Mr. Self Destruct or The Siren's Call of Hedonism

Soda is poison in a can.  It has no redeeming qualities. There is no reason to ever drink it. Oh wait, there is one: it's delicious.

Growing up in my family, adults drank coffee and kids drank soda. Water was what you boiled potatoes in. My intake of Mountain Dew in high school was so extreme that I needed a big glass to wake up in the morning and to go to bed at night. I couldn't function without caffeine.

I first realized soda was a problem when, for the first time in my life, I didn't drink soda for a few days. This occurred in college, and was more a function of poor planning and laziness than actual healthy intent. I found myself in the grip of some terrible sickness with a horrific headache, nausea and weakness in my legs.  Only after a few hours of what felt like slow death did it occur to me that I hadn't had soda (or caffeine) in days.

And caffeine is probably the lesser of soda's evils. The insane amounts of sugar are the real killer. (Over nine teaspoons in a can of Coke? Are you fucking serious?)

The thing is, I realized how evil soda is all those years ago.  There is no sane reason to still drink it.  Yet for many more years it was still my primary beverage (I'm still not sure how I don't have diabetes). Even in recent years as I've slowly pushed normal soda out of my life, I've turned to diet sodas and flavored waters to fill the void.  And while those drinks have zero calories, the fake sweeteners they contain are likely just as dangerous as the sugar in soda, if not more so.

We could play the shell game of citing conflicting research about artificial sweeteners and debate what is valid (I'm sure Coke has funded some wonderful research that proves all its products are amazingly healthy and also happen to cure erectile dysfunction).  But when it comes down to it, the math is simple: old fashioned, no-bullshit-added water is the healthiest option.  Why drink anything else?

So I find myself four weeks into a brave new world of drinking water as my primary beverage. But since I've known for such a long time that this is the right thing to do, why has it taken so long? I'm a fairly smart guy.  I like living. I want to be healthy. Just drinking water would be best thing to do.  Why didn't I start doing it years ago?

Let me tell you a little secret, friends: Life is hard and frustrating. It's difficult to raise your mental binoculars to peer into the future when something is tormenting you in the present. Instead, we look for some kind of pleasure in the here and now.

So imagine this: You're at your job, every email you get is a fresh hell and you have more to do than humanly possible yet you're told that it's still much less than you should be able to do.  What do you do before your head explodes?

For me, far too often it would turn into a quick run to the free corporate soda supply to indulge in the delights of a refreshing can of Coke.  I could take it to my desk, crack it open (oh the sound!) and then let the pure heaven of the taste wash over me as I continue to wade up the river of bullshit. This scenario would repeat far too often.

Tweak the details and I'm sure a similar story applies to your vice of choice.  We all know better (has anyone since the 50s said, "I smoke because it's healthy"?), but life just keeps hitting like a ton of bricks and we need something.  Work frustrations are one thing, but when the big problems hit, thoughts of long term healthy choices go out the window and it's time to self medicate.  Let me tell you, I've had some tough times over the last couple of years, and I couldn't drink those delicious Cokes fast enough.

So here I am in the present, fat and out of shape but also luckily relatively healthy.  Now is the time to break the cycle of vice and find healthier ways to get through the daily grind.  Easy peasy lemon squeezy, right? If only it was.

I known that getting healthy is a war I have to fight (cutting out soda being just one aspect of that war) and right now I'm ready to fight that war.  But it's the battles that will get you.  Every moment of every day could hold that next struggle.  Here comes some condescending corporate memo that reminds you how insignificant you are, so what do you do, hot shot? Well, how about just one soda. It's so delicious, and you'll feel good for a moment and forget about the frustration for just a little bit. No, must win the battle! Okay, resisted temptation.  Wait, what the fuck is this new email? Arrrrgghhhhhh.

It's fucking hard.  And that's the first step: accept that it's fucking hard and there will be a million temptations, and those bad boys play dirty pool. We have to be ever vigilant. Sucks, right? Let's pause and take some deep breaths until we feel better. Okay, let's continue.

