I had to see it's face. It had been long enough. I had been haunted for decades by a lonesome memory that was bearable most of the time, especially in the light,but at night it often reached to me and would throw me of balance.

It was an old romance, my only one ever. I wasn't a boy looking for love. It was never something that interested me. I have had hundreds of friends that only think of one thing,,,,romance. I guess maybe when I got gobsmacked by it, the fact I never wanted it made it even more impactful. We were broken kids with substance abuse problems and it ended with me fleeing Houston Texas in the middle of the night with some bruises and a nose with teeth marks and scabs forming on it. It was at the end of a night of bar hopping and I really can't tell you what it was about. Even as broken as I was, hitting me was a deal breaker, as if the deal weren't broken enough.

So, nearly 30 years later i have never wanted to be in "love", but whatever that was swept me up and out like a tsunami  decades ago as a college freshman haunted me. It wanted me to remember what it was like when the mention of his name made me go numb. For thirty years people have asked me why I never partnered up, frankly it's because no one has ever made me feel that way, not even close not even thread of tingle.

So I wrote this guy who lives not more than 50 miles from me and made some excuse to stop by and see him when I was passing through. He called and left a message and when I was free I called him back.  I won't go into the details, but by the time I got off the phone with him, I saw things entirely differently. I think I needed to hear that he wasn't that 18 year old anymore and I got everything I needed. I had confronted this emotional monster that gave me fitful dreams that spilled into the waking day.

I talked to my friend and adviser and when I mentioned the dope smoking, wine drinking my only "lover" had been doing the whole time we were on the phone, he said he hoped I was done with the whole thing. I laughed and said "Done"

5 minutes after I said I was done, I knew with all cells and fibers it wasn't over for me yet. I needed to see his face. I don't know why, but I had to see his face. I was so angry at my spirit because I knew it would never be over unless I saw his face. So without telling anyone, I got up the next morning and went to where he worked.

I saw him briefly and hurriedly got in my car. I felt nothing, I didn't laugh, I didn't cry. I just drove. I thought at least I would feel a charge for staring down this emotional monster that came to toy with me when I was down or lonely. I just kind of  felt sad. I felt sad because this once beautiful kid who took my breath away was now a middle aged man too. The joy that used to explode from his spirit is shut down and roughened. I felt sad that if I only got to have that feeling time once, I would really never prefer never to have known what i missed.

I told my sponsor, imagine you had the best experience from the best drug in the world, but you could only have it once. Would you take it? You can't unring a bell and I can't untake that drug.

Two days after I heard the song by Martina McBride called "Independence Day" on the radio and I thought how many young girls I'd see try to sing that song at the little country shows I sang at. They hit the notes but they didn't have the emotional depth to really touch hearts when they sing them. There are songs kids can sing and hit the notes but fail register real feeling with them that makes them look even more like kids singing grown up songs.  A ten year old singing "Stand By Your Man" is cute but no one buys it.  Since I was 18 years old, I had the real heartbreak that let me sell a ballad. This broken heart , massive in size has helped me help others with their failed romance. It gave me an emotional depth that I wouldn't have gotten any other way. It was in every essence my credential to understand the human condition of "HURT".

That was my first benefit of seeing the face of the specter than followed me for nearly 30 years. The second came just now as I began typing. All this time it wasn't him that I was longing for, it was the feeling. I have been wanting love all this time but was terribly confused about where it needed to come from.  Oh shit, I'm that kind of human after all.  It wasn't him.

I would have spent the rest of my life confused had I not listened to the urging of spirit telling me it was time to face this monster. The hour long phone call could have been enough I suppose, but I knew, I had to see his face and for some reason I needed him to see mine. I just reached over on my desk and picked up a red Sharpie. Without thinking I colored a little red heart and wrote the word "love" underneath it on my upper thigh. It is a statement of intention. It is with only a small amount of embarrassment that I make the declaration, on the 7th day of my 47 year, I, Clinton Rolen Gandy have joined the circle of sappy friends and thousand of people I will never meet, for i am in search of GROWN UP LOVE.

