“If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”
- William J. Clinton
I'm not quitting. I'm writing. That means a lot. I haven't been writing lately. If you've ever read this blog, my not writing says it all. I don't have to say anymore. When I write, things are good. When I don't write.... Let's just say I'm not writing. Better yet, lets just say, “I Get Lost in my Mind!” And, that is an understatement! I need to stay clean, clear my head and keep it that way! I need to keep writing.
I don't have to write about me, but I need to write. In fact, I don't want to write something like this anymore. I don't want to write about how “I haven't been writing and we know what that means” again. In so many words, I've said this before. I don't want to say it again.
I am alive. That matters! That matters a lot to someone like me. Not only am I alive, I've also been blessed in so many ways. I live on the 26th floor of a high rise building in San Francisco. That is a dream come true. I jokingly say “I earned it the hard way.” Actually, the way I “earned it”, is no joke. What I did that ultimately led up to my “earning it” is also how I could lose it. I don't want to lose it. And, I don't want to lose my life! That is always possible.
I have lost so much. So many things that meant and still mean so much to me. This includes nearly losing my life - at least a couple of times. That's actually how I earned my housing. A suicide attempt that landed me in the hospital for 6 months and left me disabled. That qualified me for housing assistance. I like what my doctor calls my suicide attempt. She calls it a “methamphetamine induced psychotic reaction”. Even when I'm hating myself, I couldn't harm myself. When I am using, I am more than hating myself. I am definitely harming myself. Suicide attempts have occurred.
This blog is suppose to be The Truth. And, it is. This doesn't mean I have to disclose every nitty-gritty dirty whacked out crazy detail about me. In fact, if I always write and don't digress, their will be no nitty-gritty dirty whacked out crazy details to write about. I will live in The Truth. I will keep my word. I'd prefer to write about Good things. Things that occur when I am living life in a Good Orderly Direction. Yes. I'd prefer to write about GOD. This is because to me, God is The Truth and The Truth is God. I can't define it any better than that for anyone. It's my definition. It's what I must believe.
I always wanted to move to New York or San Francisco. I love big cities. I love skyscrapers. I was fortunate enough to go to the top of The World Trade Center before it was destroyed. In fact, it was September 11th, 2001 that I knew how much I had to make a change in my life. I don't know how to explain it, but it meant so much to me that I had to do something! I had to make a big change in the way I was living. I was struggling with addiction, but didn't yet understand that I needed to stop using. I thought I needed to move and make a difference. I had visited New York and San Francisco, but I knew living in them would be different. Was I ever right!
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| I took these sometime in the '90's before I was a "professional" photographer and obviously before I had a digital camera. I photographed the photographs with my digital camera years ago to have a digital copy. I know I have photos from the top - somewhere! |
Growing up, I always thought of the years 2001 and 2010. It could be those Space Odyssey movies, but I never really got into those. I would wonder, “Where will I be in 2010?", " How old will I be?”, “What will I be doing?” I especially wondered about the year 2010. I never understood it. In 2010, I would understand it.
In 2002, I got my dream job at The San Francisco Chronicle. It was in my dream city – San Francisco. San Francisco is where I decided I wanted to live. I proposed to my high school sweetheart, Susan, in San Francisco in 1995. I was going to propose to her at the top of the CN Tower in Toronto because The Grateful Dead were playing at The Toronto Sky Dome and we had mail order tickets. Then, Jerry Garcia died. We weren't going to Toronto anymore. I was then going to propose to her on the jumbotron in New York Cities Time Square, but they quit allowing wedding proposals on the jumbotron. I then learned one of my high school buddies who was living in Montana would be in San Francisco for a couple of days. We had never been to San Francisco. This was a good excuse to go to San Francisco. This was a good excuse for a surprise Christmas present – plane tickets to San Francisco. We flew to San Francisco and stayed in Chinatown. I looked for the highest point. The highest point in that area is Telegraph Hill. I proposed to her at Coit Tower.
We also honeymooned in San Francisco and other parts of California. We would visit San Francisco at least 10 more times. And, as I said, we would move to San Francisco in 2002. I now realize, in many ways, I was doing a geographical. A geographical is what addicts sometimes do to escape their addictions. I didn't figure drugs would be such a problem for me in San Francisco. I'm an addict. Actually, I didn't figure I would do them once I was here. However, I'm an addict.
Because I am an addict, I would lose the job of my dreams. Something better began to arise in my clean times. Susan's parent's bought us a little digital camera before we moved here and I would take photos of San Francisco as I saw it. Many people complimented me on how good my photos were. I began to realize that I had an eye for photography. San Francisco has a street artist program and I began setting up my sales stand to sell my photography on the streets to people from all over the world. This all began to make sense. I met Susan in art class in high school. Art was in my soul.
So many years would go by and I would go in and out of my addiction. My dad died in 2006 and that's when I began writing this blog. After all, it was imperative that I share The Truth. I thought by always writing The Truth, I would live The Truth, but.... Here I am today. I AM writing today. I am writing The Truth.