So after accepting that and forgiving myself for all my past failures, I have devised a simple strategy:

1. Every morning I take a moment to think about my health goals, remind myself why I have them and find motivation to follow through.
2. I fall back to those thoughts when shit happens, kind of like cognitive therapy.
3. Every night (and this is the big one) I celebrate my success or forgive myself any failures and encourage myself to do better tomorrow.
4. I plan an occasional indulgence to reduce the temptation build up, a bend-don't-break approach (if you're trying to give up the really addictive stuff, this step won't apply). 

In step 1, I try to find positive motivation, not negative.  "I want to lose weight because I'm so fat," is not a positive motivation.  I instead focus on the person I want to become instead of being frustrated with the person I am. I imagine the extra energy I'll have and how I'll feel more comfortable in my own skin.  I think of the cool band t-shirts I'll be able to fit into again.  I think of how every time I eat poorly to self medicate, they are winning (that's a bit negative, but in the most positive way). And most importantly, I remind myself that I need to just take one day at a time.  I can't lose all the weight in a day, but I can make a positive step. Also, I focus on the fact that I'm effectively rolling a stone up a hill, so a little slip can lose a lot of ground. You can safely lose about two pounds a week, but you can gain waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than that.

Now in step 2, I recall that little morning pep talk as I go through the day. Instead of waging an addict's war in my head numerous times, I just remember that I've thought this through already and I know what I truly want. It's a rock that I build upon, and anything that makes me doubt it is a false and dangerous thing.  I also try to find other positive outlets in my day. Maybe I look forward to a delicious but healthy lunch, or maybe sneaking off with a good book when I have the chance.  There are so many positive ways to find a little pleasure in a day.

Step 3 is the big one.  Most of us are far too hard on ourselves. We're just human, full of imperfections. So if I get through a day and do well, I have a little mental celebration. (I'd be ready to have a parade in the streets of my town if I wasn't quite so lazy.)  Let me tell you, when you look back at the day and realize you've done good things, things you've often struggled with, it feels way better than any number of Cokes and you won't regret it two minutes later. Mike, you beautiful bastard, you had a great day! And it's just as important to forgive yourself if you fail. Tomorrow's a new day full of new battles, but it's also a fresh opportunity to do the things you truly want to do. Failure is only a problem when it makes friends. You just have to avoid letting a day become days and then weeks and then...

Step 4 is my fallback, like the pitons mountain climbers use. Once a week I have a 20 ounce bottle of Coke. It may feel like a great moral victory to never have a soda again, but if I say this out loud: "I'll never have a soda again as long as I live," it rings false in my ears. Instead, I control when I have that one drink, and when I struggle, I remind myself that if I can only make it to my indulgence day, I can finally have that soda I'm so jonesing for without guilt. This approach has saved me from going off the deep end numerous times.

You can also apply step 4 to upcoming events.  Business trip? Wedding? Most of us aren't so healthy at those times, so accept it and be ready to get back on the plan right after.

So right now, I'm a few weeks into my new watery life. (I've never drank mostly water this long. I don't think I've made it two days without going back to something with flavoring it.)  For the last couple weeks I've also been eating pretty darn well. (I was ready to start earlier but had a week-long business trip and, again, I'm only human.) I feel motivated and committed.  I feel like I can get healthy and hopefully stick around for a long time.

But the battles will come, every single day.  I'll lose some.  How I react to those losses determines if the war will be won or lost. So if you see me drinking a soda, don't ask me what went wrong, just tell me, "It's okay, tomorrow is a new day."

Goodbye, Big Sister

When my mother died last year, I wrote a blog post that felt like it flowed through me. She was a lifelong smoker, so it had long left me dreading what would eventually happen: lung cancer.  When the disease struck, I had months to ponder my mother's life before she succumbed. Because of that introspection, I was able to quickly form all those thoughts and feelings into an essay I'm still proud of.

Today I find myself in a very different circumstance.  My sister Lisa has died, also after a battle with cancer. But I can't say that my thoughts are preprocessed: even with a couple months' warning, I'm still not ready to accept what has happened. She was supposed to have many more years ahead of her, and I can barely bring myself to believe that I won't see her again.