The block in the channel has been forced out and I literally can feel life flow where it hasn't in decades. So, my advice is face your monsters and let what happens happen. I have found yet another level of freedom and it excites me to no end.

I work with boys some of which are exactly one year younger than me when this thing when down in the middle 80's. I was just as broken as the lost boys I work with and I can't imagine any of them falling in love and trying to live out this crazy fantasy of what love was suppose to look like from the tv and the movies.

I'm so humbled when my understanding of things is reframed and I see everything clearer and more precisely. I won't be painting sad clowns or kittens, but as of today, I am going to find someone to share myself with who is just as curious as me about the whole thing and hopefully just as grateful as I am. I am grateful to have gotten this far and I know when you put hope and action together you create possibility. I am mastering the possibilities.

There is a huge amount of ego that says to never share this piece, It is my story and it couldn't be truer, and when I am honest I feel better. Don't judge me to harshly if you need to judge just know, that I so believe in being free, I saw this through when it would have been easier to find a shortcut or pretend it didn't happen all together.

This is my story

I got drunk for the first time in the summer heading into my freshman year in high school. I was on the only family vacation I ever had and we were in Newport Beach, California or "Balboa". My relatives were part of a large food supply company and the bosses hosted us in the tiniest restaurant I had ever seen and our table pretty much filled the whole space. I kept getting poured wine and I kept drinking it. After the second glass it felt like my eyeballs were moving back in for in tiny quick motions and I felt warm and free. I got up and went to the bathroom to look at my eyeballs in the mirror. I stared at my face but I did not see my eyes moving , even though they gave me a swimmy feeling. After dinner we walked the streets of the island and it was liking seeing for the first time. Shop windows with lighted displays illuminating pricey fancy things was a dazzling sight.

I did not know it at the time, but the detonation button had been activated for me. Like the countdown clock on the TV show "24", my days had been numbered and my time was running out. So what began in the fanciest, loveliest place I'd ever seen, a place I'd only seen something like on TV, my alcoholism was activated. The year was 1982.

I was set up by genetics , soaked in environmental triggers, but when I felt the effects of those closes of purple colored wine, the disease was activated. There was no turning it off , no going back. The lines of dominoes had started falling and it was going to be a race to the finish. I became alcoholic. I was activated.

On my own i didn't have a single coping skill for life. The warm glow from the inside of me out and the euphoria that alcohol caused, honestly let me feel like for the first time in my life, everything was ok. When you have spent your life, even if it was just the first fourteen years of it on "high alert" the moment you get to relax and break is a profound moment. Even if it was chemically induced, I found relief.

When I first heard of autism, I thought the cruelest part was watching your once healthy 3 year old boy , quietly turn to go inside himself and never return.

When I first experienced someone with Alzheimer's, I thought the cruelest part of it was to watch someone you have known your whole life , completely disappear into themselves to the point mothers couldn't remember children.

When I first saw depression lock someone behind a glass wall and everyone was forced to watch them disappear in to darkness, to a place they couldn't be reached, I thought how cruel.

There are dozens of ways to lose someone before your very eyes. They are here, but gone. Close enough to touch them physically without even having to stretch your arm yet you cannot reach them.

I guess I've been on both sides of the glass and truthfully even I am a little hard pressed for explanation on how I crawled back out of myself, I had long ago surrendered to it, fully and completely surrendered to it's nothingness.

I was just thinking of some people I know and have known that have disappeared into themselves and just how disappointing being powerless really is. There is a part of me that wants to turn my head and the other part is compelled to watch for any remaining or significant signs of life.

choose peace

Choose peace. I had dinner with a new neighbor and as I got to know her over the 2 hour conversation I was taken aback at the level of fear she exists in. It seems to cripple her. Not an alcoholic nor drug addict, her fear levels exceed even the level I use to exist in. Here is the thing that confused me. She mentioned her faith 2 dozen times and even spoke of specific passages in the Christian bible. She falls into the same catagory that several of my relatives fall in, those who have faith and don't use to to live a fearless life.

