Ep. 6 - I'd Rather Be Dead (or, Another Story for Another Time)

Hey, gang! Welcome to my life – where anything is possible and nothing is as it seems. I’m Freedom and I’ll be your host, coming at you from within the depths of Geistopia.

Welcome To My Life is a project, an experiment in Life and ART. A living storyboard, if you will. Its premise is that life is experiential, and that you can, and do, experience the life you choose. It is based on The Wheel of Life and The ARTs for The New Millennium as life building tools.

Welcome to my Life is an I T.V. Studios/Geist…House Players Production, in association with the Center for Creative Inspirationalism. JustUs Productions, the parent company, would like to give a ‘Shout-Out’ to the following for their ongoing, and sometimes unknowing, inspiration and support:

Princess Cuddlebug

Princess Sunshine

Craze & Co.

The Shaman

The Pillar

The Entire Putt-Putt-Putter Clan

Professor Siggy Chong

The VanMan and General Ralph Glossop (may they R.I.P.)

‘Blue 326’

The Original KLT

The Looch

The Baker

Bert-on

Andy Pandy

The Mudder

The Prodigy

The Wix-ians

Piz-Niffer

Dancing Queen

Downtown Encyclopedia Brown

Mama Rabbit

And, of course, a very generous sponsor who (not-so-much) wishes to remain anonymous.

It is…Sunday, March 4, 2018. Time...Defiant.

Theme of the Week – Self-Care First

So, Tuesday I called off from work. I know this sounds counter-productive, but, I felt I needed it. I was overwhelmed and run down. The two jobs have really been taking their toll on me. Before Tuesday I had not had a full day off for three weeks. Both jobs have really been abusing my back and I was definitely feeling it by Monday night. It wasn’t just the back pain either. It was everything – the pain, the stress, the frenzy of trying to keep it all together and get it all done. It was the pressure of having a plan in place and watching it get dismantled just a little bit more each day. I was losing hope. Not to mention the fact that I was falling very far behind in everything. I wrestled with calling off – for all of the very obvious reasons. But, something kept nagging at me to do it. Interestingly enough, as soon as I had made up my mind to call off I logged into Facebook and the first two posts on my feed from friends both had the hashtag #self-care first. ‘Nough said, I think.

Lesson of the Week – Tell The Stories…Dumbass!

Harsh and abrupt, I know. But, sometimes, this is how it happens. In my struggles, through my strife, as I posed so many questions this was the greatest answer. It’s the most obvious one as well. If I have been given nothing else in this life, I have been given a wealth of stories. Some are inspirational. Some touching. Some just make you go, “Hmmm.” Perhaps these are my gift, my abundance waiting to happen. After all, telling the stories is what inspires WTML in the first place. Telling the stories is why people have told me often that I should write a book. Telling the stories is why people have told me I should be a minister. But, I hesitate. I resist. Why? What am I afraid of?

Observation of the Week – Listen To The Voice In Your Head

We all have it, whether we acknowledge it or not. We all have that little whisper inside of us. It guides us, answers our questions, points out things we may know but don’t give in to. It’s easy to dismiss the voice. After all, it sounds like our own. It would be very difficult to tell the difference between the two if you didn’t know you were looking for it. But, we all have it. We all hear it. So very often, we ignore it. Some call it intuition. Some say it is a Spirit Guide or Guardian Angel. Some simply call it The Higher Self. Whatever it is, we do all have it. And, no matter what else it may be, that voice in your head is always right. I have story after story of how The Voice has guided me to things I could have never conceived. So, in an effort to keep true to both the Observation and the Lesson of the week, I have decided it is time to Tell the Stories. To help me, all of us, along the way, I have added a poll to the bottom of the home page for this site. Check it out. Click on it. Choose our next adventure in ‘My Life.’

I can actually remember the week – the whole week. Shocking, I know. There was a lot of high energy at the beginning of the week. It was neither good nor bad really. It was just very intense. My depression from last week carried forward into this week. It weighed on me until I broke – which only took until Tuesday. Actually, I guess I broke on Monday. Monday I decided that I had had enough. Truthfully, I had decided that on Sunday night, but Monday I got up and went out and faced the world. I’m not certain what exactly happened on Monday, but I broke. I wasn’t certain that I could take another moment. So, came Tuesday, of which I have told you just the slightest bit.