That false assumption may be what hurts the most. In recent years, we hadn't seen each other very often despite living about an hour from each other.  Life was busy, as it always tends to be. Stress piled on top of stress, and there was many miles to go before we slept. There would always be time later though. Maybe next year, or the year after, we'd make sure to get together and spend some quality time. The bitter lesson learned is that none of us knows how much time we have left, and tomorrow is a precarious place for plans.

But I prefer not to dwell on lost opportunities or wallow in sadness. I'd rather take a moment to celebrate my sister.

Lisa and I were yin and yang.  I was always quiet and shy and pragmatic; Lisa was outgoing and never let anything get in the way of her ideas.  I was the A student that studied all night; Lisa would calculate the lowest grades she could get in the last quarter of the school year to still pass and then party all night. I liked to keep to myself; Lisa enjoyed being with people. Yet when we were together, we complemented each other well. Lisa did an admirable job trying to pull me out of my shell, as much of an impossible mission as that was. I'd like to say that I also made her a bit more pragmatic, but again, she never let anything get in the way of her ideas.

Things got off to a rocky start between us.  She was seven years older, which is a prime difference for little brother annoyingness. Apparently there was even an incident that involved biting, though I don't remember it and am reluctant to believe it even happened. Still, many times over the years my mother would bring it up as the only time she actually spanked me.

But after a few bumps in the road, Lisa gladly stepped into the big sister role and guided me in the way only big sisters can.  She helped me get my first job at StoryLand and offered me advice on the perils of high school.  She even tried to get me to lighten up and party a little, though that effort failed. (All these years later, I wish I had taken that advice.)

After so many years of following our own paths, it's easy to forget how close a bond we had when we were younger. When my mother died, I looked through boxes of my old things stored in her attic.  In one of them I found a bunch of post cards Lisa had sent featuring pictures of heavy metal bands (I was the fan, not her) with anecdotes from a cross country trip she was taking neatly detailed on the back. (Our biggest difference is in handwriting: Lisa always wrote with beautiful, flowing script, and I can't even read my own writing.) This made me remember some of the silly things we did for each other, like how I'd leave little notes tucked into the front door for her to find when she came home late at night.

When I went to college, Lisa invited me to visit her on the weekends. After a short commuter rail ride, I'd be nestled in her big couch, watching TV and mooching food like only a college student can. (I ate a LOT of chicken fingers during those visits after I found a stash in the freezer.)  I never told her this, but those visits were a lifeline during the difficult transition of my college years.

After college, obligations came and time moved faster than it should. We saw each other less over the years, always relegating visiting plans to the purgatory of "soon." The most time that we spent with each other in recent years was during the long car rides to visit my mother during her illness. Sad journeys at the time, but I'm grateful for them now.

A few anecdotes are not nearly enough to express everything my sister was.  Saying she had a "heart of gold," may be a trite cliché, but it is also incredibly apt.  Lisa was caring and generous, and some of the biggest struggles she had in life stemmed from wanting to do too much for too many. A heart of gold, indeed.

I've always had struggles of a different kind. My pragmatism kept me focused on work to be finished and problems to be solved, and I spent a lot of time wrestling with dark thoughts on the edge of my mind and trying to make sense of things that don't seem to make sense.  Because of this, I lost time I could have spent with Lisa. But then, I always thought there would be tomorrow. I also didn't often make the effort to see Lisa simply because knowing she was out there in the world, the beautiful spirit that was the yin to my yang, was enough for me. I deeply regret thinking that way now, and I'm once again stuck trying to make sense of something that doesn't make sense.

I don't feel I've done justice to the person my sister was, nor have I adequately expressed what she meant to me (nothing new for this shy little brother).  But in her honor, I say to anyone that reads this, beware what you expect tomorrow to bring, and hold tight everything you love today. There is no sadder phrase than, "too late."