What good is faith, why have it if you don't USE IT? My life transformed when I realized that no matter what happened, I would find a way to be OK. I don't have the paralyzing creepy dread that a catastrophe was going to occur it it was going to consume me. Because of this psychic / spiritual change, I don't fear making mistakes or failing at something I've tried anymore. I have proper concerns about general safety, I still lock doors at night.

Fear is a monster. One baffling aspect of fear is it makes it's victims mistakenly crave more things to fear. The most fearful people i know, even those who are faithful in religion, sit around and watch endless cable news broadcast. As if they don't have enough powerlessness in their lives, they consume stories of terror and of viruses without cures like a kid would consume cotton candy.

My good fortune is that I had an issue with substance abuse that led me to a program thought taught me a way of living which eliminates 90 percent of my fears on a moment to moment basis. I have been known to say out loud when my head/fear tries a hostile take over, "This is not real". Fear lies and it lays in wait.

I was taught worry by the master growing up and she has and still does dedicate her life to worrying about things that a) she has no power over and b) that never happened. I'd rather die than to slip back into a world that is filled with blind fear and abject terror. Running from monsters that only exist in my head and in my sleep and daytime nightmares.

Fear is a product of thought. One fearful thought triggers a chemical response that feeds the next fearful though. It is the anatomy of panic attacks. Panic attacks were what led me to anxiety meds which I quickly learned were great fun to take handfuls at a time.

My hope for my neighbor and all those I know who are trapped in the darkness of fear, or terror is they find away to shine some light into their spirits filled with monsters. My advice is first off, turn off the damn news channel, don't read the paper and stop watching hours and hours of crime shows weekly. Some folks can handle it and some like me just can't just like some people can drink and it not consume them alcoholicly. I haven't watched the news in five years and I don't have news channels anymore. I haven't missed a thing and haven't been caught "not knowing" any vital information that could harm me.

There is a little syndicated show that prides itself on stories "you need to know". "AMERICA NOW- They have stories like, "What is living on your hairbrush that can kill you", "Your baby can die if you don't know these tips". All they do is package little fear bites and tease the fear based people into tuning. They run 2 episodes a day in my area.

America may like to call itself "faith based' but its fear based. Politicians and religious leaders take that fear and use it to herd huge groups of people into "swallowing whatever Koolaide" they are peddling. Five years ago i asked nearly everyone I knew, "If you were going to be hit by a train would you want to see it coming?". My truth was I had spent decades trainspotting and it got me know where. My answer to the question now is, "NOPE", I don't want to see it coming, if something is going to happen, I do want to waste the only moment of life I have waiting for devastation. I choose to live without blind fear and I'll deal with the train when it gets here.

The most destructive habit I've ever had is the habit of "Thinking". For decades I tried to "think" myself to sleep at night and the result was disastrous. I grew up thinking that if I were clever enough, if I thought hard and fast enough that I could escape whatever it was that I wanted to get away from. I mistaking thought I could think my way out of whatever I found displeasing. I found out in my forties that "thinking" is it's own kind of prison. To have thoughts you can't turn off is quite frankly torture. The things that are unpleasant or disruptive on the outside of me are far less frustrating that what goes on inside my head and in my thoughts.

The the key to freedom from my thoughts is to find a way to live in the present moment. When I am in this moment I have everything I need and I have no need to be "Clever". The past no longer exist and the future takes care of itself when I exist in my own breath of being. Anxiety only exist when I am trying to exist in the future. There is no anxiety when I am in the moment, just a mindful state of being. Stress lets me know I am not in the moment.

The the biology of stress is an interesting issue, anxiety causes inflammation. Inflammation causes disease. That is how we make ourselves sick with worry and stress. Worry's cumulative effect over time is disease causing.

