How To Sabotage Your Dreams With Your Fear of Success.

For a long time I was angry. Years. Angry at myself, angry at my father, angry at lovers who left when I wanted them to stay, angry at those who stayed when I wanted them to go, angry at my friends and family who were around me and couldn't help me. I was angry at those who did try to help me but couldn't because I wouldn't let them. This has been a pattern in my life for a long time.

I still have my moments. Frustration sets in. It waits for me to be hungry, or thirsty, or when I really have to piss, or when I have to be somewhere and I'm running late and I've overslept and the guy in front of me is driving like a selfish prick and the big rig on my right is trying to merge and then my cellphone rings and then the burger has onions on it when I ordered it plain and I just explode.

Zen Buddhists have it easy, man. I'd like to see just one of them try living in Los Angeles for a year and see how calm they are then.

I hate being "only human." I hate the weak part of myself that needs anyone.

I used to think that if I could choose a superpower, it would be super-speed, since I'm constantly late to everything. This was my joking answer. If I'm really being honest, I wouldn't be The Flash -- I'd be The Hulk. The madder he gets, the stronger he gets, and maybe I thought if I could just get strong enough then all the things wouldn't bother me as much.

This is of course, all bullshit.

I tried Zen meditation. I tried Aikido. I tried Jujutsu. I've tried Buddhism and self-hypnosis and self-help books and self-help tapes and yoga and lifting weights and a thousand other ways to improve myself.

I thought that if I could just be better, then somehow I would be worthy of love. Better than what? I don't know. Whose love? I don't know, honestly. My father's, maybe. Maybe God's, if He exists. Maybe if I was better then my brother and I wouldn't be bitter enemies. Maybe Holly wouldn't have left. Maybe D**** and I would have a family. Maybe Slug and I would be together. Maybe the Oracle and I could talk without all the drama and just really love each other.

I don't know and I don't suppose it really matters.

What matters is that I am trying desperately to be the best person I can. I live by a certain code of ethics, as do most people. I try very hard to do the right thing, even when I'm not quite sure what the right thing to do might be in each instance. Like you, I'm making this up as I go and I don't always get it right.

For almost as long as I've been alive, I've had what some people call "The Gift of Gab." I can talk to people -- strangers, friends, lovers, celebrities, family, the clerk at the store. Total strangers talk to me all the time. Slug used to say I was a "weirdo magnet." It doesn't matter if I've never met them before. I can talk to anybody. Anybody except the people I love the most.

Like the song says, "I love you so much I talk to everyone but you."

Luke told me tonight on our nightly ritual ride home from work that I have the "Gift of Gab," and it's true. He's a smart guy.

For a long time, I felt that if I could just say the right thing or explain it a certain way, then this one would love me, or that one wouldn't have to get hurt, or this one wouldn't drive drunk, or that one would back me up when I needed him instead of disappointing me over and over again. Who they are doesn't matter. The names are arbitrary and just confuse things. I just felt that I had failed somehow. It was obviously my fault that I couldn't find the right words.

This is of course, bullshit.

When you love someone, there is no guarantee that they will love you back the same way -- or at all. I am trying to be grateful and find the good things instead of concentrating on the bad.

Tonight a friend asked me for some advice and I was shocked at my answer. Shocked at where I had heard it before and who I had heard it from and shocked that I hadn't taken it for myself sooner. That's the tricky thing about advice -- it sounds so good giving it to other people.

I hate the part of myself that is weak and needy. I hate being "just a human" and feel that it's totally a cop out. It's like saying I shouldn't try because nobody can be that way all the time so why would I try and be perfect? Fuck that. Why NOT try? Why not strive for something so beyond your grasp that even the attempt is noble in and of itself.

I hate that I am a jerk sometimes, but if I'm mean or cruel, it's only because I love you enough to show you how I'm really feeling instead of the mask I put on for the rest of the world. That's fucked up, I know. I just don't know how else to explain it.

I do not want to re-live the past. How do we become more than our memories and thoughts and fears? How do we become our hopes and passions? How do we become the great being that is within all of us? How do we live up to our full potential as human beings if we don't risk failure?

I have no answers for you. I know that the Bastard is supposed to know everything, and on any other day I'd have a smart-ass comment or sarcastic remark ready to respond with. Not today. I don't have the stomach for it right now.


S.