Blooming ... better late than never ...

late bloomer : a person whose talents or capabilities are slow to develop:


When I was in sixth grade and almost 11 my voice started to change. I remember running around my grandparents’ yard and my mom started laughing. I asked what was so funny “your voice just cracked”. I blushed and didn’t think much of it but as the school year drug on I realized I was one of the first kids in class to go through puberty.

It was an embarrassing time but apparently my body thought I should get an early start. It was one of the last times that I can remember where I felt like I was ahead of the game. I don’t remember my birth mom but I always wondered if I was a late baby seeing that I was 12 pounds. I feel that set me up for my life.

The term late bloomer would seem to apply to me in many ways:

I was treated from a young age like I was an adult. My step-dad thought I should be having grown up things with grown up toys (i.e. Sleeping bags, tools, clothes, etc.). I remember my mom sneaking us off to the toy store and we would make sure that we were not found out that we went). As I grew older I thought some of the things were trivial in regards to toys.

I thought that it was my role to be a grown up and an adult. I wanted to do more the things that normal kids did and play and run around. I started working at 15 and I felt that was what you did. You worked, got married, had kids and that is just what you did.

By 24 I was divorced, still working and FINALLY came to the realization that I was gay. That is right I was a big ole HOMO. Most everyone in my life knew I was but I was late in recognizing due to a case of DENIAL. It was a strange induction to enter a whole new world at 24 and learn all the in and outs when so others were doing it at 18 or so.

I started to try and date and get to be in touch with who I was and who I am. I thought about doing many hobbies and yet I felt that unless I was working and on the go I was not able to be a respectable and working part of society.

As I started to get older I started sinking and falling into the hole of “life as an adult”. I worked and socialized, met people and wrote but almost every turn of wanting to do something more creative I was told by the people in my life and the voice in my head that I was too old or that my time had passed and that I needed to still settle down and grow up.

By the time 30 rolled around I felt that I had to continue to be the grown up and to be able to be self sufficient. On the whole I was but I was still craving something more. I had been in a band from the time I was 18-24 mostly part time when my guitarist was not using drugs. I still craved wanting to do more music, Writing, photography, etc. I felt no one I knew was on the same page as me at all and that my time had passed.

In 2005 when I was diagnosed I had to sit back and spend some time really thinking about what I wanted and what life had in store for me in the future. The first chance I had I went and bought myself a camera and started shooting. I really didn’t know what I was doing but knew it was something I had longed to do. The more I took pictures the more that people told me they loved my visions.

I stumbled a bit after a messy break-up and once again was told I would never amount to anything artistically. I lost my footing and I stumbled. Once again I jumped in to the track in my head that said that I was too old to amount to anything creatively.

The past year something has clicked in my head and snapped (in a good way). I started to gain my own confidence and somewhere I crossed the line where I started to realize that age is a number and the only one that has been holding me back is me. I have been surrounded by people in my life who ore now supportive and care that I succeed in all that I do.

I look back in my life and see that when it really comes down to it I am simply a late bloomer !!!! The best part of being a late bloomer is that I have now experienced enough in my life. I have truly grown and developed enough that I am able to actually have more and more to write about and experience.

To all the late bloomers out there … go find your time to bloom…

Awake from the Darkness

The past week I have been in the process of changing my anti-depressants and switching over to a new one that will hopefully help me better in my mental state.

This has really opened my eyes up top some things that I never thought about before. I find that sometimes when you are making a change (no matter what kind) there is certain clarity of sorts that comes to mind.

I have been thinking about when I was a child and how I would have these emotional break down or outbursts. They used to be so bad and I was always so out of control. My parents used to call them my “Temper Tantrums” and it was always so crazy. My parents were a bit lost and not sure what to do with a 12 year old that is having freak outs.

When I was 13 I had one my “tantrums”. Little did I know the result. I remember my mom asking me to do something very trivial in a homework assignment. I didn’t feel like I could do what was being asked of me and I started to just come unglued. I called my grandma stupid and that was the end I was kicked out of the house and forced to move back in with my step dad.

It was years later I would still be having these mini breakdowns and no amount of therapy or anger management classes could help. I even learned skills to make myself not be so angry or to resolve my anger. Nothing worked until about 3 years ago when I started taking new anti-anxiety/anti-depression meds. It was the like a miracle came over me.