The kicker about giving away our moment to worry is, no matter how hard or how good we worry, we can't change the outcome or consequences of events we stress over. We have given away all the possibility of peace because we choose to future trip rather than LIVE the moment we are breathing in.

I mention often, to anyone that listens to me about my realization of just because I was born human didn't mean I knew how to be a human. We have to be shown what forgiveness looks like, we have to be shown how you treat and how you speak to those you love, we have to be shown what to do with anger. We don't simply know how to do these things just because we were born human.

I guess I'm lucky because I have the natural desire to research stuff. I have a curiosity about why I act and react the way I do and why others act and react the way they do. I'm naturally drawn to they "why" behind the "thing". The more I look and the more I find the deeper I understand the whole "being a human" thing. My life is enriched exponentially when I take the experience of being human that others have had and apply it to my own.

When I got off from work last night I watched a documentary called "Hitler's GI Death Camp". I had no idea whether they taught it in school and I wasn't paying attention or if they just didn't teach it at all, but I had no idea that a couple hundred American GI's where in the Nazi death camps as POW's. Endless footage was shown from inside the camps of Jews from every where and our GI"s. You know that feeling, that brief split second when you are about to burst into uncontrollable sobs? I was hung right at that spot for nearly an hour. To say it was uncomfortable would be an understatement of a lifetime.

They had interviewed of 3 or 4 American Service men recalling their harrowing two months in the death camp and my soul hurt so bad from their stories that I wanted to turn the thing off. An American mind, under the age of 60 cannot fathom what hell the people in the camps endured. If there had not been video footage and photos, even I with the most imagination of anyone I know couldn't dream up the Godless terror the people withstood. To be so hungry you ate the lice on your body and leaves from frozen trees is not a thing I would have ever been able to dream up. After the show ended I was completely utterly gutted.

This morning, I realized that because i took the time to watch this show, about the human experience these people had, to expose myself to the story of another, I understand my humanity better. Would I have died or would I be one of the GI's that had such a desire to live they ate lice? How did they find a way to get past all of it when the few servicemen left living got home? How did they not just shut down permanently. how did they not be consumed with anger and hate?

. The more I expose myself to the experience and stories of others, the more I understand about myself. I'm not really sure I ever dreamed I could watch a film or TV show and have and the more possibility I create. You know, it touched the place inside me that I always held behind locked gates but it happens now on a regular basis. When I remove fear and ego and am in a place of connected-ness and centered-ness I can allow your experience at being human to greatly enhance my experience at being human. I can use your experience to deepen and enhance my own. We get to do that for each other when we aren't crippled by self centered fear and hurt.

I looked into the eyes of the living servicemen interviewed in fancy High Definition and you could see the look of a men who will never be able to unsee, unfeel what they saw and felt, yet they moved on and found lives for themselves. As a human, I need to see what is capable, what I am capable of and a great deal of that comes from me finding out the story of others. We have to learn how to be human, we don't automatically know how to do that. Just because i was born with ten pink toes and ten pink fingers doesn't mean I know how to live as a human.

The name of the film on Netflix is "Hilter's G.I. Death Camp" and I defy anyone with any sense of God about them to watch the hour and not be deeply affected by it. It's hard to believe that one human would have the power to do order up such evil. It's just as hard though for me to imagine going through that horror and finding a way to live a life afterward that has any love and light to eat, but it appears they found a way. THAT my friends is TRIUMPH OF HUMAN SPIRIT and that is exactly what I need to see often, regularly and in technicolor. I don't want to waste my limited run in the human experience box office of life.

I really adored Mr. Cogar's thoughts on empathy. It certainly has not been something I set out for in my life as a special interest to cultivate, but the more spiritually evolved I become the more empathetic I become. Empathy requires that we reserve judgment. It was a huge moment for me when I realized I could be very disappointed for a person without being disappointed in a person.

