An Open Letter to All of My Ex-Girlfriends (Or Whatever We Were)

Dear All of My Ex-Girlfriends.

For many years now, I have operated with the assumption that you all meet together on a weekly basis in some secret location (it probably changes every week) to talk about what a stupid jerk I am and how much you hate me.  At least, if you don't all physically meet in one location, you've started a Facebook group or are planning to write a collaborative-effort book or something.  There are many reasons for my belief in this, not least of which is the obviously sweet group-rate discount that would accompany a membership so vast.  But I think I might have thought up a couple more reasons why I believe this to be the case.

First of all, most of you seemed so angry and hurt when we broke up (or fizzled out, or burst into flames, or whatever you want to call it) that it just makes sense to me that you would somehow gravitate toward each other and be able to deal with the pain better by  not having to go through it alone; a kind of a support-group, if you will: find enough people who have been or are going through the same thing you are and build a sort of family out of it that helps you work through your emotions.

Second, as you probably learned throughout the course of our dating-relationship, I'm something of a paranoid individual in the first place and a secret committee of all my exes just plays well to that part of my brain.  I like to picture myself as Batman (again, something you probably picked up along the way) scrolling through a super-computer of his rogue's gallery and all your mugshots and bios, strengths and weaknesses, current and/or last known whereabouts, etc. in the event that I end up in a face-off with you again.

Third, finally, and more seriously, I think I tend to picture you guys like this because I'm selfish.  Not only do I regard most (if not all) of you in an antagonistic sense, I think of myself as some kind of innocent bystander who just happened to get caught up in something he didn't understand and can't really be held responsible for that unintentionally didn't work out and has now become some weird, female-driven conspiracy as a result.  I never set out to hurt any of you.  Honest, I really didn't.  Whether you believe me or not, it's the truth. 

But it's also the truth that I did hurt a number of you, and rather than face that truth and ask for mercy and help or anything at all, really, I usually shuffled the blame off on the circumstances and shrugged my shoulders because... well, honestly, because I didn't know what else to do.  At the time, things didn't seem to be working out, and "things not working out" was like a death sentence to me.  The fear I feel from watching my parents "not work out" for the majority of my life has driven me to chop the head off anything I thought was heading in that direction.  It's basically crucifying someone for someone else's crimes.  That's a shitty and horrible thing to do to a person.  I'm sorry I did it to you.

I wish that there was something I could do to fix the damages I've done over the years.  I should probably offer to pick up the tab for next week's dinner-meeting or whatever, but a.) I couldn't pay it if I wanted to and b.) I assume that part of your nefarious scheme is to run up a huge tab in my name anyhow.  I guess I just wanted you all to know that I'm not the heartless pig you probably think I am.  I still remember all the promises I went back on and all the stupid things I said to try and minimize the damage and I still feel guilty for all of it.  You probably think I deserve to and, heck, maybe I do.  Maybe this is just another reason for you guys to keep meeting up like you do. 

But for whatever it's worth, however badly I screwed up with you, I really am trying to get better.  I really am looking for ways to make amends and I really am trying to make sure that your membership doesn't keep growing.  Some days I feel like I'm a failure on all accounts, some days I don't.  But I really am trying. I hope you believe me.

So on that note, and in lieu of saying something cheesy and trite, I'll thank you for your time and bid you farewell.  "The LORD grant that you may find rest, each of you in the house of her husband!"

Sincerely,

Pairsh Wiggins

Priorities

Normally, I would make a huge deal about the whys and wherefores about the priorities I'm trying to set in my life because it's always easier to talk about what's important than it is to actually work things out that way.  I thought that, instead, I would try making a list of what ought/I want to be the things in my life that matter enough for me to be working on and systematically checking off as "done."  Plus, I need to start getting ready to go to work soon, so I don't have time to bore your socks off about the philosophical ramifications of being a man of principle.  So here goes.

First thing of importance to me is getting Bryan and Claire's wedding present together and having it ready for them before they get married in two weeks.  I'm notoriously bad about starting projects that I don't finish ("...he typed as he stared guiltily at the stack of half-made art lying like a dead pet in his closet...") and, for once in my life, I'm going to give myself a deadline and work a little bit every day so that I can hit it.  The wedding is April 2nd, so I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to have everything together and in working order by the end of the month.

