Doug Writes About...

                  Vulnerability is a funny thing. 
                  I was told it's about exposing the parts of you that hurt. Yet somehow that was always easy. 
                  If I expose my sadness and it gets punched down, dejected, or ignored I'm still left with sadness. Perhaps a bit deeper but nothing has changed. I can deal with that the same I always have. The pain is the same.

                  Joy however is a different and harder emotion for me to express. To share joy and have it be unreciprocated, unnourished, and ignored hurts.
                  And that pain transforms that joy to sadness.  A dark bruise on my soul.  Sharing my Joy is my true act of vulnerability. 
                  Not sharing  the parts that hurt but the parts that can suffer the most from being exposed.

                  Here's to being more naked and small moments in my trip that brought me joy. A great lessoned learned.
                  

                    Labels give us definitions and a vocabulary to speak the truth but also confine us into rigidity. 

                    I've always been emotional. It's a tenant of human nature and a vehicle for growth. The problem is... How do you express those feelings when society is forcing male expression into boxes as... Anger? Competition? Muscle strength?  Books when growing up were always hinting at bottling your emotions and pushing through to do what's right for the greater good... But what about what's right for the main character?  Of course it's the conflict of what's right for them and what's right for the world that drives the story ...   In the end it works out. Do what's good for the world and things will fall into place. I say, do what's good for you and that fullest expression will be good for the world.

                    My sister always made me uncomfortable with her ease expressing herself. How can she have so many emotions at once?  Just make a choice, ignore the other voices! Push them down. I'd get upset with her and delve deeper into my hobbies  to keep my mind off  'the other half', my femininity; men don't express, men do.

                    Men are strong! Men self sacrifice! Men look at the world logically and engineer marvels!  There's no space here for... What's this?... Joy? Sadness? Intimacy?. Go wrestle, workout, hunt, kill, provide.  As a boy I should play sports. My grandpa thought being in the news and having kretz emblazoned on the front page for high school football was the only path forward and the highest honor. I diverted. He was upset.

                    Props to my parents for letting me be me. They always told me "give it a shot you might be surprised". And so I did.  Because of them  I played every sport and I even fell in love with a few! I was pretty good at basketball and baseball   Football made me hella nervous so only played a single season and golf was my dad's favorite so I enjoyed it for the times we spent walking the green. Him and grampi called me their crocodile every time I'd yawn.  Ultimately though... It wasn't for me.

                    I found music going into middle school and stopped focussing so  much on sports. Percussion was amazing. Here was something combining math, technicality and artistry all into one.  I loved it. I never used it as a tool for self expression but as a tool for mastery.  My sister still upset me.

                    Middle school into highschool is a bunch of kids trying to figure out what it means to be an adult. I loved videos games, music, chess... Well I guess I'm a nerd!  Lets see what do nerds do... They are quiet, they can't talk to women. Nerds are ugly and bullied. Nerds don't date cheerleaders, in fact "those people" hate nerds!  Don't even try. Jocks!?  We're better than them since we're smarter. Nerds are misunderstood so don't try talking to other people. If that's what it means to be a nerd; and I am a nerd then it follows that I too feel all those things. What are these friendships with jocks? Why would I even befriend a cheerleader?  What are these connections? Ignore those connections, ignore those voices. You made a choice so push the rest down.

                    I made lots of good friends still. I keep in contact with most of them to this day. Going off to college opened me up to a whole new world though. A lost nerd trying to find his people within the hostility of winter amongst the bricks of RIT...

                    Here  to be a nerd was a given, and so, through  its definition reared by culture, I was shown how it could become toxic. Thankfully I met a wonderful crew at RIT which started to bend these rules around me.

                    272 is a temple. I was scared of its people laying down at the altar of self expression.  Nerds dancing? Nerds throwing parties?  Nerds playing sports and running around? Nerds constructing a graph of human relationships for those who prayed at the temple... WHAT ARE THEY DOING THIS ISNT WHAT I WAS TOLD... I was immediately hooked.

                    Through them I learned that it was safe and okay  have so much inside. They showed me movement, love and compassion. It wasn't long before I became an ardent too. They loved me. I loved them back... I was still too scared to express it. Love isn't a voice of man, love is the voice of women and I am a man... Ignore the voices, push them down.  Continue on.

                    With college finished I moved out to San Diego and eventually found my way into circus. The energy is infectious. The love and camaraderie among them was daunting. How does one pierce into this world and become a member? All genders, sexualities, and ideas coalescing into a single place. There's no way there's a place like that for me. I'm still a nerd, I'm still supposed to be an isolated introvert. A developer working on my own. Computers and gadgets that's what my world is composed of!  And yet... The movements resonated. I joined and was obsessed.