"Aujourd'hui Maman Est Morte"

I remember reading that first line of Albert Camus's The Stranger in French class years ago in high school.  Tasked with translating a section of the book, I immediately got to work: I went to the library and took out the English version. While this was obviously cheating, I don't regret it because, instead of seeing a small piece of the book through the dirty lens of my poor French reading ability, I was able to consume the entire book in a couple hours.  A difficult, challenging work, it opened my mind to a school of thought well outside my small town experience. The protagonist Meursault, a true anti-hero, is in many aspects a deplorable character, and not someone to emulate. However, Camus used his experiences and actions to explore the role of man in the universe. I was enthralled.

I'm not a scholar of French literature, and this is not going to be a treatise on the philosophy of Camus.  But on this inauspicious day when my own mother has died, I recall one detail of the book: Meursault's eventual downfall was partially caused by his inability to "properly" mourn his mother.

But what is the right way to react to such an immense loss?  Tears and outward emotion are a typical response, but, much like my mother, I take no comfort in tears.  (Stoic always, I don't recall having ever seen her cry.) Instead, because I'm a writer, I will put down in words what an amazing woman she was, and how difficult were her struggles.

Some of the earliest memories of my mother were of her hugging me while wearing her blue bathrobe, enveloping me in warmth.  What I felt in those moments has echoed in my memories over the years, leaving an ache of nostalgia.  Ma always made me feel loved and supported, something that never changed throughout my life. However, the manner of that love and support would evolve with the coming of darker times.

My father was an alcoholic (something I wrote about several years ago).  I won't go into details about that here, but I will say that when my mother no longer felt that I was safe in our home, she sent me to live with my grandmother, Nan.  This was a blessing and relief for me.  I spent my high school years living with Nan in a happy home, loved and supported by yet another amazing woman. I could go on with wonderful stories about her, but here are just a few: because I hated breakfast food, she would cook me a hamburger before school; because she was concerned about the rareness of the deli beef she used to make my lunches, she would fry it in a pan before deeming it fit to be in a sandwich; and when I needed reprimanding, she wouldn't hesitate to twist my ear, pulling me down to her height to read me the riot act.

As good as this change was for me, I learned over time how difficult it was for my mother.  She sent me away to give me a better life, but always felt that she let me down because of it.  Back at home, with my father not working but still drinking away our savings, Ma started to work at a laundromat for minimum wage.  Always petite, she lifted bags of hotel laundry half her weight all day long.  I still remember when she visited us at Nan's farm how red and cracked her fingers were from constant exposure to bleach. Through all this hard work, and despite my father, my mother managed to keep the house.  This lessen in the value of hard work would always stay with me.

Because of financial struggles, my mother was unable to contribute any money for my college education, once again feeling that she let me down.  I managed to get a scholarship to go to school in Boston, and did my best to convey to her that, despite her inability to assist me financially, her love and support had allowed me to focus and work hard enough to earn the scholarship.  She would continue to insist that my successes were due to my hard work alone, but she deserves much of the credit.

Far more valuable than money was the role my mother would fill as I attended college and then went into the work force and adult life.  Wise and patient, she would give me constant advice and voice her confidence in my abilities.  There was no challenge or struggle that a quick call to my mother wouldn't improve.  I'm sure one of the most difficult things I'll go through in the coming days and weeks is wanting Ma's advice and realizing that it's lost forever.

I wish I could focus on all the wonderful things about my mother, but I would be remiss if I failed to mention the hardships she endured.  Life with my father was thankless and difficult, and those years took a toll on her.  But she held onto her home and endured until my father's death during my freshman year in college.

However, even after his passing, my mother struggled with anxiety that made her hesitant to leave home.  I don't know if this was because of my father, or an innate condition, but it kept her from getting out into the world. There were many things that she wanted to see, and many people she wanted to visit, but she couldn't bring herself to travel.  Someone from a younger generation would seek medical help for this, but my mother was from a different time, and did what she always did instead: struggled on using only her strength.

I know this anxiety created a distance between her and others that assumed disinterest or selfishness prevented visits or attendance at functions. Despite her great unease, she called on her strength to make it to my wedding, her first stay in a hotel.  I could see how anxious she was, but I will always remember the comfort I felt having her sleep in the bed next to mine the night before the wedding.  And the next day, we danced to this song, and while I never saw her cry, her eyes did well up.  One of my favorite memories.