Taking off that day turned out to be the best thing I could have done for myself. First and foremost, it gave me the chance to rest and medicate and nurse my back in so many ways [and it really needed that.] I was a completely different person at work on Wednesday. I had a bounce to my step and liveliness to my being that I hadn’t seen in way too long. But, it also gave me a chance to take a breath and get grounded. I was able to rest my mind and my spirit for a day. I was able to touch base with all aspects of my life and put things into perspective. I was able to get caught up on things that needed to be done and at the same time project plans moving forward.

I found myself in sweat lodge with the Shaman and with my brothers for a lodge of a whole other vibration. Many things came of those meetings – conversations, messages, commitments and understandings. The Shaman, as usual, said something of particular interest to me - something that rings and resonates between my ears. He always leaves me with plenty to think about. [And, when he is paired with The Pillar it is 100x worse.] But, every so often, he leaves me with a random and yet oh so poignant uttering that seems to linger with me in an oft times haunting manner. For instance, the last one was, “You think too much of yourself…you put yourself above everyone else.”

Now, please, this is not the first time I have heard this. I’m most certain that you are aware. What made it interesting is that I had never heard him say it before. For him to say it then not only would I find truth in it but I would find that truth buried deep beneath the surface of my existence. It would lie far out of the sight of anyone so casually and nonchalantly gazing into my life from this paradigm or that. I found that truth. I have barely scratched the surface of it, but I have found that particular truth.

He’s not wrong. He’s not.

He’s not right…but he’s not wrong. All of which he basically admitted when I confronted him on it all.

“I never said I was right.”

But, then, [as usual] that is a story for another time.

(Would it be as much fun if I didn’t give you something to look forward to?)

I digress.

(Suhr-prize, suhr-prize, suhr-prize!!)

“Sometimes one just needs to step out in Faith and do what needs to be done.”

At the time he was referring to a very specific topic of dialogue. We were discussing the possibility of me taking as many as three 30-35 hour a week jobs. The Goal here is to make enough in a week to actually move my life forward. This is all based on its own formula, which we can get into at some other time.

Nonetheless, he is right. In fact, once I looked at the real possibility [and necessity], I realized that I am already part way there. I’m already working towards that. Not by any leaps and bounds, but I am already stepping out in Faith and managing the best I can with what I have before me. I have the new Big Box Store job, I have the theatre, and I have the middle school. All three are paying or are leading to pay. I’m…

I’m trying my best. It’s all so random and haphazardly thrown together at first glance.

I found that truth as well. The one he seemed to want me to see. The truth is I would absolutely do it. If I could work out that schedule with three employers I absolutely would do it. I don’t know for how long. I don’t know if I could truly last like that, but I would give it my best shot…just to see what happens next. [Hmmm…maybe a 6 month commitment? Maybe something like commit to it for certain from May to Oct.? 6 months is always a good checkpoint. But…for that to work there would need to be 2 exceptions to any work – the two vacation weeks I get with the princesses. These are forever and always non-negotiable. ]

I most certainly would do it if it came to that. I have already discussed the possibility with the Princesses. Nonetheless, it is three more weeks before I can even begin to think about it, and another month after that before there are no other commitments to consider. [And, how interesting that that brings us to May. *wink, wink*]

Of course, that is still all seven weeks away and as we all know – Six Minutes Is An Awfully Long Time…And Anything Can Happen In Six Minutes.

But just as The Shaman’s previous chants, I looked for something deeper in this statement. I can apply it on so many levels and layers of my life.

Lest any of this relate in any way to why we come tonight.

[I have absolutely NO idea if that it is a proper statement of any kind…sometimes you just gotta let it flow.]

(You gotta Listen To The Voice In Your Head.)

Speaking of which, if you are reading this post the actual week of, do not forget to cast your ballot on the Poll. If you are joining us sometime after, please, feel free to visit The Poll and participate in whatever particular we are currently engaged.

Tonight, we are here to face something deeper, something…darker.

