Realigning Relationships

After the blog I posted last week I did a significant amount of thinking on it and soul searching, if you will. In that post, I came to the realization that there were things within myself I needed to understand and embrace whether they were good or bad. I had initially intended to have a relaxing weekend where I would partner up with a bottle of scotch and do a little more writing. Instead, I ended up doing a ton of running around and helping other people out yet I was still left feeling very self-satisfied but I had no explanation as to why.

The more I began to answer that 'why' the more the irony set in. Over the past few weeks I have been coming to terms with understanding what aspects of 'me' make me 'me', if that makes sense. Since my son was born almost two years ago I have worked at being a father every day. Up until this past fall, I also spent a significant amount of time trying to be a better husband, ultimately to no avail. With all the effort exerted there, I forgot that I am also a son, brother, uncle, cousin, nephew and a friend. This weekend I was humbly reminded of all six of those.

I set out with the idea of sitting alone this weekend and attempting to gather shreds if identity within myself and to gain a better internal understanding. I was delivered a weekend not of that but of helping other people and reconnecting with old friends and have gathered more of that self-identity than had I only spent that time alone.

I have spent most of my 2013 thinking of ways to focus on or reconcile myself internally but feel I've made more gains this weekend by hardly focusing on myself at all. I have spent time pondering ways to capture and understand identity internally and gained great insight with external measures. Adding to the efforts of trying to be a better father, these past few weeks and especially this past weekend I feel I have made a genuine effort at becoming a more thoughtful son, a closer brother, an uncle to look up to, a cousin that can be leaned on, a nephew that can be depended on and a great friend who can be there and this has brought more of a sense of what I am than any solitary action, thought or poem I could have written.

In my New Year's Day post when I started this blog, I did not specifically bullet point 'reconnecting with my family and good people' but have been working to do that. Spending more time with my family and re-establishing great friendships that I've allowed to wilt a bit over the years has been one of the most invigorating and rewarding experiences of my life to date. I set out to do that because I geneuinely care about those people and wanted them back in my life. The fufillment, sense of identity and satisfaction that I have gotten from that choice is simply overwhelming and I cannot thank those family members and those close friends of mine enough for welcoming me back with open arms.

I know that I have a long way to go but I really feel that not only did I pull down a major 'win' for myself this weekend but I did it with the help of those that I love the most and am happily indebted to them for it; I eagerly await the next moment I can pay it back again.

Thoughts on Adoption

One of the more difficult things that I face to reconcile is the fact that I am adopted. As silly as it may seem, until just the past few years I never really took the time to stop and think about what that means and how it influences my actions.

As far back as my memory goes, I have always known that I was adopted. After reading about horror stories of adults discovering they were in fact adopted after decades of being told otherwise, I reflect incredibly thankful that my parents chose the potentially tougher route and explaining that to me early on in my life.

Digressing for a moment to make a latter point I have always been the person that will fit right into most crowds. Charisma has always been my greatest weapon when confronting the unknown and developing relationships. The problem is, that process of "fitting in" has evolved into altering my personality in ways, adjusting my sense of humor or just tweaking my sense of interest; a really scary idea when I stop and examine it in hindsight.

Then what I viewed as an unfortunate realization struck me; fitting into an unknown crowd is one of the first developmental things that I ever learned. Worse still, a prerequisite to the adopted is a painstaking loss of identity. I have only question marks when it comes to my heritage, there is little comfort in learning an adoptive family's lineage and I have no other human to look at and take comfort in the fact I share a physical likeness with. Being charismatic and building strong relationships is not an attribute I inherited, it is a skill I was forced to develop. The day that one of your greatest strengths rings back potentially with a disingenuous tone, oh how the walls can come down.

When you have nothing to attach your identity to, you take shelter in what you do well. Then I realized stronger aspects of my personality were not even organic, so to speak. As much as accepting that fact could have stymied any progress that I have made, it serves as a beacon. Instead of wallowing in another quality that makes me different because I am adopted, I now allow it to help define me.