I'm not a person to have regrets, but I have always regretted not being able to help Ma with her anxiety.  She missed out on so many things she wanted to do, and  often felt lonely while stuck in the mental prison that kept her in her home.  I wish I could have helped others understand her struggle better, and I'll have to live with my failure to do more.

The beginning of the end was a lung cancer diagnosis, leading to long months of decline and pain.  I won't talk much of this, as I'd rather expunge it from my mind as much as I can. But I will say that I was able to share my heart with her and left nothing unsaid at the time of her passing.  My mom, stoic to the end, proclaimed, "Let's not get sentimental" as I told her of how much she had done for me and how much I loved her.

I refuse to let the last thing I write about be hardship and struggle.  I know Ma found happiness in her children and their children, something she had difficulty conveying but could be heard with the right kind of ears.  She also brought a little bit of the world she wanted to see into her home, starting a menagerie of tropical fish that came from all the oceans she would never visit.  She enjoyed expanding her collection and would watch the fish for hours on end.  Ma would excitedly talk about them during every visit, especially when she was able to breed the fish and raise babies.  That's how I choose to remember her: happy and excited, with a smile and a twinkle in her eye.

With the right kind of eyes, my love for my mother can be read in the words I wrote.  But I will eschew subtlety to proudly proclaim that I love my mother dearly, to the utmost capacity of my heart.  She was a remarkable woman, and despite her struggles, was always there for me when I needed her. She loved me completely and unconditionally.  I couldn't have asked for a better mother, and I hope that Camus is wrong and that I will see her again one day.

Impersonal Pieces of Data

I should call more often.  It's the right thing to do, the loving thing to do. And certainly, I often intend to, and never explicitly decide not to.  But I know in the back of the mind how I'll feel when I hear her broken voice, her complaints of pain. How someone else's suffering can hurt more than anything you experience yourself if you love that person enough.  And if anything is certain, it is that I love her.

So I find myself at the end of the day realizing I forgot to call, long after it's too late and she won't have the strength to talk.  Not an intentional oversight, of course.  Time just got away from me. That's what I tell myself to feel better, but it doesn't work.  I feel weak and cowardly, awash in self-loathing.

So I build a scaffolding of schedule to hold myself to, so there's no excuses, no way to hide from such minimal duty.  These are the days I will call, and that's the way it is.  I take a deep breath before I pick up the phone, prepared to feel the ache of powerlessness. I budget time after each call to recover, ashamed to require such a luxury when I'm not the bedridden one.

There are visits, of course. But I won't talk of these as some things are too personal and private to share. Though I will admit the worst parts of those visits replay in my mind, the machinations of a guilty conscience that exerts itself during some happy moments.  The human mind compartmentalizes to help us cope and continue to exist while bad things are happening, but it also holds a tormenting presence that finds such mental trickery reprehensible.  It's a house divided against itself.

My wife, supportive and loving, wants to help me but struggles with how matter-of-factly I deal with things.  "I feel depressed," I will tell her with same tone I'd use to remark on the weather.  Whatever storms of feeling are below the surface, they manifest themselves as impersonal pieces of data.  As someone who wears her heart on her sleeve, she doesn't know how to help when I process my emotions in this way, communicating them like an impartial spectator recounting an event on the news*.

I'm saying all this because I don't want to say any of it, and forcing myself  to talk about these feelings is (probably) a healthy thing to do, even if it makes me feel silly and exposed. There has to be some strength in admitting weakness, even if it doesn't feel that way, and strength is exactly what I need right now.

* I've written about some of the more difficult aspects of my childhood that may be part of the reason for this.  

The Myth of Happiness

Every holiday season, cards and e-mails arrive with tales of success and happiness. Similar news is heard at holiday parties or during chance meetings. All is well! Couldn't be better! Things are great for everyone, it seems, as if we live in a world that Frank Capra created. Recurring interactions of equal depth will reinforce this perception. The news is always good. Everyone is just swell.