Second, I am going to stay committed to my Celebrate Recovery stuff.  In similar fashion to the wedding present, I'm going to work a little bit every day at covering the material for the study and having it ready on time.  I'm not going to wait until I have a full day off to get it all done in one sitting and I'm not going to just let life beat me up between Thursdays.  I am going to work this stuff out if it kills me.

Third, I got a notice in the mail last week that I've been cleared to take my real estate license examination and I have until August 22 to do so.  I went through an online service provided by the brokerage I'm attached to and was given, shall we say, an abbreviated education sufficient to get me through the certification materials, but nothing in the ballpark of "extensive."  I have been assured, and am continuing to operate on good faith, that leasing apartments is nowhere near as complex as selling houses, so the need for me to retain all of the information covered by typical real estate license education classes is extremely diminished.  Thus, the monetary cost and time table difference between what I went through versus what people looking to get into home sales go through was significantly reduced, but I still feel unsure that I could pass the exam if I were to take it today.  I purchased materials to help prepare me, but up until now, I've been kinda dragging my feet about studying.  I don't exactly have a track record of studiousness, but I'm absolutely confident in my ability to appropriate information given in such clear formatting as the study materials I have in my possession.  There's no reason I can't spend three weeks or so covering the material and get to a place where I feel like I know enough to pass my licensing exam.  I am going to work steadily on this a little bit at a time until the wedding present is complete and then hit the thing with a full head of steam once I get over that hurdle.

Lastly, (I have more, but I still need to shower before work) I've been asked by my church to condense my life story down to a five minute video for use as part of a 25-year-anniversary celebration.  I'm not the most concise person in the world, so it feels a little overwhelming to try and whittle my life down to a five minute display.  I almost feel like an interpretive-dance montage would suit me better.  Regardless, it's something I've been asked to do, something I've committed to doing, and something I feel like could be useful  in the lives of other people.  I haven't really done anything solid on it yet (even though I was asked almost a month ago), so I feel kinda guilty for putting it off.  I need to start making time to work on it.  Like, this week.

That's it for now.  I've got more, but like I said, I gotta go get ready for work.  I guess my selfish desire is to be more motivated by actually stating, in clear language, what goals I want to work toward and how soon I want to accomplish them.  My desire for others is to challenge you to come up with your own goals and figure out whether what you're doing with all your time and money is putting you any closer to achieving them.  I know that, for me, it's easy to talk about all the things I'm gonna start doing later and really difficult to turn off my computer and go do them.

Ciao...

The 75% Rule

I mentioned last time that I've been going through a 12-step program at my church and I had my second real, "sit down and answer the questions" small group meeting tonight.  Among the reasons stated in the last post, part of the reason I haven't written much lately is because the material we're covering in my small group is very emotionally intense and I've been getting my tear-your-living-guts-out-and-painfully-expose-yourself-to-others fix through that.  I still kind of hate the idea of sitting in a group of people with "real problems," because to do so is basically admitting by association that I am one of them; that I belong there; that, somehow, my problems really are as bad as I've always feared them to be.

Even though it's only been a few weeks, I've stuck to the process pretty faithfully and it's not totally without reward.  I started going to the open group stuff at the first of the year and realized two things pretty early on.  One, even though it feels like every molecule in my body is screaming out against my being there throughout the entirety of the program, I always leave being glad that I went.  Two, I always realize something about myself or my situation(s) in life that I wouldn't have stumbled across on my own had I not been there.  I've never felt like it was a mistake for me to have gone and I've always left feeling more enlightened about (or, at least, better adjusted to) my circumstances.  Tonight was no exception and I wanted to take a few minutes before I go to bed to reflect on something that dawned on me mid-meeting.

I am, for those unaware, not an athlete.  With the exception of my dad signing me up for little league, I never played sports, I don't watch sports and the idea of doing so holds absolutely no interest to me in the slightest.  I would literally rather slam my hand in a door than watch a football game.  Literally.  I reiterate the point because most people think I'm being hyperbolic or facetious when I say that, but I would honestly be more intrigued by a Discovery channel show about the artificial insemination of cattle than anything including and/or pertaining to The Final Four (a reference, itself, that I'm not entirely sure I get.  I think it's college basketball, but I genuinely don't know [or care]).  One of the main reasons I've never had any interest in sports is because I'm not interested in doing anything that I am not immediately, on some level, good at.  If I don't have an inherent aptitude for something, if I have to spend any time at all working to grasp the fundamentals or, particularly in the area of sports, working to get my body into the proper condition to be able to do whatever it is I'm trying to do, I will have gotten bored and quit long before they get to the part about explaining the rules.