I've always loved lemons. Because of this, Susan bought me a lemon tree. We put it on our back porch. Hummingbirds would always visit the lemon tree when it was blooming. By now, I was becoming a better photographer and street artist. I now had a Nikon D50. I would wait at my desk for the hummingbirds to show up to the lemon tree so I could capture a photo of one with my camera. After a short amount of time, I captured one.
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| This was one of my best sellers for many years. |
After many years of being very good to
me and my continuing to struggle to stay clean, Susan finally said
that she was going to get her Masters degree and when she graduated
in 2010, she was moving back to Cincinnati. She wanted to buy a
home, help her family and to possibly adopt a child. More than
anything, she wanted her husband to be clean! I could get clean and
come with her or she was going to have to go without me.
I was still struggling to stay clean.
Susan and I would take one last trip to New York City to watch the
ball drop on New Years Eve and see the Bengals play the Jets at the
last game ever played at the old Giants Stadium. While there, we
visited the World Trade Center site. They were selling gilded leaves
from a tree that survived the World Trade Center attack. Knowing how
much I loved skyscrapers and how much The World Trade Center meant to
me, Susan bought us a set. She also bought my step grandmother, Nana
a set. She too was greatly moved by The World Trade Centers
destruction.
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| Gilded leaves from The World Trade Center Memorial site. |
I continued to use and Susan continued
to get her Masters Degree. I used all the way up until to her graduation.
Her parents came out to attend her graduation ceremony. On the day
after she graduated, I used. Susan came home early that day and
found me choking on my own blood and turning blue. I was having a seizure.
She called 911. They told her what to do. She saved my life. I was in the ICU for a week.
This experience would open up my eyes for a few months. I stayed clean. This is
what 2010 meant all those years! Susan saved life in 2010. I would get clean and stay clean in
2010. This is what it meant until I used at the end of 2010. 2010
now meant I would begin losing everything, including my high school sweetheart. 2010 would be the year things would begin to get very
dark. Susan couldn't watch me kill myself
anymore. She gave me more chances than I deserved. I would
eventually end up homeless and on the street. And, I kept using.
Eventually, events would occur that
would lead to my getting into a recovery program - Christian Chaos. By now, Susan had
started dating other people. This was hard for me, but we were
divorced, and she had given me so many chances. While clean and in
that program, I prayed for Gods Will. I was willing to be with Susan, but it was not my will I was praying for. Eventually, Susan would get
pregnant from a very nice man who lived in Cincinnati. He is one of her brothers
best friends. This meant that Susan would get everything she ever
wanted. Not the way she wanted it, but now she could move to
Cincinnati, help her family, buy a house, have a husband that didn't use and have a child. A child
that would hopefully be with her when she got old because we knew I
wouldn't be. She never wanted to have a child, she wanted to adopt a
child that needed a home because too many children needed homes. She
has such a big heart. Now, I was able help her do things a pregnant woman
couldn't do. Things like change my cats cat litter. Fortunately, Christian Chaos was only a block away from where we lived in San Francisco for so many years. I was also able to help
her move back to Cincinnati - the home we had moved to San Francisco from ten years earlier.
Things were better for me clean.
That's until the day she moved. That day, a cute young woman I would nicknamed "Tweaker Chick" showed up the front door of Christian Chaos and begged me to shoot up with her and then have sex with her. I didn't shoot up with her, but I couldn't resist having sex with
her. By doibg so, I was practicing one of my addictions with her that was always linked
to my using the way I had been using for so many years. I.V. meth and sex is the lust of my life. I wrote about it in this blog because this blog
was always suppose to be The Truth. This blog is my Truth. It was my Truth that had recently gotten me clean and allowed me to do other good things. This was not a good thing. This was a Truth that would hurt.
This Truth ultimately led to my being dismissed from Christian Chaos. Now, I
would definitely use. That's until so many of you rallied around me and offered to help me. So many good people in San
Francisco took me in and allowed me to stay with them until I could
get my life back together.
This is what I did. I got my life back
together with the help of some very Good people who opened up their
homes to me. Eventually, I would become a street artist again and
rent my own room in an SRO. I was very happy to be able to support
myself.
It was at this time in early 2011 that San Francisco would begin building skyscrapers all over the city. As I have said, I love skyscrapers. I decided I would photograph these skyscrapers being built and create a Facebook photograph folder and call it, “San Francisco Grows”. I was beginning to question just what this blog was accomplising since I had been clean for a while. While out running one night, something bigger, I call God told me, “I had a story to tell” and “I had a song to share”. I wrote that blog but never returned to take the necessary photos that were to go with it. I never posted that blog that essentially told me to keep writing. Always writing always means I am not using. I used. I stopped writing.
The blog I wrote that I never posted is called My Hero. It is at the end of the blog Ocean Size.
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| I took these photos a few years ago when I began my "San Francisco Grows" folder. All three are now complete. Two are my neighbors |
Now things got incredibly dark. I don't want
to go into the details, but my death was eminent. One month after
Susan had her baby, I used and then walked to San Bruno and found the
highest structure I could. It was a 5 story parking garage at the B.A.R.T. station. I
jumped.