                    I got into it for the strength aspects. Hand balance is my calling. Look how cool it is to do a pushup while inverted!  Look at that show of strength... What a man!. ...wait what a woman too. Huh!? I'll use hand balance to build my muscle mass and be attractive. That's what society wants right?  Hand balance is the vehicle to fit in. But circus and hand balance are so much more.

                    There's a way the body can move to evoke emotion. We see it through dance. Hip hop, ballet, break. While I was attracted to circus for it's strength building aspects I appreciated those who made art with it too. But dance isn't for me. Men don't dance, we build. So I built my strength, always in awe of those that built art. It could never be me. I even tried a few times but lacked the inspiration.

                    If dance was expression and expressions rely on feelings then I need to use my feelings to move... Where did they go?  I bottled them up so tightly and pushed them down so deep that they were lost... I was lost.

                    I couldn't dance through hand balance. I knew 4 positions. All literature implies I should only use those four movements to express myself. My line had to be perfect, my positions had to be precise. There's no space for banana backing. There's no space for bent toes... There's no space for me?

                    I worked hard. Once I have a straight line  surely I'll be accepted into the community and find success. I became obsessed. It was the only goal in training, no other successes were good enough. I fixated. The voices were saying " Doug that was really crazy how you can move in all these ways but still find balance".

                    No. I'd respond. Those movements aren't allowed. They don't follow the definitions. They aren't technically correct. Ignore the other voices, bottle them up.  Push them down.

                    Over the years those bottles built up. They clinked, they drifted, they'd come to the surface and I'd throw them right back into my abyss. Eventually they became overwhelming.

                    I must address the elephant in the room.

                    I've been lying to everyone this whole time.  I'm not just a nerd, I'm not just a pragmatic thinker, I'm not just a man.

                    I'm compassionate, I'm loving. I care and am nurturing. I am artistic... Doesn't that describe feminity?  I'll be shunned... Hated... ostracized,..

                    but that doesn't matter any more.

                    There's no perfection in nature and therefore there shouldn't be perfection within me.

                    I'm stoic, I'm emotional. I'm strong, I am weak. I protect, I attack. I am gay, I am straight  I am a man, I am a woman.  I am Human. 

                    I am me.... Finally
                  

                      Growing up my family would say. "oh you've got a little heart breaker on your hands". As a kid that's a lot to process. I'll be causing sadness!?!  Oh no.

                      I really only knowingly broke five hearts. Four girl friends and one almost girlfriend. So... They weren't wrong but definitely only half right.

                      I'm really a soul keeper.

                      I've been texting and calling just about every friend I've ever made. Reaching out to prevent myself from jumping into my personal abyss. I found in these incredibly vulnerable moments my friends simultaneously reached out to me with their pain. I bore my soul and they decided to bare theirs.

                      Like some fucked up dementor I come swooping in inhaling everyone's pain and anguish, then release it and let them know. Hey it's okay you're loved. Even now. By me. It'll be alright. And we cry together.
                    

                      I was recently forced to confront my darkness. Honesty it was surprisingly easy to quell it's persuasions.   It's acts of violence were so incredibly out of character for me that I knew there's no way to listen.  I was able to let it out little by little and utilized it's energy for brining people together.  I believe that's my purpose. Bring people together and show them love.

                      This evening however I'm staring into a new pit. This one isn't as deep or dark; it's not aggressive. It's reassuring. It's telling me to take a swim and enjoy it's calm. "Come. stay a while. You don't need to feel. I can help you". I'm... Tempted. There are a million opportunities to become numb. In my apartment alone I have weed, alcohol, video games, books, movies, shows, music. I can disassociate myself into oblivion right now and I'd welcome the peace. Surely anything is better than this turmoil...

                      In fact everything is better than this pain.

                      The pain will pass.

                      I won't listen to it's friendly whisper of peace. It would be a farce!  How can I truly be at peace if I can't inhabit my own body?  I'd destroy my mind to save my heart, ignoring that I'm really just doing both. You can't grow in fallow fields. You can't sustain a forever swim. No matter how blissful the swim, I would get tired and drown.

                      And so despite it's friendly glint and whispers of peace I see it for what it truly is. A pit of tar. Built to entice and to stick. There would be no growth. There would be no peace. There would only be struggle.

                      I want to live. I want to experience joy. I want to swim in waters of light and dance on rainbows. I have a seed within me I must nurture so that when the tree grows I may climb it and be amongst clouds. I've planted it next to a little stream. It's small but runs deep. I'm doing the work of digging some tributaries to connect my stream to all of my friend's. Together we can make a mighty river that will sustain my growth to the heavens. When I need to rest I sit and drink from the stream. I look at the new pit and say "watch me grow".
                    