Sunday night I had rounded a very dangerous bend in my path. I was tired. I was beaten and broken. I was overwhelmed by riddles and rhymes. Each night was bringing greater and more powerful visions. I was being pulled in dozens of different directions, not just physically but on all levels across the board. I didn’t know it, but I was about to short circuit. It was a system overload.

There was so much information and energy and demand being tossed about. I could no longer see a clear path before me. I could no longer plot or plan a course. I had calculated so many possibilities that I could think of none else. I had looked at every choice and moment and mistake that had brought me to right that moment. I thought fondly of all the blessings and richness I found along the way, despite the failures and disappointments and hurts. I suddenly felt as if it was not one life I was living but two so very contradictory lives. All this time I have been straddling across them as they struggled and fought for dominance and survival. And, Sunday night, I sat, my heart racing and my breath so tight, and I watched helplessly as they crashed in on one another - two Universes collapsing upon each other, imploding into a void, the Black Hole of existence.

I had nothing left. I had nothing by which to gauge and measure myself. The past no longer mattered for it has left me so much worse off than I had started or ever dreamed I could be. I only saw The Past as delusion. It was all a mirage with which I kept myself distracted.

And, The Future. Well, the future faded. The Future was built on a past that had not been. It lost its merit. There was no hope for it. It was but a dream. And, in that moment it become nothing more than a mere whisper of insanity.

I found myself naked, cold, and alone in the darkness. Figuratively – this time. But, it made me think of the last time I found myself like that…and that wasn’t nearly as figurative. It will be twenty years this October. Two full decades.

I thought of that night. Then, once again, I replayed the whole of my life since that night. I looked at every aspect from every angle. The hopes and fears, the failures and the blessings, the beginnings and the endings – I combed carefully and diligently through them. The experience was so surreal and the life even more unrealistic.

Despite all of my visions and dreams and intentions and hopes, despite all of my attempts and leaps of Faith, here I sat impoverished and feeling so very, very alone. Not just alone, but very much out of place.

Then I thought of the night just about two years ago when The Spirit visited. I remember how it shot and shouted at me. Its very presence chilled me to the bone. It spoke with no mercy nor compassion. It was direct and to the point.

“You don’t belong here,” it shrilled like a banshee.

*hmph* And, what a point it was.

Technically, The Spirit was right. I could not deny it. It is something I have pondered many times in my silence and solitude. I wondered, so often, if coming back was a mistake. Did I force existence into an anomaly? I thought about how contrary the reality of my life is to what I had dreamed it to be. I thought about all of the pain and the hurt I have caused and delivered. How, so very often, it was unwittingly and unwillingly. As I looked back over it all, it seemed as though just by being I was doing more harm than good.

I thought about how over the course of the five years that followed that very dreadful night, I watched as everything I held dear was systematically stripped and removed from my life, leaving me with nothing but the faint hope that perhaps one day I could rebuild or recapture the essence of it all.

I thought about how that has never really happened. I thought about how no matter how close I get I am always left back with nothing but the hope and the dream, and yes, even the Faith.

I thought about how it is that very same cycle over and over and over again. It is the same birth-death-rebirth pattern. It takes different shapes and forms each time. It follows similar yet oh so different paths. But no matter how different the journey, the beginning and the end are still the same. They meet in that one solitary moment twenty years ago. They divide with one choice.

Perhaps The Spirit was more right than I wished to accept.

I died that night. I died and I fought my way back. There I found myself standing, naked cold and alone in the darkness. [Very literal.] I had been dead. What if death was what was meant for me? What if my very existence was causing a very dangerous rift? What if when I made the choice to fight my way back I really had put myself above everyone else?

If my life truly means that much harm, that much pain and chaos and destruction…then I would rather be dead.

If taking it all back would make the world a better place I would do it in an instance. I would rather be dead.

I’ve been dead once.

But do not worry, my friends. It did not take long for G-d to intervene, swooping in with a barrage of signs and messages and omens. The One True Spirit wasted no time in reminding me of the splendors I have encountered as well. Those moments which are wrought with such possible skepticism but somehow leaving one so certain there is a presence in this Universe so much greater than anything thus far conceived.

