out from underneath

It’s all in my mind.
I keep telling myself that, doing my best to rip it away, rip it out and discard it like I did most of the memories of my childhood, but it’s tricky. I tend to hold onto things.

I can almost trace it back to the exact time it started, this heart-hoarding. 1986. A call, telling me i would be dead within a year, or maybe a few months longer in excruciating pain if i wasn’t lucky. 19 years old, and all of the sudden all the time I thought I had wasn’t there anymore. I needed to remember it all. I needed a reason to die smiling.

Everyone else was doing what they should. I read the papers, heard about the vigils, and everyone else was behaving as expected, taking their last breaths in a timely manner.

A year passed, then two, then three, and every day for over a decade I would wake up and wonder if that was the day I finally got sick.

every single fucking day, when my mind was left to wander for even a few minutes, I remembered – I couldn’t forget – that every second mattered, and shouldn’t be forgotten.

It’s hard to break a habit like that, but I need to. I need to crawl out from underneath this shadow that has kept me from believing in any kind of future for myself.
Things need to change. I need to change.

It’s all in my mind.

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lost chances

I went to a memorial last night, a celebration of a friends life.
I don’t get emotional about people dying. At most, I feel a little saddened or concerned for the family they may have left, but inside of my heart, if there is anything felt at all is is more focused around fond memories of them, feeling blessed that they were in my life and that we were able to experience some of it together, share it and some of the time we have with each other, enjoy its magic.

When I heard of Jan passing, however, it was different. I only knew him a short time, but I sensed something of a kinship in him that I seldom feel with anyone , and seldom have. He was someone special to me, someone I looked forward to getting to know, share stories with, share our sadness, frustration, joys and love.

But I never had that chance. He never knew what I felt. I never took the time to tell him, to pull him aside, to tell him what I felt. I figured that, if I was right in what I saw in him, it would happen – after all, we had time. I would see him again, and maybe then the opportunity would arise where we found ourselves engaged in conversation, standing outside at a party or the last two sitting around a campfire in the early hours of the morning…

Last night I found out much more than I had ever known about Jan as people stepped up to the microphone to talk about him, his life, frustrations, joys, and love – and they described the exact person I felt when I saw him, in the few times we chatted. They described who I saw behind his eyes – the person I wanted to get to know better, the person I felt was more – and as they were talking about him, the tears fell from my eyes as I found out more and more… because they were also describing me.

Jan, even though we never had the chance to know each other, you taught me a valuable lesson, and I thank you.
In the future, if I come across someone who, behind their eyes, I see kin, see someone familiar, see someone who, even if I don’t know why at the time, I feel like I should get to know – I won’t hesitate. If I have to, I’ll step through my shyness & insecurity & fears & pull them aside, to a place we can talk, and begin: “This is going to sound weird and I apologize, but you remind me of someone that I never got a chance to know until after he died, and I think we could be friends…”

Moving Forward

Every morning I would wake up excited, the doors to infinite possibilities wide open & inviting me in. Decisions were sometimes made by careful deduction, but more often than not with little more than whim, the flip of a coin, direction of the wind, or the quiet, passionate desperation that endlessly seethes inside of me – the eternal need for the unknown, for adventure. To continually test myself with whatever blessing or adversity the Universe could conjure up to throw at me, and grow. And learn.

Plans to move to Boston fell through so I found myself in Austin volunteering for Katrina refugees in an artist’s forest. A new friend had never been to Burning Man so I promised her a ride from New Orleans, only being able to find a van to buy less than 10 days before we had scheduled to leave. I couldn’t find the magazine I wanted to read so I decided to create it, not having the first idea how I was going to, or even how to build a website – and four months after it launched was producing shows for the first time & winning awards.

Nothing could stand in my way. The world opened to whatever I sought or desired, and if it didn’t exist I created it. It felt like nothing could stop me, like this life I had shaped and formed and fashioned would keep storming ahead. I made my dreams so real, so beautiful, that they virtually fulfilled themselves…

…and then there was nothing. I felt like I was lying in the middle of a freeway, unable to move as life rushed by and all I could do was lay there, static in a world of action, decaying, decomposing, trying not to die.

And time passed. What was supposed to be a three month vacation turned into eighteen months of hell. People visited, some, I’m sure, expecting it to be the last time they saw me alive. I was good at reassuring them, I think, letting them believe I was fine, strong, getting better so that they would be more comfortable. I don’t think I ever expressed how terrified & unsure I was most of the time. I wouldn’t even let myself believe that. I couldn’t. Instead I focused on healing & what I would do when I walked out the door. When I could, I read feverishly. Studied quantum science, I taught myself to use my mind to heal my body.

It was easy to get to know the people in the hospice well, as it was only 14 rooms, 14 people at any time. You found out why they were there, created a familiar bond with them. Of the 15 who died in that time, I watched four with the exact same diseases and symptoms as I had give up and die – three of them younger with less severe symptoms. I’ll never know why. Was it the constant pain, or thinking there was nothing to live for? Had they forgotten their dreams?

