Life is a Trip Carnal

Sleeping wasn’t an option last night, whether it was the double scoop (which was supposed to be a single scoop) of smokey almond rocky road or the hot dry stuffiness of the van or the reconciling of the evenings affairs, sleep was elusive.

I came down south yesterday afternoon, Sergio, my oldest friend is in town for a memorial.  He has crossed the desert from New Mexico quite a few times over the years to visit, but I’ve never been able to come see him.  Whether he gave little notice upon his trek west or my life being fuller than I realize at times, this is the first time I’ve been able to meet up with him.  This will actually be the 3rd time in over 25 years that I have seen him.  Last November when driving to my sisters in Austin I stopped off in Deming, NM where he lives to see him both times I passed through.

When I left home back in 98’ I tried to keep ties with everyone, but those ties only gave me the opportunity to use as an excuse to drink and get high.  Sergio, amongst a few other people I held close to my heart were not ready to quit using so I had to let them go.  Thankfully around that time social media made its debut and even though I didn’t talk much to these people I was able to keep small tabs on them. Well the ones that partook in the craze, a fair amount of my people down here didn’t bother.

Roman, who is one of the people that didn’t bother with social media was another person I came down to see.  I grew up with Sergio, we have a long, full and rich history, but the years before moving away, the years when I got deep into drinking and drugging we didn’t hang much.  Sergio had stared drinking heavily and I didn’t care for the Sergio that drank, he was unpredictable and violent, and as much as I wanted to be angry and violent, I was not.  But Roman, Roman didn’t get outlandish, he was a reformed idiot as some would say.  Roman was a happy drunk 90% of the time and I was attracted to that.

I met Roman through Sally who I met through my cousin.  There was this group of people I kinda knew about that lived on the border of Venice and Culver City where I had grown up.  We went to different schools but a couple of them crossed my social circle at times.  I had a fondness for Roman, as I did for Sergio and many other fellas I have grown close to over the years.  I think maybe it was due to the fair-weather father figure I had in my life, I seemed to need that guidance, that love and friendship of a father figure a little more then the others that I grew up with who also grew up without.  Either that or they needed it the same but never spoke on it.  Either way, I gravitated to Roman.

But again when I left for SLO he was another friend I had to let go of due to the using - this is the third time I have seen Roman in the 27 years I have been gone.  I introduced Sergio to Roman back on one of my last trips down here.  We went to a party somewhere in Venice, the 3 of us packed into my 1987 Toyota truck that resembled a bruised banana.  We showed up, got drunk and got kicked out at some point, something about being too aggressive is my guess.  I had scored some acid, weed, valium and coke prior to meeting up with these guys, the night was not going to go well.  I think I stayed on Sergios wooden floor that night, tripping balls and unable to sleep, that was the last time I saw the both of them till last year.

Last night the 3 of us met up, along with Blythe, Romans niece and a woman friend of theirs and her daughter.  We sat around at Romans for a bit reminiscing and then headed to eat at a local place that has been here since I can remember.  It filled my heart to see the both off them, to smile, to laugh, to see their personalities shine through.  I got to thinking how fortunate I was to have these people in my life, to have grown up with them (I’ve know Blyth since I was 11).  It was bittersweet, knowing how special those years were, feeling the love while talking with them and at the some time knowing it will not be often or maybe never again that I will have the opportunity to see them all together.

I am grateful this morning, a little different gratitude then other mornings.  I am over the moon with gratitude to wake every morning next to my soon to be wife, but this morning has a different spin on that gratitude.  There are millions of people in this world that wake to sadness or pain or hunger or fear or all and any other feelings or circumstances that brings sorrow - that has not been my lot in life in quite a while.  There’s been tumultuous times since I got clean that had me waking when I did not want to, in dire straits due to my doing or life’s happenings, waking in gratitude was not there.

This morning I have woke hot and sticky, ears ringing (3 1/2 years strait now), stomach upset, small headache fluttering in my frontal lobe.  The pain in my left foot has yet to arrive being I have yet to leave the bed but for some coffee.  My right shoulder sore from a separation it had from my clavicle 10 years ago, my lower back has the possibility for some aching but here’s to hoping for the best.  I also miss my morning kiss and the warm body that holds such treasures for me.  These are my life circumstances this morning, so minuscule they are almost not even worth mentioning.  I think I list them for context - I’ve never had it this good.

Fact is, even on my worse day I have never had it so good.  I woke, I was given the gift to be alive this morning, to breath, to be alert, to drink coffee.  It is easy to see it so simple from this space I exist in, it is hard to find that gratitude when strung out or homeless or in longing or constant pain.  I could only hope to be so spiritually connected to find the happiness in life if ever I am so confined to that which takes so much freedom from me…

As for today I get to see my daughter, I haven’t seen her in a few months and I am looking forward to it.  She is all grown now, 25 and living her best life, or the one she can afford to live - LA is so expensive.  She will be moving to a new apartment come the fall, I would like to see that apartment in SLO but it will most likely be in east Hollywood somewhere.  She is thriving and I can only pray that no pain or hardships befall her too quickly.  There is no way to avoid life and what it does with us, we can only find ways to deal with it as it comes.

I doubt I’ll be staying down here for the memorial on Sunday, I didn’t but a couple times me the fella they are celebrating, I was young young when I did meet him.  Sergio and Roman being a bit older than me and in the hood for most their lives knew him quite a bit more than I.  Besides, I’ve stuff to do back home, a shed to finish building and a garage to consolidate so I can finish my move to Jenni’s.  Food shopping for the week, kisses from my beloved and hopefully a bike ride with her.

As you know I don’t write much anymore, I processed so much for so long through this blog.  I bared my heart and soul here, shared all the love, dreams, aspirations, sadness, pain and crazies.  At times it’s hard to believe where I am at and what I’ve endured.  I didn’t think I had a snowballs chance in hell to get to the other side of all I had been going through over the last decade.  I was shook in a way that I never knew possible, for so long I thought I had so much control over my life and what was happening in it.  How silly of me to have thought that.

If given the opportunity to stay above ground for a while longer I will be married by years end, and I won’t even try and explain the happiness, the joy, or the love that brings to my heart.  I will continue to paint and ride my bike, go to meetings and treat my future wife like the work of art that she is.  I will work at being more patient, I will work at bringing more kindness and compassion into my heart, I will work on being less self-centered and finding even more gratitude for the smallest of things.

Until the next time I write, and the next time you care to peer into my basic yet beautiful life…