It has been a long time since I had an issue where I felt like I have in the past where I felt a bit crazy in my head. It is a weird sensation to now be switching the meds. Last week I was up late cooking with Jacob and it was like something in me snapped and I just went off.

It is a terrifying feeling to not know why you snap or what is causing you to act out irrationally. I seriously think the meanest thoughts and want to act out. It is almost as if the filter that controls the actions in my brain is off. I feel tired and worn down all the time and it really just wears at me.

The strange part is the insight it has given me to my past. I know that I have suffered from depression a majority of my life but not until I was older did I ever have it recognized. It is odd to think about how all the years I suffered and thought how horrible I was for having my “tantrums”. Feeling like I was losing control.

Time does teach us many things. I am thankful for a supportive partner who has run his own personal battle with depression. So many people in my past have thought something was wrong with me or plain thought I was crazy. I am also thankful to look back and not feel so sad about my reactions.

I see now a lot my connection issues with others and the general feeling that I was embraced in darkness was due to depression. Being lowered on dosage is interesting in the way that it has seriously made me think about how I like the feeling so much better (thanks to modern medicine) of having my mind connected and balanced our correctly.

I think a bit about how this has been such a great experience to learn more about myself and the way my head works. Makes me wonder what other lessons I still have yet to learn as I move forward.

One of the best parts of this whole experience though is the awakening that I have had in regards to the creative side. Maybe there was a need to dip into the DARKNESS just for a moment or two for me to see what I have in my head and what is ready to blossom artistically.

I hope though in the future that I don’t have to go through all this in order to find my creative soul again, or to have to endure having to feel crazy just to fix my brain.

Loss (and hoping to be found)...

LOSS---

***detriment, disadvantage, or deprivation from failure to keep, have, or get:

***the state of being deprived of or of being without something that one has had

***failure to preserve or maintain:



I have been in the strangest head space as of late. I have been thinking a lot about loss and the things we lose as we get experience this thing called life.



I feel so frustrated with my body and my mind. I almost forget what it was like to be oblivious to my own mental and physical needs. It is hard to imagine that there was a time that I just accepted y moods and didn’t understand or even acknowledge that I had problems always using excuses about finances and time to not work on these things.



I am older now and working through the fact that I am getting older and that I have physical issues now to deal with the loss of my go go go… my back hurts at the oddest moments and having to deal with a chronic exhaustion. I have the thoughts of all the things I want to do but I am so tired and worn out all the time.



I am angry that I have to take meds in order to maintain my mental state and not feel like I am losing control. Though I find it funny that I see now where so many of my mood swings in my past have come from my head just not working inside correctly. I worry that I will one day lose my sanity and never be able to return.



I think about how much my heart would break if I was to lose anyone close to me at this stage and I am just not sure what would happen. I feel I have lost enough of myself over the past 36 years and I am afraid of losing anything more in a short time.



I found that over the course of the past several years the biggest loss ios the loss of my dream of the artistic life and my hope to one day do more with it. When I was younger I dreamt of being an artist and surviving off that but sadly we live in an age where artistry is not appreciated or compensated like it once was.



Independent artists have to fight to not have their work stolen, ideas taken, or just so underappreciated to the point of may artist going into having to work second or third jobs just to make ends meet. I lose hope in that I will be able to make a difference yet I watch and feel as if I have something to say but I wonder if anyone is out there even willing or wanting to listen.



I do feel very thankful for the many things I have do not get me wrong … I count those blessings every day. I just want to be able to find my creative self and I would like to make a difference in the world. It is funny to think that so many people get to see the “public” face and the guy who is always on and happy and willing to be the life of the party.

The truth is most often I am scared of making a fool of myself and looking like a fool. I have felt like I let people down and that a lot are embarrassed by me and my goofiness. I have lost my sense of what is and what is not success and I fear sometimes that I will be found out that I am really insecure at times to the point of tears.



I really and working to not feel the loss that I have deep inside … I feel the last meaning of loss is the one that I have had the hardest time with: failure to preserve and maintain. I feel that I have to reinvent my creative aspect… I am just not sure how to do that but that is what the planning and creating part has to somehow drip from me.



I have to step back and find how to not feel the loss but to truly grow and mature from the loss that I have felt in the past. I would also like to not be afraid of further loss. This where I am at in my head for now.