I don’t know. I would just wake up and their room was empty, sterile, as if they had never been there.
I couldn’t let their deaths affect me. I couldn’t give in to the pain or the constant terror or the stench of my own flesh rotting. Up until the moment I walked into the hospice – those years had been the happiest of my adult life. I wanted them back.
I had to keep fighting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I walked out of the hospice just a little over six years ago.
All that time I have carried what happened, what I went through, on my shoulders & in my heart – and deep inside of it, I have also carried my sickness. Using it as a crutch, the only thing special about my present is my past – that I’m simply here. Alive, but not living. My life no longer moving forward the way it had been before it all went to shit, and I was left with nothing to hold onto but what I “had” done, instead of what I am doing.

I learned a lot about mind/body healing while in the hospice. I have absolutely no doubt that, as impossible as it was sometimes, if I hadn’t *known* I would live, I would have ended up just like those I watched while there – another sterile, empty room, my body carted out on a gurney behind the curtain of night.

But I still had work to do. Until I let go of that part of my past, I would always consider myself “sick”, and therefore never be able to be *truly* healthy, perfectly healthy – but it had turned into my identity. “The guy who didn’t die” was all I felt I was anymore.

At least until recently.

It feels, now, like I have a future, something to look forward to, and something that I’ve been looking *for* since the moment I walked out. Though it’s not close to enough to satisfy me fully – I still need a vehicle to get the fuck out on the road & just *drive* for days on end and find myself nowhere I’ve been before, I am creating again – I am frequently challenged, always learning, and I love designing & constructing my jewelry. And I have something to look *forward* to. I can let go of who I *was*.

The warrior awakens. There are new battles to win.

And you better fucking believe I will.

 

 

Somehow, 50

I felt the blood drain from my face, my mind. It’s a strange feeling, like submersing your head in a pool of nearly frozen water, but not as cold.

“What?”

Now I was finding it difficult to stand. There wasn’t anything to sit on so I leaned against the racks of VHS videos behind the counter.
The voice on the other end of the line repeated what it said, a little slower, each point a sentence like he was trying to teach a five year old quantum physics.

“This is Dr. Thomas. Your test results have come back. You have tested positive. For the HIV antibody. The virus that causes AIDS.

1986. I was 19 years old, and a single two minute call was all it took rip away everything I thought I knew.

I had run away from home at 17 for the third and final time, and after living with my meth dealer for a while, *not* sleeping in his unfurnished living room on the floor, I decided to leave, go somewhere besides San Diego. I didn’t know a single person in the Bay Area. It seemed like good a place as any to try and figure out who I was.

When I was finally able to think, I realized that I must have been tested on a recent trip to visit my adopted parents. They asked if I wanted a physical while I was there, and I agreed. I wanted to show them I was fine, healthy. That there was no reason to worry about me. That I didn’t need them. I figured out that they had also requested an HIV test from the doctor, and getting my approval wasn’t important. The call on that day was kind of a shock.

I had never used needles, had slept with maybe five men. I was exempt from AIDS, I was mostly straight and I was safe. I guess all it took was one of those men being positive, and everything working just right to infect me. Talk about rotten luck.

But that didn’t matter now. Nothing mattered. Across the Bay the City was dying, the plague was killing people and no one had any answers. I’d heard the treatments they had weren’t that much better than the disease.
That’s all I knew. That’s all I chose to know.

I figured I had about 18 months, maybe two years left to live if I was lucky, but much of that time would be spent in horrible pain, my body shutting down, my own shit and blood and fluids pouring out of me. All the sudden my self-imposed rule of never using needles for recreational drugs and never using heroin went to shit. When I started to get sick, I would handle it my own way. I wasn’t going to be a burden on anyone – just slide away and disappear.

Time passed. A year, two, five, and the sickness never came. Still, bordering the line between conscious and subconscious, I kept waiting for the day everything turned around. I knew it was coming.

As much as I wanted to go back to school, to learn something I could use, I couldn’t commit to the time. I didn’t have a future.

 

 

I destroyed the best relationships & deepest loves I have ever known, selfishly afraid to ever force anyone to feel like they needed to be loyal, faithful, as they stood by, helpless, watching me die. For the same reason I never allowed myself to have what I perhaps wanted more than anything in life – a child.

I took each day as it came, tried to make the best out of it. I studied myself and my beliefs, did all I could to learn about me and what life was. I taught myself to see the beauty in everything, every day. I tried to help, I learned from others, I read & continue to read feverishly, so at least I might have some wisdom, some inspiration, something to offer another. Maybe something clever & profound to say in my final breath. Only up until the past 15 or so years, every moment of my life has been spent expecting to die. It’s the only thing I’ve known.

It sure did fuck up my credit score.

