Youth & Beauty

John Waters, 2008

Over Christmas I had an amazing conversation with a friend of my mom's that has stuck with me.  She's a much older woman who was spunky and funny and had me laughing the whole time.  I loved her long, red lacquered nails and her tales of being a crazy old cat lady whose house is over run by a dictatorship of cats in which she is merely a tenant! We were talking about age and I mentioned that my mom would be 70 this year.  She said she wished she was only turning 70 and that life really does speed by.  She told me that when she was a young and driven career woman (real estate) in her power suit that she thought she had everything all figured out and that she'd always be on top of her game.  At the time she met a much older woman that told her you will never be as young and strong as you are right now and that life goes by fast so don't take it for granted.  She thought the woman foolish but now in hindsight she sees the woman was right.

     That conversation has always stuck with her as I'm sure her re-telling of it will always stick with me.  Age, it's a very funny thing.  Of course, lifestyle completely dictates how age effects you.  The most beautiful people I meet are the one's whose inner radiance shines out.  People that are beautiful inside are always beautiful on the outside too even if they don't look like Cindy Crawford or Brad Pitt.  Still, the body does break down eventually and there is no real fountain of youth.  The people you see that are obsessed with staying young on the outside usually resort to procedures that leave them looking not young but insane.  Like we all knew exactly how old Joan Rivers was and her surgeries only made her look like a crazy puppet but not any younger.  To each their own though and if that fulfilled some need inside her then so be it.

     I am lucky that my metabolism and my genes are strong - there is so much longevity on both sides of my family, even the crazy alcoholics live into their 90's.  That being said I also try and have fun in my life and maintain a childlike wonder with the world.  Sure, I have my days were my moods take over and I wear jealous or bitter colored shades but, luckily, those moments pass and I am able to see beauty in the world, my world, again.  Perhaps, it's because I know some deep, down and dirty hardships and I was able to emerge from them with not only surviving but also thriving.  Maybe the intense pain I have felt in life has made me aware of and more capable of feeling and noticing the joy and happiness as well.

     People are always shocked when I tell them that I'm 45.  In fact, I've had to procure my driver's license on occasion to prove my point.  I mean, why anyone who's not 16 would lie upwardly about their age is beyond me but I ain't got no shame in my game.  I've said it before but I operate under the philosophy that the best is yet to come.  At no point in my life do I ever want to be the type of person who thinks his glory days are behind him.  That is too depressing.  John Waters always says that you should never trust anyone who thinks of high school as their golden years.  I say AMEN & PRAISE BOWIE to that!!  Speaking of which we are going to see John Waters live tonight doing one of his hysterical and poignant lectures.  He's a prime example of someone who is aging well.  He doesn't look 20 and why should he he's 69 and he looks fab in his Comme Des Garçons suits.  He's witty and wise and his tongue is no less sharp than it's ever been.  I think that always moving forward and laughing at one's self as you're doing it is what keeps us vital and vibrant and young at heart.  This is a filthy fucking world but as long as you can recognize the shit you can appreciate the beauty of the rose as well.

Emotional Rescue

Johnny Depp from "The Lone Ranger" 2013

Have you ever wished you could go back in time and make different choices?  For sure every human that has ever lived has entertained such thoughts.  We have all had grandiose fantasies of, say, going back to pre-war Germany and assassinating Hitler.  But on a more personal level what if we could go back and make a more subtle change?  Take a slightly different path like in one of those children's novels where you flip ahead to a certain chapter depending on which road you choose and each has a completely different ending.
     I was never one of those kids that always knew exactly what I wanted "to be" when I grew up.  Sure, at age 6 I thought I'd be a veterinarian simply because I loved animals so much.  I'm pretty sure most kids had the same thought at one point - at least the girls and the gay boys did.  My life as a child was so fraught with deep and intense emotional turmoil that I really didn't have time to imagine my future.  It was such an insurmountable task just to make it through each day without completely unraveling.  I was so horribly bullied and tortured by other kids that my inner life was like World War 3 all day long.  I don't say this to illicit sympathy but just to paint a picture of what my youth was like.  My inner war was so intense that it caused me to double over in pain in the middle of class as I was constantly stricken with a "ghost" illness that could never be properly diagnosed and was always improperly treated.  I consumed an unearthly amount of prescription Mylanta as a child - the chalky thickness of that liquid is something I can still taste if I think about it for too long.
     Because of the seemingly never ending, gut wrenching pain that I was in I started very early on to look for my own remedy.  Something that would save me from what ultimately was myself.  I got temporary relief from sugar and it gave me a rush to steal candy as often as I could.  I also used to spend hours after middle school in the local arcade and, that too, was a good escape from reality.  Really, anything that let me live outside of myself was welcomed with open arms so it was no surprise that I turned to booze as soon as I found out what it did to my inner (& outer) world.  It soothed  the pain, eliminated the grief and let me become an extroverted version of my shut down, depressed and gloomy child self.  Of course, I eventually graduated to the hard stuff and once I found heroin it pretty much was the end of the line.  I was off to the races and THANK BOWIE (I have decided to permanently name the deity I pray to after the one and only David Bowie) I got sober before someone had to pick out my casket!
     Even in sobriety I was still constantly looking to be rescued.  I carried this Disney-fied idea in my head that someday MY prince would also come and whisk me away gallantly on his beautiful, muscular steed and together we would ride off into the sunset and live in a beautiful castle on a hill.  For a young, rebellious, goth-y gay boy from Schenectady that took pride in living on the fringe I still was riddled with this BS societal fairy tale about being rescued.  Part of it came from an unwillingness to take responsibility for my own happiness, which, honestly, I didn't know was possible for many years.  I knew that the circumstances in my childhood that lead to such deep & troubling emotional pain were not my fault but I also, falsely, thought that the world owed me everything because of it.  Another grandiose, spoiled, yet not uncommon belief.
     I finally had an epiphany after almost 4 years of amazing, terrifying, and life-changing group therapy that I WAS the prince on the white horse!  I was the only man that could and would truly resuce myself.  I spent decades looking outside of myself for something that was inside me all along. I call that situation standing on one's (G)spot - it's like when you are searching everywhere for the sunglasses that are on top of your head.  If you are standing on your own spot then you can't see it and will never find it.  All off this seems like "New Age 101" or "Self-Help For Dummies" but it caused an amazingly intense and glorious shift within my self.  Once I realized that I could be my own hero and resuce my own damn self it left me open to truly learn how to love.  1st to love myself then to love others and let them truly love me.
     Now, I'm quite certain I wouldn't go back in time or if I could I wouldn't change a damn thing except, perhaps, buying certain concert tickets, ha.  Taking responsibility for my own happiness and well-being is the best and most beautiful lesson I have ever learned.  Sometimes I don't do a great job of it and I let myself be down n the dumps for a little while.  But, for the most part I feel like the luckiest guy alive and I know that love is the only rescue.