If I wish to cast away everything that is not congruent with what I am, how could I initially loathe this quality that I perpetuated because of a circumstance that I am? I have come to my mistake; I was only looking for aspects of myself that came about in a favorable fashion. I see now that I have to seek the imperfections within myself or the great qualities that came about under tough circumstances to begin to define myself.

Whether I meet my biological parents or not is somewhat irrelevant. As great as that would be one day, I no longer view that reunion as having exclusive rights to finding some type of peace with myself. I need to focus on myself and not a reunion that I cannot control. I need to turn within and become aware of and embrace all of those imperfections to understand what I am. That journey is one that I can control. That endeavor is one that I can make present. Applying that concept is the path that will lead me to the identity that I have lacked for so long, one in which I can begin to fill the empty within me.

The Deception of Reception

The concept of a paradox is one in which I have been fascinated with since I first learned its definition. To examine a paradox is to ideologically suggest that something's only purpose for existence is to contradict itself and only within that contradiction is the suggestion that it may exist. Could anything be more beautifully poetic?

There are times in this life where some of us beg for change. Some of us wish for it beyond any hope of it ever substantiating. Some of us fall to our knees in prayer to a grand architect and ask for divine intervention to deliver it to us. Even fewer still possess the fortitude to stand and will that change into existence.

For the ones lucky enough or able enough to make gains on that change, why do we ultimately fear that change? We've begged, wished, prayed or fought for it and then it stands before us and stares us right in the face. All the work, chasing, focus... all of it brought us to the point where we can reach out and grasp with our bare hands what it was we longed for so dear. Yet, we tremble as we reach out and then in the moment of truth a majority of us retreat, empty-handed.

I am learning that within the context of the human spirit our hopes, wants and desires are truly paradoxical. We wish for what we have yet to obtain and nothing we have obtained satisfies us. We are ultimately the spiritually bi-polar and we lie victim to existential over-consumption.

For me, this same concept bleeds into how I relate to women, how I occasionally view these changes that I am in the middle of and how I lose focus throughout the day. Am I chasing what is best for me? For someone who does not know himself very well I find this question painstakingly difficult to determine. 

At the same time, day after day, I am able to confidently hold the idea of 'yes, I am' in answer to that question for longer periods of time before dashed by second guessing. As I push the limits of what I can physically accomplish, as I unwind confounded thought into words and finally as I reconcile with what I think of 'me', I begin to find pieces of myself. These were ends that were tattered in someone else's name and these are shards that were broken off in the name of character compromise. I will stitch and I will melt down every last lost piece and the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts. After all of the patchwork is in place and all of the smelted material has cooled, somehow I have a funny feeling that I'll be smiling in the mirror at an incredibly familiar face that which I will feel that I never lost in the first place.

Prone to Infection?

It is becoming increasingly obvious to me the past few days that passion is one of the most infectious things we have in this life. Passion knows no specific species and attacks no particular demographic. The volatility of it is abhorrently clear as well for if you pour so much into one area of your life, that levy will eventually break and it will pour into all other areas of your life; whether it be positive or negative.

I have not been prone to that infection before. Why? I certainly love the flashy idea of change. I definitely saw the short term gains of those changes but then I just accepted where and what I was at the time and learned to be happy with it.

I think the problem was the source. The source of my passion previously will go unidentified but it was inherently wrong. In general, the source of that passion directly affects the level of infectiousness. For instance, last year I started running again. I went through a 2 month phase where I would run 2-3 miles at a time maybe 2-3 times a week. My motivation was I wanted to lose weight, I wanted to look better and I wanted to be healthy. Well, my last post I talked about my self talk and how I used to let it take the wheel. Thinking just that small 'win' of running was good enough, I would literally light up a cigarette after a run!

Well, today was the first day I've ran since August. Just on determination alone, in 30 degree weather, I ran 4.5 miles without stopping. I hate running it's just as much a physical challenge as it is mental. Tonight, I enjoyed every slush-splashing, breath fogging, cramp causing step and I could not get enough.

You see, this time the source of my motivation is different. I do not want to just be healthy, I want to live long enough to spend as much time as possible with my son and, perhaps one day that special someone. I do not want to just look better, I want to physically test, establish then push what my body can do- if I can do that with my body and strength then I can learn to do that with my heart and ability to love.