I'm especially bad when it comes to practice.  In fact, I don't even like the philosophical concept of "practice."  I don't want to practice.  I just want to do.  I despise repetition, and how would one go about describing the acts of running drills and ironing out plays without using the word "repetitive?"  Don't make me start over and do the exact same thing again.  If I'm just going to do it again, why did I do it the first time?  Let's get the thing done and move on to something else.

Tonight, I realized that the thing inside me that makes me feel this way is the same thing that berates me with guilt and shame over my own past mistakes and failures.  There's a voice in my head that I call "The Perfectionist Little Shit" (let's call it the P.L.S. for brevity's sake) that screams at me for everything I've ever done wrong.  I screwed this thing up or I ruined that opportunity and I can't ever go back and make it right.  It was the P.L.S. that was with me the day that I "ruined" my cousin's wedding at 12 years of age by flubbing the wedding march on the piano after having only two weeks to learn and memorize it.  The P.L.S. still reminds me of that time I didn't tell my grandfather the truth, and concludes, based on my every other failure to disclose any sort of information, that I am a liar and have been since time immemorial.  The P.L.S. is constantly carrying on about all the horrible things that will happen whenever I finally mess everything up (as, in the mind of the P.L.S., I am inevitably bound to do), and is the voice I struggle so hard to shut off before I can finally relax enough to sleep at night.  According to the P.L.S. I will never be happy because I am going to be single forever because I will always ruin every relationship I ever try to have.

Tonight, though, the P.L.S. was the one who screwed up for a change.  I was listening to some of the other guys in the group share their struggles and admit their own fears about recovery.  Because confidentiality is so important to the recovery process, I can't repeat what was said, but I can tell you that the P.L.S. spoke up and started criticizing someone else in a way that was completely untrue and uncalled for.  Not out loud, mind you, but in my head, I heard the P.L.S. condemn another man for not being hard enough on himself for his failure.  The P.L.S. believed that this man should have been sorrier and more self-deprecating for his misbehavior, and that's when I caught on to the lie that the P.L.S. is based on and operates out of.  The lie I caught on to is the same thing that I spoke on before: that if you haven't done it perfectly, you've wasted your time; that if you can't get it right right away, you shouldn't bother.  And, although it doesn't change my attitude toward sports in the least, it's important to me that this be recognized as a lie.

I'm not entirely sure how it took me 28 years to realize it, but tonight I came to understand that one defective component of a thing DOES NOT make the whole thing worthless.  Having a bad spot on a piece of fruit doesn't automatically translate into throwing out the entire piece of fruit (at least, for most people).  You cut away the affected portion and eat the rest.  So this is where I came up with the 75% rule.  The 75% rule says that 75% good is still pretty good.  In fact, it's mostly good.  If, out of $1,000, I give $100 to charity, save $100, invest $550 and spend the rest on junk I don't need, I did a lot of good with my money.  I didn't waste $1,000, and I certainly didn't waste the portion I invested.  I wasted what I wasted, which was only a portion of it, but I put the rest to good use.  I can make the statement "I handled that money well" without having to make any disclaimers or qualifications or beat myself up for blowing part of it on useless stuff.

I don't know how many of you will be surprised to hear it, but contrary to popular opinion, I am not a perfect person.  In the last two weeks, I've downloaded porn three times.  It was stupid for me to do it and, in hindsight, I really wish I hadn't, but I also did a lot of other really good things and I would diminish those by not acknowledging that, on the whole, I had a pretty good couple of weeks.  It doesn't make pornography any less disgusting and it doesn't excuse my choices or behaviors, but the 75% rule still applies.  Honestly, I wish I could live up to the standards that the P.L.S. tries to hold me to, but I can't.  Even the Bible says that.  As it is, I have to do the best I can with what I have and let grace fill in the gaps.

