For way too long, I worked during the week (full of fear and anxiety) and once Friday arrived, promptly set about to free myself from the desperation of living that engulfed me. What a sorry assed existence, let me tell you.

Fast forward - this behavioural folly eventually led to the dead end that I could have predicted it would lead to when I chose to go down that road in the first place, and the drama became more of a problem and more painful than that which I was trying to escape. So, I sought out help, took a trip to New York, moved into a fabulous new office (I know this is shallow of me, but it's really big.... alas, on a more humble note, it is big by accident and not by virtue of any real or imagined importance), arranged for a month long vacation/sabbatical, and here I am.

The important thing for me in all of this (and I hope for anyone reading): Even though I knew on some level that I was risking death, I persisted on the road to self-destruction because I decided that it was appropriate to beat on myself for taking a road that I had already taken more than once before and that was getting me exactly nowhere. However, this time round and relatively early in the process of getting help, I came to an ability to see the past year or so as just another leg of the journey; a journey from which I expect that I will emerge from better and stronger than before.

It has been a journey that has taught me much. Having found myself in middle age (and btw, would somebody please explain to me just how the fuck that happened so quickly - just yesterday, I was 21....) I have decided that the point of living is to be authentic and to live my life as the man God created me to be.

I am currently of the mind that to do so, or at least to try, is to live a life without regrets.

So, it's back to yoga, trying to eat properly and hopefully start training again. Early days, but I BELIEVE I WILL.