But a pattern keeps occurring: when confiding in close friends, facile exchanges cease and the truth of struggles and difficulties emerge. Troubles can be found beneath the wholesome PR sheen of the quick update.

No stranger to struggle myself, I'm disheartened and surprised to discover how many friends and loved ones are having tough times. It makes me wonder if anyone really is happy, and what would give us happiness. Is life simply unbearably hard, or do many not possess the tools to navigate it easily? Have we been trained by saccharine fiction to expect life to hold simple resolutions and happy endings? Has our world evolved into a place that can no longer sustain us mentally? And why do we try so hard to conceal our struggles? Is it because we're trying to hide them from others, or ourselves?

I have no answers.

Perhaps I just happen to know many unhappy people, and most others are truly happy. I may feel this way only because I've become jaded and cynical. But if I'm wrong, it's after years of bearing witness to misery. The only way to know for sure is to push past the PR to get to the truth.

So tell me: are you happy?

The Death of Books

I never thought I'd see this day: I'm abandoning physical books for an e-reader.

Before I explain why, I have to talk a bit about my previous internal digital battle: to mp3 or not? When the original iPod came out, I was dead set against it. I had my collection of hundreds of cds with their beautiful booklets full of art, photos, and lyrics. And the low sound quality of mp3s just wouldn't suffice. I can only describe the sounds on a nice pair of headphones as "harsh."

So, for a while I happily toted my portable cd player and a small holder of cds in my backpack. Then, I decided to upgrade to a portable unit that could play mp3 cds. Just as an option, of course. No way would I turn my back on cds!

Eventually, I decided to put some of my favorite albums on a mp3 cd just to have more variety available on my travels. It was during the process of ripping and burning (why must mp3 parlance have to be so violent?) that I realized that you can use different bit rates, and with decent settings, mp3s actually sounds as good as cds. (256 kbps vbr is my current setting of choice.)

That solved the sound problem, but no way in hell was I giving up my cd fetish. The look, the feel, the smell. How could I give it up? Funny thing is, after I started ripping all the cds I bought, they stayed on the shelf after the initial rip.

With much of my mp3 resistance melted away, the iPod and the gigs of music it could carry was inevitable. The new way was here. I shed a tear for my beloved cds and moved on.

Fast forward to now. There was no way in hell I was giving up my beloved books. The look, the feel, the smell. (Heard this one before?) And as a writer, there was an even stronger fetish: I want one of these with my name on the shelves one day. Why would I participate in the group murder that e-Readers represent?

While a piece of plastic will never truly replace a book, e-Readers have come a long way. They may not be as good as a real book, but they are an acceptable way to read (I grudgingly admit after playing around with Nooks and Kindles and iPads with a somewhat open mind.) And the real deal maker for me is the end of bookshelves.

I can hear the collective gasp from my fellow readers and writers. We need our bookshelves! We want to turn every room of our homes into libraries! I understand completely. My office is crammed with books, as well as board games. The living room is full of cds and dvds. There is a great comfort in hoarding the things we love, building a warm nest around ourselves.

But take a step back. I know it's hard to do. But what do you really care about? It's those beautiful words, and whether they're on a piece of paper you can fondle or a digital screen shouldn't really matter. Get rid of the confines of space, and it's possible to have even more of those words literally at your finger tips.

The elephant in the room is the effect the e-reader will have on bookstores and writers. The former is a cause for sadness, but I see the latter as an opportunity.

For bookstores, when every book is bought digitally, only the big boys that control the digital world will survive. All those great indie bookstores will slowly fade away. While that's unfortunate, I have to sheepishly admit that I buy almost all my books from Amazon anyway, so when all those cool bookstores go out of business, it's not like I'll have more blood on my hands.

For writers, however, I think a great opportunity is coming. Look at what mp3s did to the music industry. There are more opportunities for musicians now than ever before. Self publishing of music is possible, and cool indie online music stores have cropped up. I see something similar coming for writers. I have purchased pdfs directly from writer's sites, and when the reading public has less of an aversion to the digital screen, options will increase. All those indie minds out there will band together and find a way to create cool virtual indie bookstores.

