The open road

I loved the open road. Yes, the great wide spaces, the freedom sun which tossed its rays for miles and lands around as my eyes took in the great expanses of continuous forest and rock that spread forth between Pennsylvania and Cleveland. I had spoken to some friends who I had to tell them I was coming through. I wanted to break up the trip. something told me that occasionally when people take this kind of road trip, they have fun, they see friends. Wasn't seeing friends supposed to be exciting? Didn't people like seeing friends? For me it wasn't fun. None of this was fun. It was an emergency. It was a life gone wrong. It was like needing to fit in 15 years of therapy, in two weeks. My nerves were on fire, my mind had expired, my soul was really tired, and I wasn't sure about anything other than wanting things to begin making sense, it that was at all possible.


In Stevenson, Ohio, I met an old friend. Mordy had been like an older brother as a kid. He had gone away at one point. There were rumors about what had happened to him. They had said all kinds of stories about how and why he had gone off. Either way, now he was back on and he had a wife and kid. He seemed more settled and happy. It was nice to see him. I hadn't seen him since I was about fourteen. Much had changed. He had brought so much joy into the lonely scary life of my childhood. Something in me expected, or wondered, wanted him, the seeing him to bring back some of that joy. I knew it was impossible. Perhaps by telling him what had happened I could reach back to the innocence of what I had been, or at least I thought I had. I wish I didn't have to be living this very bad dream. It was just like a thick black cloud of dust and dirt that had infiltrated every part of my being who's presence stopped me from seeing any possibility of living and breathing the air that other humans had access to. I just wanted to be normal. I just wanted all of this sh*t to go away. What happened to me? how did I become this way? I never asked for it! I never even noticed it!! How could something be so much a part of me, so destructive and not even ask me if it could come into my life. Still I knew, some how that there was nothing that I could tell Mordy that would make this burden lighter. It was almost as if there is a stage in hurt where words don't help, or there is no way to put words to the degree of the pain. I was shocked to know that it was there. I was still in a state of shock that I had a new part of me that was so part of me that it had not given me a choice whether or not I wanted to have it part of my life. It had just come, it was staying and I had only one choice. I had to get to know it. I would have to create a dialogue with it, because it seemed to tell me that the only way it would consider going, is if I would get to know it better. It needed to be known. It needed to be heard, and it had no intention of going until it had become a very good friend of mine. It was as if the evil of it was only in its secrecy. Once I would get to know it, it might even consider becoming my friend.

For this moment, there was no way that I was becoming friends with this evil unwelcomed, beast, for now, I was just trying to get my head around the idea that I had become something that I never wished to become. I was having an experience that I didn't want and that I hadn't chosen, and that I was in so much pain, disbelief and shock that I simply didn't have the words to share about it with anyone. Mordy, whatever his experience had been, was really kind and friendly. He didn't pry. He seemed to understand the things that would take me 10-15 years to put words to. He seem to understand that i was having a very difficult time. "If you want you could bench" is all I remember him saying. He seemed to understand so much of the pain between the lines. I had never been told that. Somehow he understood that there were issues in life that were of far greater importance than whether a person benched (said grace) or not.


A man of his kind of kindness would have been a blessing 8 years earlier, but now it was a little late. kindness and warmth were welcomed, and pleasant but I would need many years, of being kind to myself before I could be happy enough to be delighted and nurtured by the kindness of another.

For now, I hated everyone, myself and of course God. I knew that I was f*cked and that I had absolutely no hope. I had only one thing to do, get on the road to somewhere unknown, just in the hope that perhaps I could get rid of some of the pain.