There's a part of me that worries about whether or not 75% of this is worthwhile material, or if 75% of you even read 75% of the way through it, but I hope this idea helps you in the way I feel like it's helping me.  I love you guys dearly (75% of the time, anyway).  Goodnight.

Out of the Silence He Speaks

Greetings from the wild blue yonder!  It's been a while since I've done any real writing and I'm eager to get back to it.  My last couple of posts came from a fairly down place and, though I must apologize for dropping off at such a bleak moment, I got really wrapped up in using the month of February to put some vitality back in my life.  I spent much of the time converting my apartment/living room into a miniature art studio, expanding my collection of tools and materials, building an easel and, to a somewhat diminished degree, working on moving ahead with my real estate license.  I also started attending a twelve-step program through a ministry in my church called "Celebrate Recovery," which has kinda filled in the remaining gaps of my disposable time and energy.  So I'm sorry for not being as disciplined with my 'blogging, but I'm not sorry for what I've been doing instead.

I just got back from my friend Seth's wedding and it was a beautiful thing.  As with most occasions dealing with other people and their significant events, I spent a lot of time thinking about myself and internalizing the process.  I spent time thinking about how many of my friends have been or are getting married lately and how weird it will be when it's finally my turn; how unfair it is to be a recovering alcoholic in a place with an open bar; how apropos it is to use a wedding banquet as an illustration for heaven.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not so narcissistic that I wasn't able to focus on celebrating the idea of marriage as a concept, or my friend Seth's in particular, I just tend to internalize everything, and weddings are no exception.

I think, too, it has a lot to do with wearing a tie.  Ties, as far as I'm concerned, are a horrible invention and I wholeheartedly refuse to ever be married or buried in one.  They're difficult to coordinate, uncomfortable, and in the grand scheme of things, utterly useless.  I tried to think about how many times I've worn a tie in the last five or ten years and I could probably count them on one hand.  In fact, I can only remember five occasions on which I've worn a tie since I graduated high school and three of them were funerals.

I think it's good for me to reflect on these kinds of things, though, because it forces my memory to reach back further than it typically operates.  In fact, I've been thinking a lot about my memories over the last week or so because today marks four years since "The Calamity" happened.  I won't go into it here because I don't have the time or energy, but basically, my life came apart at the seams and I washed up in the lobby of Hill Country Bible Church.  I don't want to characterize it as some magical day where my life completely changed, but it was certainly the start of something I wouldn't have believed to be possible if it hadn't happened to me.  

If you'd told me then that I'd be where I am now (not only back in school, but graduated, sober, etc.) I would've thought you were joking.  And not just in the way that everybody who says that kind of thing means it.  I mean I really wouldn't have believed that it was possible for the kind of change you were describing to actually happen in my life.  Back then, I lived my life the way that people sometimes describe patients with terminal diseases responding to finding out they're sick: it was like my life was just a foregone conclusion, so nothing really mattered.  I didn't have intimate friends or people around me who would speak the truth to me, even if I didn't want to hear it.  I didn't have anybody close to me who really saw my life as valuable or important at all.  I just kinda did whatever I wanted to do or whatever seemed to be good to me at the time and didn't really ask myself how my actions or behaviors would affect anybody, least of of all me.

It's weird to think back on those times because it seems like a whole different life ago, like some weird, alien brother of mine who died but still gets talked about a lot.  But I like it.  I like being a guest at a really fancy wedding without an RSVP.  I like that celebrating isn't really a celebration unless it's shared with other people.  I like having moments that are dedicated to building an altar and planting a flag in the ground as a time of change and new commitment.  I like remembering that the person I was is not who I am and that there will come a day when who I am is just as distantly gone as the other guy.  I like calling to mind that the Bible describes the whole of the human affair as beginning with your parents' divorce and ending with the wedding of the Man who loves you most in life.

I've done truly horrible things in my life that I extremely ashamed of.  Perhaps, another time, I will describe them in some detail.  But my life exists as it is today solely through the compassion of others whose trash I am not fit to take out, and yet I am invited to sit among their guests and eat at their table.  It is a lesson in grace for which I am thankful to have taken part in today and will forever remain eternally grateful.

Seth, Claudia... Mazel Tov!