You may wholeheartedly disagree with my assessment, but regardless of what any of us feel, we can't stop change. Demand will dictate supply, and those that adapt can have an exciting place in this brave new world.

Hiding Behind Fiction

My previous post was about my first public reading. I initially thought that I'd blog about the experience soon after, but in reality, I had far too much to process to talk about it until now.

The reason I've always been drawn to fiction is because you can talk about your feelings and experiences through a layer of abstraction. This provides an opportunity to give a fresh look at well-worn themes. It also allows the author to hide behind the story.

Writing a non-fiction piece, and then reading it in public, is a different kind of monster. I can't say that it's something I wanted to do. It was more of a compulsion. The difficulty of the task is shown in the fact that the piece I wrote is in second-person. While this is a powerful stylistic choice, I'd be lying if I claim that was the only reason I employed it.

When I stood before a crowd at art2art a couple weeks ago, I felt nothing. I was simply a conduit for the words on the page before me. I had written a short intro and placed it, in bold, at the top of the first sheet.

"Tonight, I’ll be reading an abbreviated version of a narrative non-fiction piece called 'Rewind.'"

I stumbled a bit on that simple sentence, but after that the words simply flowed from me.

"You realize one day that you don’t have memories, you have flashbacks."

As I launched into reminisces of my father's alcoholism, the protective wall I had built so long ago disappeared. For seven minutes, I was opening myself to the world.

"Then he begins to sharpen his hunting knife at the kitchen table. His eyes are red. He never looks up. He runs the whetstone against the blade too many times. It has to be razor sharp."

As I finished, my only concern was the feedback I'd get. The enormity of sharing my darkest places wouldn't really hit me until later. The audience applauded, but it was a kindness I expected. I waited to hear from people as we took a break between sets. I feared no one would say anything, that my inability to write had finally been exposed.

"She gives you a pair of work gloves, and tells you to pull out the bottom slat with a hammer. You work at it, and as you finally pull it away, an ocean of empty vodka bottles pour out, like hitting the jackpot on a slot machine."

I received encouraging words from the other artists in the front row, but this I also expected. I milled about for a bit, and no one else approached me. The dark voices I've grown to hate started to whisper in my head. I went to the restroom to be alone.

On the way back to the reading room, a woman approached me and thanked me for sharing the story. An older man asked me if I was a professional writer. When I answered no, he told me to keep at it. Others gave similar earnest feedback. For the first time in memory, I felt good about writing, instead of just viewing my compulsion as some form of self torture.

"You pour the bottle into the mop sink and fill it with water. You feel exhilarated by your daring. But you also feel very afraid."

After the event finished, a group went to a nearby bar, including my wife, Cathy, and one of the organizers (and our friend), Sue. The bar was full for a Celtics game and very loud. There were many of us grouped around a table, most of them strangers to me. I couldn't hear well. I found myself wishing that Cathy and Sue and I could be somewhere else having a quiet conversation.

I felt the darkness return. I grew uncomfortable that these people, these strangers, now knew about my childhood. I became sullen.

"The man who built thick ropes of muscle by driving a truck for hours a day, who won beer money by arm wrestling in bars, is gone. This man still has the same pot belly, but he slouches and his arms and legs have wasted away. You realize that you’re stronger than him now."

I realized the next day that I wouldn't be able to blog until I had time to process the experience. An inner struggle I'd fought all my life was waging its latest battle. Is it better to share your dark places or hide them?

"There is no final scene with a graveside speech, no coming to terms, no achieving inner peace. You simply grow to understand that everyone is human, with weaknesses and fears. Willing to try almost anything to escape from them.

You realize that had things been a little different, you could have turned out the same way. That if you’re not careful, you still might."

It took weeks, but I have my answer now. I want to write. I have many stories to tell.

But they will be fictional stories that I can hide behind. I'll show the world my dark places, but only through a filter.

It's the only way to end the war inside my head.