Waking up in the hospital a month later in so much pain with a body full of broken bones and being told I would never walk again made me grateful. If I would never walk again, I would never use again! I was grateful to be alive. I spent 6 months in the hospital and 5 ½ months in drug rehab. I had no idea how I would take care of myself, but I was alive. I was then blessed with something I never expected but always dreamed of – housing on the 26th floor of a highrise building in San Francisco. Despite all of my blessings, I did what I said I would never do again but have always done, I used. How could I use after all I had been through and after all I had lost? I still have no idea, but I did. I am an addict.
I reguraly visit a phsychiatrist,
because I am diagnosed Bi-Polar, PTSD and I am also Schizo-effective.
This means that when I use I hear voices. Actually, I was even
hearing voices with 11 months clean, but they are much more
supportive when I am not using.
A couple of months ago, my stepgrandmother, Nana who is 90
years old was in the hospital. I was worried about her and told my
pshychiatrist about what was going on. Every day, I look at those
gilded leaves hanging above my kitchen counter that represent SO much
to me. They remind me of all that I have been blessed with and, of course, Nana.
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| My older brother bought me the little wood faced guy years ago. I've always loved the woods. I made the cross while in Laguna Honda Hospital. |
My pshychiatrist ask me to make a
collage. She ask me to use my artitic photography skills to do so.
I finally spent a few hours walking around beautiful San Francisco to
add photos to the folder I made years ago I call “San Francisco
Grows”. It was a beautiful day to be alive. It made me something I struggle to be in my fight with addiction. It made me happy.
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| Photos I took a few weeks ago of high rises under construction for my "San Francisco Grows" folder. |
Seeing as though I don't have a lot of money I made a hummingbird feeder using a shot glass and some of the art supplies people bought me while I was in the hospital. Art is in my soul. I was noticing how hummingbirds investigate every porch in this highrise building. Susan is a vegitarian because she loves animals. I also love animals and because of Susan, I too am a vegitarian. I thought making a little hummingbird feeder may attract them. I photographed it and sent the photograph to Susan and posted it on Facebook. I never saw a hummingbird come to my feeder.
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| My homemade hummingbird feeder. |
My 43rd birthday was on December 7th. It was a good birthday. I took care of myself. More
importanly, I didn't use! Susan bought me a hummingbird feeder for
my birthday. I hung it and called Susan. Within 10 minutes, while I
was on the phone with Susan, a hummingbird showed up! I was so
happy! Susan was so happy! If I'm happy and little hummingbirds are
happy, Susan is happy. This makes me even happier!
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| This is the hummingbird feeder Susan bought me for my birthday. |
I am so grateful for everything I have.
Today I meet with my phsychiatrist. She is the one who suggested I
make the collage that would remind me of reasons to stay clean and
keep my high rise housing which is a blessing. She also encouraged me to
write. I really look forward to my appointment today. I really look
forward to writing. I really look forward to living life. I don't
want to ever be “Lost In My Mind” again. I'm not “Lost In My
Mind” today! I'm living life. Thanks to everyone who has been so
Good to me. Thank you God. I get to watch “San Francisco Grow”.
And yes, that bridge did get built.
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| The new Bay Bridge East Span that was recently built. |
And below is the collage project I
completed today and, I wrote a blog. I meet with my psychiatrist
in 2 hours. Today is a Good day!
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"Cause there are stars up above!" |
Put your dreams away for now*
I won't see you for some time
I am lost in my mind
I get lost in my mind
Momma once told me
You're already home where you feel love
I am lost in my mind
I get lost in my mind
Oh my brother
Your wisdom is all that I need
Oh my brother
Don't you worry 'bout me
Don't you worry
Don't you worry
Don't worry about me
How's that bricklayin' coming
How's your engine running
Is that bridge getting built
Are your hands getting filled
Won't you tell me my brother
Cause there are stars up above
We can start moving forward
How?s that bricklayin? coming
How?s your engine running
Is that bridge getting built
Are your hands getting filled
Won?t you tell me my brother
Cause there are stars up above
We can start moving forward
Lost in my mind
Lost in my mind
Oh I get Lost in my mind
Lost, I get lost, I get lost in my mind
Lost in my mind
Yes I get lost in my mind
Lost, I get lost, I get lost
Oh I get lost
Oh I get
I won't see you for some time
I am lost in my mind
I get lost in my mind
Momma once told me
You're already home where you feel love
I am lost in my mind
I get lost in my mind
Oh my brother
Your wisdom is all that I need
Oh my brother
Don't you worry 'bout me
Don't you worry
Don't you worry
Don't worry about me
How's that bricklayin' coming
How's your engine running
Is that bridge getting built
Are your hands getting filled
Won't you tell me my brother
Cause there are stars up above
We can start moving forward
How?s that bricklayin? coming
How?s your engine running
Is that bridge getting built
Are your hands getting filled
Won?t you tell me my brother
Cause there are stars up above
We can start moving forward
Lost in my mind
Lost in my mind
Oh I get Lost in my mind
Lost, I get lost, I get lost in my mind
Lost in my mind
Yes I get lost in my mind
Lost, I get lost, I get lost
Oh I get lost
Oh I get
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