When I was a wooden puppet......

There is a childrens story about a wooden puppet that longed to be a real boy. If you were to boil my life down to a bite size capsule, it has been my long held desired to be a real boy too. The strings that held me weren't made of cotton, they were fear, anger, confusion, resentment, depression and substance abuse just to name a few of them. They so thoroughly convinced me that the human experience was not one I was going to have in this lifetime, I retreated without questioning. I watched people have lives and experience emotions that I couldn't conjure up on my own. In fact, the last time I was at Psych. Hospital that also treated addicted people they had us write a list of things we had not yet experienced but would like to.

 The first thing on my list was I wanted to burst into tears over pure joy. I'd seen it on TV and in Movies and more than anything I wanted to know just once what that felt like.I even asked the counselor if it was a real thing or not.  The second was I wanted to be able to regularly have emotional responses to sadness or beauty. Everyone else was listing things like trips to Europe and getting married. My whole list mostly was filled with this list of things of feelings and emotions and reactions that humans had that I had only witnessed.

I had a stash of VHS tapes then DVDs of moments other people had where they were moved or became over come with emotions. Award winners, Athletes in the Olympics who had their gold medal moments. I was unable for decades to produce any good feelings of my own so I bootlegged and hijacked the emotions of others. Just like Pinochio, I was not able to produce human emotion, the only difference was I was flesh and blood, and the ties that bound me couldn't simply be snipped.

A lot of things happened in the last four years (3.75). The universe was kind enough to intervene on my behalf once more. This last time when my head rose again above the water, instead of looking for the next wave, I took a deep breath and started moving. Something remarkable has happened to me specifically in the last few months, I have begun producing my own gold medal moments. Simple words can move me to tears, music can be so touching it sucks the air from my lungs. I've told people I have known a lifetime that I love them and not sound like a bad actor with a terrible script. I have been vulnerable to the point where words temporarily weren't available in public and I have spent hours with people and showed up as myself.

 I left know trail of bread crumbs so I can't be sure exactly how I got here, but that's fine, I don't need to know my way back there. I have laughed so hard the noise escaping from my mouth made me jump. After decades and decades of life behind the great divide, this life , these people, the love and joy are every bit as delicious as I knew somewhere deep in me they would be. I knew there was more but I couldn't find my way out of the dark.

 I spent the day with a friend on an important day in her life and I showed up. I showed up feeling and loving and fully present in my real boy body. I am grateful. I'm grateful most all of the time but I was especially grateful today for myself. People matter to me, peoples plights matters to me today. I am moved by a stranger with everything they own in sacks walking down Highway 80 because I know what it feels like to be walking and have no where to walk to. I know the steps I took to reclaim my spirit but I have know idea how I got from there to here. It's better than I ever knew it would be but every bit as good as I dared to dream it would be.  Movies and TV probably saved my life at some point and in movies because they offered escape. Somewhere in the hour our 90 minutes  the main character gets the resolution he sought, the credits roll, yet I find myself cry out for MORE. Please hold the credits.The story is JUST NOW getting good.