                      The smell of over-ripe bananas emanated into my room from the kitchen.  I sat there reading, thinking of how this disgusting smell was going to infect every part of this house.  Unfortunately, over-ripe bananas are a key element to making my mom’s banana bread. As the smell continued to pervade every olfactory in my nose I began to detect a slightly different scent. Tonight we are supposed to have tacos for dinner and banana bread for desert. I lifted my head from the book to concentrate more on what this new smell was.  The tacos were there, along with the tang of freshly cut lettuce and the bitterness of onions. The smell of bananas was there, and yet there was something more. Contented with my mom trying new spices, which she does often, I put my head back into my book.  "Dinner is ready," my mom hollered from the kitchen as the clatter of forks and knives could be heard in conjunction with the opening, sliding, and closing of drawers. I shuffled into the dining room wiping my eyes.  This is the first time I had been out of my room all day.  There was no point in being out; I thought if the only thing I’m going to do is watch TV I might has well just read satisfy myself with  a book instead.  Sitting at the dinner table and eating tacos I began to listen to the usual table conversation about jobs, school, and money. I answered all questions that were asked but mostly kept to myself. Then, out of the blue, my mom, clearly fishing for complements (she had not received any) asked the family whether or not we thought the tacos were good. Almost instantaneously we all replied with these are the best she made."They better be," she replied, "I used a different kind of meat.” “I thought something was up," said I, "it smelled different."

                      Finishing my tacos and realizing I needed ice for my drink I stood and took my leave to go to the freezer.  There I relinquished the freezer door from its suction caused by the different temperatures and explored the ice bucket for ice.  While extracting these delightful cold packets I realized an emptiness that was not there before. "Mom," I said slightly confused "this new meat you used, where exactly did you get it?"  "Oh, it was there in the freezer so I ground it up and put it in the pan," she replied, matter-of-factly. "Mom," my voice shaky now, "you didn’t use the cat did you."

                      My cat died about a month ago. He suffered from leukemia, which is transmissible among felines, so we kept him inside. He had already lived four years passed his deadline so I guess it was his time to go.  It was about midnight when he left so we put him in a trash bag and stuck him in the freezer. The next day it rained. The rain didn't let up for the better part of a week so when it finally stopped it was still too muddy to feed the trees.  Then, just as the dirt was starting to dry up it started to rain again, Mother Nature wanted us to constantly look upon the trash bag that contained my cat, sadly locked in the freezer instead of becoming one with the earth, I assume she just didn’t want him. So we kept him there, always making off-hand jokes about how he was going to stay in there forever, and how he should stay in the freezer so he would be a part of us.  Some members of the family even said we should get him taxidermied so we would always have him.  Of course, all these jokes were never serious; at least I thought they weren’t.

                      "Well, you did say you always wanted him to be a part of us, so I figured if we eat him, the nutrients he provides us will be used to build cells, which would divide into more cells, and in that way our cat will continue to live on in us, in our blood, kind of like Jesus."  As soon as she finished her talk I bolted. It couldn’t be true.  Why would she do this?  Who in there honest mind would do this? I ran all over.  I looked in the fridge. I scoured every ice chest, every crevice, I went into the attic hoping that there would be some dry ice up there and atop it would lay my dead cat. But searching through the house proved to be fruitless, so I took my hunt outside.

                      We own one acre of land, however where one acre starts and the other ends is hard to tell because our back yard is uncultivated.  Nature still has its way back there, which left me with about ten acres to search across.  I started through the trail we had made one year prior, looking for any upturned dirt, searching for a shovel, all to no avail. I ran across the yard and looked inside of a broken down car hoping that the bag would be there, and inside my thawing cat. I looked towards the wind hoping to catch a whiff of a decomposing body. I looked up to the sky and finally, dancing in the wind were the vultures. They circled the air, showing that both life and death are connected. I sprinted in their direction.  Jumping over fallen logs, and winding through the limbs. I suffered a few scrapes and bruises, but I didn’t care, my destination was my only goal, to get to my cat and prove that my mom was playing a sick joke to mess with my emotions. I reached where the vultures circled and there, laying in the weeds, among rotten wood and some maggots lay a dead deer.

                      I returned to my house defeated. I wasn’t sad, I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t even disgusted. I was merely defeated. My hope completely gone I opened my house door and secluded myself in my room. My mom wasn’t lying, we had consumed our cat. The family pet, he is now coursing through my blood; inside and a piece of me.