These are all things that I am doing to make it easier to live with myself, because right now I cannot settle for this mediocre person I have allowed myself to become. Eventually, I can evolve that toleration into appreciating then finally accepting what I am. That is when I will be able to say that I love myself and can emotionally move on from where I am now. Where I am now has some tricky qualities and my self talk will do everything to keep me here. I will spend the next few months restructuring my frame and fine tuning this new engine. I cannot get this place into my rearview mirror quick enough and I simply cannot wait to lay a smoldering set of tire tracks across the pavement on my way out.

Calling It Out

As with anything new that you start, it is right when you begin that seemingly every thought you could possibly fathom runs through your head. Classic inception; excitement, adrenaline, hope and a flash of what the human spirit is capable of. All of this flooded my head when I clicked 'publish' last night and added one more tiny, irrelevant blip on the ever-expanding global blogosphere.

Thinking ahead to where my mindset would be 24 hours from that moment I tried to prepare for the worst. I committed to blogging, quitting smoking, working out, budgeting better and hell I even threw in inner peace... I was on a roll, why not? So, I went ahead told myself that biting off more than you can chew is a natural progression towards growth. If I can hit some of these things but not all then I'm still taking steps forward. Meeting and sometimes backing down from the adversity of change is a just a way of testing it to better understand that opponent the next time you face him. Allow realism to sink in and find small wins.

Nope, I called bullshit on myself.

That is a classic elaborate spin on what- if you strip away the flashy diction and ignore the 21 point scrabble words- we should all chastise for mediocrity. I am the king of self-talk just like that. As a matter of fact, I've spent years strategizing every word of it and copy-writing the blue print for it, literally making myself my own enabler. Today, however, I have duly noted a hairline crack in that foundation; honesty.

Tomorrow, everyone will of course be honest. Today, in that tested moment honesty can suck entirely. To talk about the consistent honesty of yesterday well, that's the stuff of couples in their 80's walking on the beach and still holding hands. That is what makes a martyr so admirable and sustaining honestly is a source of sheer inspiration throughout history.

I realize I simply cannot ever be honest in a relationship until I learn to be honest with myself. Calling out fancy excuses like that was tough to do today but it is the first step to pulling out all of the stops and - if I can allude to one of my favorite authors - giving way to me being able to suck out all the marrow of 2013.

The hour is late, the first full day of not smoking is in the books, that alarm is going off at 5am to work out and I have ample amounts of ass to kick at work tomorrow.

Resolute

I rarely allow myself to get caught in the wake of new year resolutions. Many times the degree that we long for a something in our lives is only to be outdone by our lack of ability to make that change and we revert back to the old habit or fail in beginning a new one.

As I walked through Detroit on the first morning of the new year, there was something different in the air and the onset of 2013 struck incredibly profound to me. It is clear to me that this impression was perpetuated from living alone again and the emotional adversity that can follow has certainly been present and accounted for.

I realize today that I have chased happiness through many avenues; women, friends, hobbies and other pleasant distractions that I do not wish to specifically name. Never once has that happiness come from within and alas I do not believe my world has ever even seen a light drizzle. That drought ends this year.

In other words, 2013 is undoubtedly and unequivocally mine for the taking.

Louis Brandeis was dead on when he said “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” I will then tip some "sunlight" for all of you on my intentions and hopefully that will add validity to my level of commitment in this effort.

1. I will add to this blog once per week for the entire year.
2. I will quit smoking, immediately.
3. I will restart and complete my P90x program by April 1st, 2013.
4. 2013 will be the first and debt-purging year of my 3 year plan to own a home on/near a lake.
5. Most importantly, I will learn to be happy alone before my next emotional journey.

There you have it, the five things I am aiming for this year to improve my life. I have always wanted to write some type of blog but failed to find things I was passionate about. If I do not have passion for this, then I have nothing else. So please, come along with me on this endeavor as I begin to reconcile with myself. I intend to describe and identify the difficulty of this for myself and, of course, what gets measured gets improved.