So... is it worth it?

This is the question that's been plaguing me for the past two days.

After a really intense August, the inevitable crash hit. I mean, three major break-throughs in a month PLUS intense, immense stress PLUS incredible sex EQUALS major comedown eventually.

I'm still trying to piece it all together and figure out WTF is going on.

Artistically, I feel like my fucking brain is going to explode. Seriously. I have filled three quarters of a notebook with bits for the stand-up schtick. I have at least four art projects on the hop right now, the rewrite of the novel is percolating, the manga script has been passed on for my edits, I've open mic'd twice, and I don't know what the fuck else is going on.

Throw in Banned Books Week... the potential Archive class... the proposed film project for the SRAC board... oh, yeah, Mum in the hospital and having to coordinate her care and completely excavate that monstrosity of a house...

I feel a bit overwhelmed.

Just a bit.

Well, more than a bit.

Oh, and there's those breakthroughs...

It was with serious hesitation that I went back to therapy in June. I feel like I've done enough personal navel-gazing to last a fucking life time (yes, I know, I'm dropping the f-bomb quite a bit. I will draw you a graph someday that will assist all of you in measuring my stress level by the number of times I use "fuck" or one of its myriad forms in a given breath). I know what has happened in my life--first memories witnessing Mum being beaten, all the violence of living four years in the Projects, joy of having a drunk for a father, abandonment, physical abuse as a teenager, two rapes, abusive marriage, anxiety disorder, PMDD, PSTD, abusive relationships, abusive friendships, codependency, and all that other happy horseshit. I know what I've been through, I accepted my responsibility for healing, chucked the assholes out of my life, and yadda yadda yadda.

And then well, I tried to die last February. Yeah. That was a bit intense. I mean, I can mainly lay the blame on the PMDD and say that the upped dosage of anti-anxiety meds and the emergency Xanax has fixed the problem, but I'd be lying through my teeth. You only get that low when life has kicked you too many times and the pain gets too bad.

So let's talk about suicide.

Seriously.

I won't claim to be an expert on the subject--not in the multiple-degreed, psycho-babbling professional witness type of expert--but I do know a bit about it. I always find it annoying when someone asks how a suicide could be so selfish as to take their own life. *shakes head* I guess I should be glad that the person has never known so much pain that the very idea of living is agony. Because that's what drives a human being to check out--incredible, horrific, soul-deep agony that makes the effort of drawing breath hell.

I won't even excuse myself for duplicating the word "agony"--it's the only accurate word I have in English (and I don't really know any other language).

I've been to that edge. Almost gone over a few times. Scared the living shit out of myself in February because I didn't call anyone. I didn't warn anyone. I just decided to check out. No debate with myself about method this time, either, which is rare. I usually stop to consider what will be the best approach, although I pretty well know in the end it's going to be the old slice & dice along the arteries in my wrists.

Couldn't talk about it then, why I tried to leave. I can now. See, I've been saying for a while that I was looking for a "real" relationship--y'know, love, romance, commitment, family, all that happy crappy you're supposed to have. The thing that so many of my friends have. The thing I really have never had.

I was seeing someone then--he'd just moved for a job, but we were going to try to make it work. I knew in my heart I was making the wrong decision; I knew I should have just fucked him one last time and let him go, no bullshit, no promises. I didn't. I tried to convince myself to make it work.

Of course, it didn't. Everything went pear-shaped--I got clingy and stupid, he got more distant and scared. And the sexual revelations came.

Sex is terrifying for me because it's not. I love it. I love almost every aspect of it, every crazy brand of it, from sweet old fashioned vanilla lovemaking to down and dirty kinky fucking. I LOVE IT. About the only things I have completely eschewed are scatological involvement (ewwwwwwwwwww), pedophilia (I don't count crushing on a 23-year-old as pedophilia, although it comes close), and beastiality. I mean, I DO have limits here. What makes it difficult is the conditioning I'm fighting against. Twelve years of Catholic school. The most sexually fucking repressed society that is yet OBSESSED with it. And for me... as long as it's consenting, I don't care. There is a part of me that craves a companion; there is another part of me that wants no chains. I want to live for myself and me now.

And far too many judgmental men in my past. Worse, far too many judgmental women claiming to be friends who were threatened by my openness and couldn't accept that someone so free was also so utterly, completely ethical.

I am so tired of all of this. I am tired of looking for a partner who can just accept me and be a part of my life without having to own me or crush my spirit. I've met one man in my entire life who was capable of that; he's married to someone else. I envy her, but I would never attempt to disrupt or corrupt what they have. I love him--to do something so selfish would not be an act of love.

This is ethics--nothing to do with "morals" or "morality"--those are bastard words for idiot children afraid of facing their own reality. Ethics... I can live with the reality of my sexuality and my worldview so long as I conduct myself ethically. So long as no one is deliberately injured by my actions.

I realize that there are many who will look at me and think that there is something missing in my make-up--some essential moral fiber that is required. Maybe there is. Or maybe... maybe I never wanted to be fettered by convention. Maybe this is just who I am and who I am meant to be...

I am trying to re-embrace myself. For the first time in years, I felt the shaman moving in me, felt my soul awake and alive. For the first time since I allowed another human being to destroy my self-confidence and permitted her narrow-minded self-censureship to break my spirit, I took the stage, and godsdammit, I TOOK THAT STAGE. I felt alive for the first time in over a decade, talking too fast, nervous as an anal virgin facing a 9" cock (and I speak from experience on that one)... and my Gods, it was amazing! Doesn't matter that I bombed the second time--performing is like sex--sometimes it's FUCKING AMAZING, and sometimes... sometimes you suck.

I can feel the "normal" elements in my life trying to hold me down. There's always been envy there--always been people afraid of what they sense in front of them, envious... scared because it's not in their realm of experience. And then there are the friends worried for me... who know how stretched I am at the moment, and who are afraid of moods like the one that hit the other night and has been persisting. The friends who have had to pick me up too many times after a crash.

I'm trying. Gods, I am trying to hold on right now. I'm scared. I'm not 22 and starting over after a bad marriage; I'm 42 and trying to put my life back together after dropping the ball and carrying on for others for too long. My body is slowly healing, the weight falling away slow and steady; I just have to find a way to mend my soul.

My heart... I don't know if my heart will ever mend. I've accepted that marriage and family probably will not happen. I just don't think there's any man out there who can accept who I am and love me as is, nevermind live with me on a regular basis. It's painful--like a pulsing wound in my heart--but there's no help or hope for it. I cannot change who I am. I cannot remake myself to make someone else happy. I've been trying to do that for too long.

I'm terrified because I'm not scared. Because there is a calm, inner part of me that knows I am doing the right thing. I am walking the road less traveled like I always have.

I am who I am. For better or worse, I'm Riz.