When we recognize the part of us that is spirit/high power/God, it makes it impossible not to see the spirit part in others regardless of how at odds it is with the human part at the time. Humans are so messy. Driven by countless fears and an egoic mind set that insist we be right at all times, we are all, ALL of us very hard to love at times. I guess my own definition for empathy is to be willing to see the spirit trying in someone regardless of their circumstance.

There are different types of empathy and they boil down sometimes to the difference in being "store bought" or "homemade". The "Store bought" variety can be categorized when you acknowledge struggle of another from a brain/cognitive point of view. The "Homemade" variety is when you live in a state of connection to spirit and gratitude that your spirit is producing it's own source of Empathy, the emotional, spiritual connection with others.

Both a valid and both are good, but those who find their way to an empathetic state of being by thinking themselves there, will never experience the power of connection with the story of others through the spirit- empathetic awareness. There has long been detailed the people who take musical lessons and learn the fingering and the counting of the notes but never ever are able to convey the emotions of the pieces they play. There is a component to spirit that is lacking in them. Their dedication and study still is hard work that must have acknowledgment but they cannot interpret the passion of the piece the way that others do without trying. 

Not everyone has the capacity to feel the plight or passion of others. Being empathetic and compassion is very difficult in the aspect that if you don't learn how to manage what I believe to be spiritual gifts, they can easily overwhelm you. 

Every year I get a little angry at all the people trying to bust the door down of the Mission on 80 trying to serve "Thanksgiving and Christmas" to the unfortunate. If I worked there I would ask them, "would you consider June 3 or August 6th, we have all the compassionate folks we need for Christmas and Thanksgiving". "Can u still find it important to serve some Parker House Dinner Rolls when it isn't an act designed by you to make you feel better about yourself while doing the least amount possible".

That is an example of "Store Bought" empathy. It's too planned and calculated. Real empathy is only possible for those of us who know that, "What we have is enough", "Giving you a break" won't leave me without one, "Recognizing your struggle", won't sweep me into it and all of us have monsters two inches from our tails and most of us just no how to disguise the panic better than others.

It's long been said that we are spiritual beings having a human experience and I know personally speaking when I operate from spirit, I have no trouble at all honoring and acknowledging the struggle and pain of others. It is only when my ego and "human" concerns overshadow my gratitude that I forget that judgment is not necessary. I lose nothing, NOTHING by acknowledging your struggle and I gain a connection to spirit that cannot be found any other way.

People want to go immediately to the sick or homeless when they picture struggle. I've been aware and lucky enough to have learned to look wherever I am. I know a single mother starting to work full time for the first time in years. She's frightened and she's doing it. I know a mother who's two children are at an age where they clearly see their father can't stop drinking. I know a teenager who has to go live with relatives he didn't even know he had in order to stay out of foster care. I know old people who can't afford their medicine. I know a young girl who just realized she is obese when the kids at school pointed it out. I know several people who work as hard as long as they can and they can't pay their bills. The stories of the human condition fill the pages and the hours of the history of the world. I haven't forfeited a thing by having concern for them.

I lose nothing by seeing and validating your struggle. The Ego says I need to fix the struggle but the spirit only asks me to acknowledge 

Complex and alternately beautiful laws of God come in to play when I try to explain this inexpiable truth, we are all connected. When I honor your struggle with acknowledgement I honor my own, loving you when you make it very difficult to even like you, I gain my own self acceptance. When I honor the part of God in you, the part of God in me expands exponentially. 

Gratitude, empathy and compassion are the three ingredients that give me a good life today. They keep my spirit growing, my human side (ego) in check and they make me feel almost on a daily basis, it's all worth showing up for.

I'll end with this. When I was young I had a Beagle. It' was a sweet sweet dog without a vicious bone in it's body. One day it got hit by a car and my dad rushed out to help it and it tried to bite my dad's hand off. When we are led by pain and fear, real or imagined, all of us, are very hard to love. Empathy AND Compassion help me look beyond the ugliness of pain and see a spirit in crisis.

That helps me get through my day.

