This Big Hush

"We wake alone in the blackness, we sleep wherever we fall"

I lost six years of my life, paralyzed, and living off Prednisone, alcohol and oxycontin. The entire world changed around me, without me knowing it.

I thought several years ago, that once my spine was fixed, everything would be fine, life would go back to normal, I could get on with the plans I had made.

If naïvety were airplanes, I'd be a fucking airport.

It's no exaggeration to say that every day, since the morning I woke up in India and could walk again, has been a literal fight - mostly just to gain a few inches on the yard towards stability again. My psychological recovery ALONE (something I had no idea I would go through) has taken years, and still something I build on every day.

You want to learn true humility? Have everything in your life stripped from you, make a conscious decision to continue living, and start all over again.

At middle age.

There's so many things I've discovered, both about myself and *real life*, that I never had a clue of before. I struggle with depression every day, I used to think (like most people who have never had it) that it was a simple matter of not being happy, or appreciative of what you had in life, and suck it up, buttercup. It's really a mislabeled disease, and leads people to assume it's just all in your head.

Well, yeah, it *IS* all in your head, because it's a form of psychosis. I have put suicide on the table as an option a couple times in the past ten years - once from spinal pain, and once from depression. I can only imagine the depths of those who have committed to killing themselves and followed through must have reached.

Depression is nothing to be sneered at, least of all by me.

I used to be so tolerant of people who had a differing opinion from me, but something I've learned is that few people truly want to UNDERSTAND where you're coming from. They don't want to compare, examine or discuss - they want to win. They want to snipe at your beliefs, without offering a reasonable alternative themselves. Someone in my past once warned me to never share my dreams with those who had no dreams of their own - they'll only laugh at you for trying, and denigrate you if you succeed. I am only now understanding the truth of that. I just don't waste my time anymore, I don't have as much of it left.

Finding my passions has been a journey all of its own. I remember when I was driving back to Seattle from Indiana, making videos on the road, doing car karaoke, avoiding lot lizards and drinking more coffee than a human should legally be allowed to consume...it occurred to me that this was the first time in YEARS that I had felt inspired to be creative, to produce something that wasn't required by work.

I was driving through Eastern Washington this time last year, listening to the radio, and out of nowhere I started singing a different song than what was on the radio...without thinking about it. Just smiling, enjoying the drive, my mood, the day. I had to pull over for a few minutes, because when the significance of that hit me, my hands started shaking. I hadn't felt just simply happy in so long.

Writing. I just couldn't for a long time. I would start something, get a good burn for a few days, and then...nothing. I let it go, and just fill the days with multiple depression naps on my lumps of unfolded laundry at the bottom of my bed. Writing editorials like this push my motivation to commit to larger scale works, so I do it - like everything else - little by little, day by day.

One foot in front of the other.

"Step by step, walk the thousand mile path"

- Kensei Miyamoto Musashi