A New Beginning

The year is 2019 and it is time to stop pulling back fro people.  I don't really let people know how I am feeling about the important parts of my life.  I don't discuss the pain, the loneliness, or any of the times I am hurting.  It is a safety mechanism that I have put in place for years to avoid having to be fully open and real with people.  They get to see the strength but not the cost and the only way I am going to be able to clear out my mental closet is to start letting people in.

I went to a psychologist recently.  I filled out the questionnaire that was checking to see if I was in crisis or risk of self-harm.  The crisis line is 65.  The first two times I went I scored a 15 and the last time a 5 so that is not an issue.  The real issue for me is the fact that I was going, not so much to have my issues dealt with, as to have someone in my age group that I could talk to and have him understand the society and time I grew up in.

There I was paying money to a stranger because I was not ready or comfortable having that conversation with friends that I have had for over 50 years or my family.  And that has to stop.

Going forward I am going to let people in.  I have had two very close shaves with death in the last two years and I don't want to go with these last things few unresolved.  I want my family and my friends to know how I feel and why I did some of the things that I did.  I want to reconnect with my old friends and let them know how I feel and find out how they really are, not just the surface.  I want to follow up with some of the kids I  have helped and see their new families.  I want to talk to my students and let them become friends now that we don't have to keep that teacher student wall up.  And finally, I want to reconnect with my art.  After 30 years of training I still have not reached the level I have encouraged others to get to and now that my muscles are starting to work, it is time.

Let's see if that resolution is enough for 2019.  There is more to do, damage to repair and bridges to rebuild, but its a start.

Learning My Past

Not sure where to start all this so I will just write.

A few months ago, last summer I was told by my son and my best friend that I was in crisis.  Did not really know what they meant until I got out of here and was assured of some help, that I did not expect to get.

Then I started working and getting my bills paid.  Tried to have Jim help me and he did but it led to him finding out that no matter how well he knew me I still did not fully trust him and was holding information back.  That led to a break in our relationship that is still being healed.
During the time he was helping me, he encouraged me to see a psychologist.  I did not at that time but I have since started.  Should be interesting.

And then there was a friend.  He was a young man I went to school with from Grade 7.  He was not one of the bullies and maybe because of that I did not full appreciate his quiet friendship and support.  He contacted me because he had finally come out.  

I may have suspected back then but since I didn't know about me (or admit it maybe) he was not one of the people I thought about when I remembered my early life.  And realizing that has led to a whole lot of mental changes and shenanigans.  Also, my other friend had started  to talk to me again so that helped.
My schoolmate made me sad.  He did not come out to his family until he was 50 and to his friends when he was 55.  He is only now starting to live but our phone call forced me to see, for the first time 2 important things; 1. I had friends and people who liked me in school, 2. I was kind, generous, emphatic and mentoring even back then.

The illusion I have labored under was that I built my current persona when I left Saskatoon when in fact it was more a matter of freeing the persona that was already there.  And that was the light-bulb moment.

I realized that I had spent so much time thinking about the bad parts of my school and the people who had hurt me that I forgot to think about the good people.  And in doing so I have forgotten some of my past that I now want to recover.  There were a lot of good people and I am actually going through my yearbook to try to remember.  It is alarming how much anger and hate can cloud other memories.  I have to go back to Saskatoon and find myself.  From George Ward pool, which I think is closed to my schools and the places I went and I will see how my of me I can find.  This will be hard but fun.