Clinton Gandy

Gladewater, Texas

I spent the whole day doing whatever I wanted to do. Ate some good food, stopped by and fixed my mom's computer and even played some keno for a couple of hours. I had a sobering thought when I sat down at home finally that came from left field, There are mother's, fathers, sisters and brothers who spent their whole day trying to get enough food to survive one more day. I'm very thankful my primary goal for the day didn't have to be find enough food for my kids to not starve to death today. I'm not sure I am built for that kind of survival mode. So what I do or don't watch on Netflix and what temperature I set the air on for bed for the night is just about as high as high class problems as they come. Color me GRATEFUL as I know how to be.

My phone's gps kind of screws me now and then, but I learned something about living more fully and peacefully from it yesterday. For reasons unknown to me, sometimes my gps decides to change languages without warning. I was trying to find a thrift store in Tyler and I was in a part of the city I had never been through. GPS went Japanese on me and I missed the turn I wanted. I fought back the urge to yell at the cheerful Asian voice coming from my phone. I looked down and the gps said, "Re-calibrating".

It was so simple. I missed the turn, I'd have to rely on another way to get to where I was going. It would be fantastic to be a human with the ability to give ourselves freely the permission to "Recalibrate" when it looks like we have missed a turn in our lives. The fact is there is probably millions of ways to get to where i want to go, but I sure can beat the hell out of myself when I miss a turn.

Re-calibrating and re-configuring are super powers we humans when we have the PRESENCE of mind to stop and adjust our little plans. One of my favorite things to tell myself when something doesn't go the way I want it to is "This story is not going to end as you want it to, move on". When I come to acceptance, that place where the fact that things are or not the way I want then ceases to be an issue. It is what it is and I have the choice of growing roots where I am or recalibrating.

Just for today, I give myself permission to re-calibrate whenever necessary and without personal judgement. "This road isn't going to take you where you want to go". Recognize that and look for the alternate route.

In the end, there will be a piece of land. A small strip of land where our lives played out on, the highs the lows, the laughs the tears. Our stories while deathly important to us in the now, in the "then" won't even be a foot note in history. The place where medals were awarded for dreams and work of a life time will rightfully be relegated to being a decaying concrete platform in the middle of an empty field like this medals podium from a former Olympics. How many things in my life that seemed like the most important thing in the world have been laughingly right sized by time and perspective. Life has a way of right-sizing all of us. Take away the TV cameras and the pageantry and human emotion and all you have left is a piece of land where a story played out on. The earth came first and it will truly tell the final tale. One strip of land where the story of Clinton Gandy unfolded, where he clomped and stomped and occasionally chewed the scenery in an epic grand opera revolving his search for significance. I don't know why I find it such an appealing idea of the future stories of strangers that will be told right where my feet are standing now. It does appeal to me though. There is peace is the idea that my story is just another human story that plays out on the planet which is the third rock from the sun. It's my story, I'm happy to have it and I"m interested in seeing how it wraps up but just to know it's no more important than yours or less important allows me to enjoy the moment of being here. I"m thankful to have cast a shadow on the earth long enough to find and accept my place on it. I'm so thankful just to have the time to tell the story, to live the story these days. I guess we all have "decaying medal platforms" where ego and pageantry prevailed. I think of painstakingly carved graffiti in wooden tables. The simple epitaph of "Clinton Was Here" scratched into the surface will be sufficient. The simple fact I got to be here is enough. The idea that billions of people saw gold and silver medals awarded on this platform and it to be now in an unkempt parcel of land really speaks volumes about humanity. I'm good with words but I can't seem to verbalize the significance of this photo to my spirit. I've looked at it a dozen times. It's haunting. I love knowing that someone elses story will play out in the apartment I live in right this minute, someone else will have the job I have this minute, I love knowing that life and land go on when I no longer am cells filled with water casting a shadow. It makes my life on a daily basis much easier to know I am not the end all be all of anything. I am properly, right sized and grateful to be , as my buddy Frank T. used say, "fully clothed and in my right mind".