I thought about how blessed I have been in the encounters I have known. I thought about how rich in experience my life has been. I thought about the ‘seeing-eye dog’ of Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania and also the woman, dying in Phoenix, Arizona, whom I had known nothing of prior but who seemed to know I was coming…because she needed me there. I thought of the prayers in Shamrock, Texas and the ‘secret girl’ in Flagstaff, Arizona whose very existence was suddenly so very real…and I never saw it coming. I thought of the little girl whose spirit called me to one of the most painful plots of land on which I have ever stood. And, who called me with such force, that I watched my very own hands betray me – yanking the wheel and cutting across three lanes of interstate traffic to set me on the course I never knew I was following.

I thought of the Lessons in Faith and Trust. I thought of the love I had been shown and the forgiveness I’ve known.

I thought of the passion that had grown.

Then I thought about how I almost lost it all.

Sunday night, life had brought me to the edge of such a dangerous and bottomless cliff. I teetered so recklessly on the edge. My soles [and soul] tickling so teasingly along the jagged rocks where ground meets…nothing.

For twenty years I have I have lived and loved and loved living. I have pushed and I have tried. I have failed and I have died. At the end of one particular ‘Cycle’ I would manage to push away the love of my life [another story for another time,] had my best friend all but tell me that I was The Devil Incarnate and then never speak to me again.

Though…he did date My Love. [Another story.] I even stood in a marble hall watching as everything I had come to know myself to be burned violently to the ground, my dreams playing before me as Nero’s Fiddle in Rome. [ Oh, oh, ho-ho! That’s the story of my favorite ‘Lil Red-Headed Whore.]

At the end of yet another, I watched painfully, feigning such a slight sense of nobility, as my heart ripped from my chest the day Mama picked up the Princesses and left, taking with them such a large part of their lives and a large part of mine that we can never get back.

I have toiled and tinkered at so much. I have fallen and failed so often.

I cannot fairly describe for you just how broken I truly feel.

But, no matter how hard it has gotten, inevitably I am able to brush myself off, pick myself up and go at it once more. I have been through the wringer so many times that I literally feel like there is not a bone in my body that has not been broken, no muscle that has not torn. Not a joint that has been a stranger to dislocation. I dread going to sleep at night, because the mornings bring so much pain and discomfort.

For twenty years I have pulled myself through it. I have reminded myself of the basics so very often – Ask and It Is Given, Everything Perfectly Placed [a time and a season, a rhyme and the reason,] What You Get Is What You See.

I had died once…and five times since. And, in each life, Faith was the Lesson of ‘The Journey.’ How could it not be after Bar Harbor, Maine? Bar Harbor was the beginning of the end that inevitably would come. I knew it was happening and still I did not see it until it was too late. [Say it with me now…1…2…3…”Another story!”]

My Faith is the only possession I have. It is my most precious gift that I could share. It is all I can ever leave to my loved ones. It is my legacy.

I was born in Faith. I was lost to Faith. I was found in Faith. I strive to live in Faith and, by G-d, I wish to die in Faith.

And, I tell you, if I should ever come as close to losing it again as I did on Sunday night…I would rather be dead.

I would rather die in good Faith – Faith in G-d; in Life; in Love; in Compassion and in Understanding; in forgiveness; Faith in humanity – than to ever risk disrespecting, or leaving a blemish on, the treasure of The Powers of The Lord to which I have borne witness. Before I could ever lose the love and passion I have for what it means to exist and to be…I would rather be dead. As a parent to a child, I would sacrifice my life to spare the lives of my Faith and my Love.

Read into that as you wish. [You will anyway.]

So, without hesitation…

For now and for always, from here in Geistopia this is your beloved Rev. wishing you Peace, Love, Light and Freakishness, baby!

Please feel free to leave comments, questions, and concerns. I don’t know you are there if you don’t say, “Hi.” But, also, you’re experience of WTML is just as important as mine. So, let me know what you think. If you would like to connect, or find out more about me, you can find WTML on Facebook @TheNewWTML or myself at @rev.mgeist.

And, don't forget to pop on over to the 'home' page and help 'Choose Your Own Adventure by taking this week's Poll and telling us which story you want to hear first.

(“I will guide you, protect you, and heal you. All you have to do is believe in me”)

[Bar Harbor, ME; October, 1998.]