I haven’t posted much…you probably noticed. It’s not like I left you guys with something uplifting either- hell I even got an email from a dude who thought I might be dead.
And yes- sometimes I fantasize about it- death- the finality of it- the final sleep to drown away the nightmare of dreams swishing inside my dented dome- haywire circuits- a brain forever broken- cursed- sometimes beautiful- mostly a terrorist to my daily life- a pipe bomb in a pressure cooker set on extermination and in that perfect silence the words I type into this blank white space become refugees of thoughts now adrift to be devoured by time and most importantly- you the reader.
These words help me survive for I am lost without them. And you- the reader- help me survive because I know at least my experience can help some. Or writing about these experiences can help me understand and make some sense out of them.
But I ain’t dead. For awhile I felt dead. I would say worst shit to myself than Kendrick Lamar said to Drake on a daily basis- and if I am not careful that voice can take over. It’s dangerous how much this voice wants to talk shit to me- undermine my confidence- make me not feel I am worth the struggle. That voice that tells me suicide is a fantastic option- and that I will forever be locked in a perpetually sad ending- broken-hearted- and foreveralone.
Then the whole perspective shifts- a fleeced forrest’s wrath- my brain has too many ideas at once- a flash fire erupts leaving frozen ashes in its wake-a cold wind that feels mighty warm to some stirs- as I am left wondering if I can trust any of these thoughts.
What else helps me survive is not refugees of thought- but rather my soccer playing refugees who truly allowed me to experience a joy I feared I would never know again. Tragic trauma would bond us- and the simple joy of the game would propel us- and it all started with a bear in the tree.
There was no bear.
My student however was not convinced as she climbed higher up in the tree.
“Look it’s running away- I scared it off.”
I did not scare it off. In fact I just made the baby bear go get the mama bear. She climbed higher.
“I told you the mama bear was coming.”
I have tendency to work with very unique students- I am excellent dealing with behaviors. They call me the Lebron James of the behavior game. (Fun fact nobody calls me that.) I have dealt with any behavior you can think of- buck naked teenage girl cutting her hair with toe nail clippers and trying to bite your hand off if you tried to get close to her- check. 6’3 270 pound client taking a bite out of my upper arm and leaving his teeth marks imprinted in my flesh for 6 months after that-check. A teenage boy prancing around naked with a sock sticking out his ass like bunny telling us the unique and assorted ways he wanted us to touch his asshole- check.
So a girl climbing up a tree from bears was just another day for me. But because I was assigned to this student- I met three soon to be sixth grade boys who would change my life. Two mischievous Nepali boys who could pass for brothers- and thoroughly enjoyed telling me the wrong way to pronounce their names. And an African soccer playing prodigy named Paul- who thought he was a Junior even though his dad’s name was not Paul.
Now this is where that story begins- but life lately hasn’t been all that ideal. Sometimes I forget to post the highlights of the past- being on the cover of another newspaper with my players, or winning a Spirit of NH volunteer award.
But I feel this blog is about the ugly parts of life. It’s easy to celebrate and write about the good times. It’s easy to celebrate your triumphs to the world without discussing the sacrifices it takes to make it. Everyone wants to hear about the glory of the championship- but nobody wants to the ugliness that drove that desire to win. They want a nice clean story- some adversity- a setback or two- but ultimately glory at the end. It’s comforting to most I assume. Most do not want to know that in the aftermath of that glory you fell again hard. That that championship would literally leave you in bankruptcy and on the floor of classroom this past fall at 6pm paralyzed by fear- lights off- door locked- clutching a bottle of wine- cursing your brain again.
But that’s a story for another time. I just wanted to let that dude that emailed me that know that I am not dead, yet. I am too stubborn to quit trying to live.
I haven’t wrote here in awhile- at first it was because things were going so well. The chaos was behind me so the words stopped flowing. My brain though- through years of repetition, repeating past cycles, and being able to grasp in its clutches the one thing that still caused me pain- however was sly. It’s like I jumped in the front seat of a Cadillac while never noticing the killer in the back, with a halo in his hands meant to choke out my existence. The thing was unlike before I wasn’t in deep despair- nor any longing for the embrace of a breathless existence. Things just became too normal- everything was going too well. It just made me too uncomfortable to be comfortable and free from calamity’s oasis. So embraced my old mistress and took a sip of the pleasure of my pain. Ruining the friendship of the person whose past pain was similar to mine, and could relate in a level so much deeper than most. Instead I found umbrage in embarrassing fb messages, and the matrix of dating sites. Not wanting a connection till my brain was on autopilot, and my past code took over control. My future was so bright that each night I blacked out the night- inching ever so closer to those future days I was actively trying to destroy. A catch 22 of the madness of despair. I named this blog Broken Resolutions because it was an ode to the past. And while today I start a new journey- I learned a new lesson. You can’t fix anything in the morning if you are actively destroying it each night. Comfort equals despair when your actively trying to change. The only thing I was mindful in those almost two months was my dishonesty to myself, knowing all the right lies to trick myself. So here again I am freeing my secrets- sending them out so they can’t hide in me no more. Feeling the night so I can enjoy the brightness of the day. Still wondering in confusion, but tonite I am sober. And tomorrow will follow. And from there just like doing lunges at the gym I am just going to enjoy the suck- knowing the only way to be freed from past sins is falling into the arms of the the destruction of that oasis of my past love, chaos. And if all else fails l’ll just pretend I am John Wick, and booze was my dog’s killer. Taking revenge on that bastard by never taking that first sip.
Patrick Bernard 