Iris is In My Head

Glass half full or half empty? Fuck the glass. It just doesn't work like that for me. It's neither, it's both, the glass has broken, and I carry the gifts of fullness and despair. “When everything's made to be broken, I just want you to know who I am” (Goo Goo Dolls, Iris, 1998). I haven't given up on the pursuit of wanting you to know who I am for over four decades because there's something deeper than the glass in my head. 

It's not easy to wake up in my body or even my mind every day. It's not choice and it is choice. It's not resilience and it is resilience. It's for sure survival. “Ain't it funny how the night moves?” Yes, Bob Segar, it is funny how the night moves in waves of flashbacks of full and empty, good and bad, love and loss. It's not my aim to speak in riddles but to paint a picture of why I bluntly forego the glass, of why I want you to know who I am, of why the battle inside makes not giving up both a goal and an obstacle. 

I stick with some things far longer than I should because giving up is counter intuitive to me and other things come and go quickly. Whether it was learning to balance on skis as a kid, something I learned to do with skill and persistence, or not being able to balance on a bicycle more than once for about 30 seconds, and knowing that my body couldn't take any more of that. Acceptance and giving up aren't the same thing. 

I recognize that my body doesn't allow me to do everything and that sometimes I have to accept the limitations. But, I have pushed myself in spite of other limits forever. Have I felt like giving up at times, yes, absolutely. Very few things in my life have been easy. I've lost nearly everything that's ever truly mattered to me. I've hoped and prayed for different outcomes. But, there is a candle that burns in me and even at the hardest it's ever been that candle flickers. It's not optimism or a full glass, but resolve that I am here. 

I keep going because of the pull of that internal response that tells me it's not time to be done yet. Life has taught me so many lessons through loss that it's probably the most familiar thing I know. What that's taught me about rising above the challenge is that the challenge might suck, but it means I'm not done yet.

I don't enjoy the struggle. I don't enjoy the ever intrusive thoughts like, “I wonder if they know that's going to be hard for me to participate,” “I wonder if they considered how this would impact me,” “I'm too tired for this today, but I don't want to have to debate that so I'll just push through,” “I'm nice so I don't bite your head off in a fit of frustration,” or “I know after a day of my experience most people would treat me differently.” And, that's just a few of the more common intrusive thoughts during the day. The night is a much lonelier story. 

Now, if none of that sounds pleasant or optimistic I understand that. I push through most of that every day to show up with compassion for others and more recently compassion for myself. I have to think about how to walk through a room with my Cerebral Palsy and with my trauma responses. That's an enormous amount of mental mapping every day. 

I want to play guitar, write songs, have conversations, enjoy a good laugh, occasionally be silly, and so on and so forth, but that other stuff is usually there too. It's why I see things as something deeper than the glass analogy. 

There's a lot of hidden impacts in my experience. I can have a work week full of accomplishments and have nothing left on the weekend but fatigue. I miss activities with my kids a lot, so that they can be the active and energetic children that they are. My speed is coffee and conversation. Their speed is wall-to-wall energy. I don't want to restrict that so there's a lot that they do without me. Is that discussed? Rarely. 

In my head, I see the big picture, I see my past, I'm preparing for a more rapidly aging future, and I'm juggling determination, pain, and hopelessness on a moment to moment basis. I recognize that how I show up matters, but that a lot of times for me to show up at all it's going to cost me something physically, emotionally, financially, and sometimes relationally. I reconcile and accept these things on a daily basis. 

I don't want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to see me and there's a big difference between the two. I don't want to inspire you with my stories, unless it's for you to recognize that I need to see the world differently to survive where I've already been and what's coming next. I would however, like to inspire more self awareness among people. 

If you're thinking, but where's your self awareness, Tim? I'm very aware that I've spent most of my life reacting to you. I'm very aware of the fact that I live with one foot in the past at all times. I'm very aware that I've pushed people away from me at times. I'm very aware that I've hurt others just as much as others have hurt me. I'm aware of the fact that I can come off like I have the answers whether I do or not. I'm aware of the fact that I'm almost always analyzing and assessing things and people. I'm aware of my own selfishness and self preservation. And, thanks to a lot of work, I'm now more aware than I've ever been of when I'm living in despair, versus reactivity, versus longing, versus flashbacks, versus moments of peace, versus a sense of love and fullness. The point of all of this is unmasking what's in my head during the hidden impacts of my lived experience. If you've made it this far thank you.