Once you allow that darkness in, there is no escaping it completely. A sliver of it remains. Always. Forever. And every step is a struggle, albeit one that gets easier with time... and then again not, I don't know. So life is lived on a day to day basis... baby steps.
But no, I have no shame about it... and yes, absolutely no regrets. None.- Miz Bohemia, Blog Friend
To be honest, I'm terrified at what people are going to say about the following post. I remember a few months back, several folks took offense at the fact that I used the term womanizer in a post.
Jeez... what kind of reaction am I going to get from this one? Wow. You may want to skip the post below if you find the term womanizer offensive.
We're talking a part of my personal history that I've skirted or used euphemism to describe for YEARS. This is raw shit. I didn't post it back in January because I was downright petrified that people in Cyberspace would judge me.
Blogging is, after all, a very public Confession Booth. And there's no priest to offer absolution for forgotten sins.
I realized, reading MizB's post tonight, and Shayna's post a few days ago on her assault, and even reading a post Liz wrote a while back about mortality, that I've been a bit of a chickenshit in cutting through my own crap.
Thursday night, I hit my favorite bar here in Oxford. I had a chance to harmlessly flirt with one of my favorite bartenders. She was flirting back. Back and forth. She has a boyfriend, so there's really no chance of anything. But hey, nothing wrong with getting your flirt on...
Then I realized I was damned comfortable being flirtatious with a nice, wholesome, normal woman. No baggage similar to my own. And no feeling that my hidden baggage is somehow being weighed against their own.
Why the fuck should I staple a Scarlet Letter to my head simply because I'm comfortable with myself, my life, and the choices I've made in the last decade? Good or bad, I'm here in the now.
For the majority of my adult life, I've been secretly afraid that one day, I might finally let go of some of my guilt about some of the seedier elements of my past. Some of these things I've never told some of my dearest friends - when left Virginia, literally less than 24 hours after I graduated from high school, I blocked out some of the more painful portions of my teenaged years.
As an adult, I'm a bit of a control-freak. I don't like risk. Back in January, I finally accepted the reason why - accepting the fact that, yeah, there's nothing wrong with having some fucked-up shit in our pasts.
But I never really admitted to myself that having a past isn't a curse; it's part of life. The things that I have done to others are just as much a part of me as the things that have been done to me. There is, as MizB points out, no shame in admitting that sometimes it takes understanding our own hearts of darkness in order to find our own beacon of hope. Risk is a part of life - that uncertainty that drives the human experience.
For me not to take risks is nothing more than an excuse to not let go of something as silly as a damaged cassette tape.
Life's to fucking short to be a chickenshit. I learned that as a teenager, despite my best efforts to not learn anything.
I'm probably not the guy you think I am. Hell, I'm starting to realize I'm not the total bastard I think I am.
- Jason
Read On....
Jeez... what kind of reaction am I going to get from this one? Wow. You may want to skip the post below if you find the term womanizer offensive.
We're talking a part of my personal history that I've skirted or used euphemism to describe for YEARS. This is raw shit. I didn't post it back in January because I was downright petrified that people in Cyberspace would judge me.
Blogging is, after all, a very public Confession Booth. And there's no priest to offer absolution for forgotten sins.
I realized, reading MizB's post tonight, and Shayna's post a few days ago on her assault, and even reading a post Liz wrote a while back about mortality, that I've been a bit of a chickenshit in cutting through my own crap.
Thursday night, I hit my favorite bar here in Oxford. I had a chance to harmlessly flirt with one of my favorite bartenders. She was flirting back. Back and forth. She has a boyfriend, so there's really no chance of anything. But hey, nothing wrong with getting your flirt on...
Then I realized I was damned comfortable being flirtatious with a nice, wholesome, normal woman. No baggage similar to my own. And no feeling that my hidden baggage is somehow being weighed against their own.
Why the fuck should I staple a Scarlet Letter to my head simply because I'm comfortable with myself, my life, and the choices I've made in the last decade? Good or bad, I'm here in the now.
For the majority of my adult life, I've been secretly afraid that one day, I might finally let go of some of my guilt about some of the seedier elements of my past. Some of these things I've never told some of my dearest friends - when left Virginia, literally less than 24 hours after I graduated from high school, I blocked out some of the more painful portions of my teenaged years.
As an adult, I'm a bit of a control-freak. I don't like risk. Back in January, I finally accepted the reason why - accepting the fact that, yeah, there's nothing wrong with having some fucked-up shit in our pasts.
But I never really admitted to myself that having a past isn't a curse; it's part of life. The things that I have done to others are just as much a part of me as the things that have been done to me. There is, as MizB points out, no shame in admitting that sometimes it takes understanding our own hearts of darkness in order to find our own beacon of hope. Risk is a part of life - that uncertainty that drives the human experience.
For me not to take risks is nothing more than an excuse to not let go of something as silly as a damaged cassette tape.
Life's to fucking short to be a chickenshit. I learned that as a teenager, despite my best efforts to not learn anything.
I'm probably not the guy you think I am. Hell, I'm starting to realize I'm not the total bastard I think I am.
- Jason
Read On....
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