Now, somehow, I’m only a few weeks away from 50 years old, and wondering how it is that I got here. I’ve spent years looking for an answer as to why. Why, of all people, me?

I’ve only been able to come up with one answer that makes any sense at all.
 

 

Life, Death, Dogs. A Rooftop Contemplation

The occasional whisper of tires as a car drives by below, an unintelligible shout, the scattered songs of birds. The only sounds at this hour. Only the crackheads & I seem to be awake. Even the sirens are quiet, sleeping.

It’s 4am & I’m up on the roof of my apartment building with a fresh cup of coffee, a cigarette, & Ruby. The clouds above reflect the city lights giving a faint glow, just enough to see by. A cool breeze plays with my hair, blowing it in my face then away. I wrap my robe a little tighter around me.

I sit on the short wall of my building, look down at the weeds growing in our forbidden & neglected back yard. Near the far right corner calla lily’s bloom, defying the otherwise abandoned and unloved desolation. With their beauty inevitably comes a warm sorrow as I’m reminded of when Striggy brought a gift of bone-white lily’s to my tent in Austin. With love & reverence I placed them on top of the pale blonde box I had picked up earlier that day, already made into an altar surrounded with candles, a picture of Bean propped up against the box that now held the ashes of the most amazing dog & companion I’ve ever known. She was killed by a freight train a few days before, found by friends lying between the tracks, her favorite stuffed toy a few inches from her head. Nearly 13 years later & the tears still fall for her.

I turn back facing the roof top, close my eyes, take in a few deep breaths as I find a strange comfort in this sadness. Now, it’s filled with love and warm memories instead of the anguish I carried inside for years, holding it tight, afraid that if the pain wasn’t there I would somehow be betraying her memory.

I know better now. I understand death better now.

I think of how exquisite this life is, how fortunate I am. Occasionally I still let the weight of it all get to me and forget these things, but not now. Not today.

I open my eyes and catch Ruby briefly chasing her tail. I chuckle silently to myself and somehow love her even more.

I think of the time I spent in Hospice. Months on end so close to giving up, so desperately wanting to stop being strong, and each morning having to somehow find just one reason to keep fighting. One reason to stay alive.

As impossible it seemed to be able to imagine at times, I needed to believe that I would somehow get better.

I had to know, with as little doubt as possible, that there would be mornings like this one to look forward to.

The Way It Works / The Circle

The comforter loosely tucked around my body, the cool air from the slightly open window on my arms a perfect contrast to the soft warmth underneath. Cozy, warm & content as I sit up against the softness of my pillows, Ruby asleep with her back pressed tight against my legs. A single candle glows softly in the sconce on the wall behind me offering just enough light to pick out the letters on my laptop – in the quiet & solitude of 4:30am, the sudden brightness of my reading lamp would shatter this perfect moment.
I can barely see anything.
Screw it. I’ll squint.

I had just woken up thinking how amazing it can be, when things are used well.

Thanks to a few incredible people who are still lifting my spirits, still, even after all this time reminding me that is still one HELL of a warrior inside of me…

– & some ‘creative logic’ on my part in the herb & food needs (i.e. “I *think* I can stretch that out until… um… the 1^st? Shit.”) – I was able to afford to take a journey out to El Cerrito yesterday to visit an incredible friend, woman, & fellow warrior who is going through her own medical hell – getting two different, completely soul-crushing messages about 48 hours apart like a fucking double-tap to the heart.

We had a kickass day, hanging out in her room, talking, laughing so hard I *honestly* thought my guts might finally come flying out of me (I was holding them in, squeezing as hard as I could with both arms & yelling at her to shut up before I popped – but would she? NoooOOOoooo – the bitch!) and… just remembering what it felt like to be *normal* people for a few hours, watching stupid TV, singing songs at the top of our lungs and giving each other loving hell.

I needed it just as much as she did, if not quite a bit more. There’s a healing in just simply that connection, that amount of love that that no medicine, no herb, no “perfect living” can *ever* equal.

We talked about our animals, and both wondered if either of us would still be alive without them… and she had the amazing idea of making a Youtube video about the caring for them – what they like, what they need, can or can’t eat – what makes them happy, the treats they like or a certain way they like to be scratched, or petted – or not…
Just in case.

Just in case so if anything ever did happen, if we weren’t able to talk or move or…

Then at least we would know that, even then, we still did our best for them…
On the way out there, some dancers got on the BART train, did their speech blahblahblah… and as they began I moved my eyes up from my writing, looked at them – then looked around at the other passengers, who were nearly ALL doing their best to ignore these courageous kids who were dancing for THEM, maybe in hopes to shine a little more color on the grey, Friday evening lives they lived.

They were, actually, pretty good! Did that new thing where it looks like your entire upper body has had every bone broken and swivels put in to repair the job instead of pins.
And thanks to those who help *me* – I was able to offer them something. I pulled out $5 – not much but a lot for me at the time, and the worst part is – I was sitting four rows back from the door, and as the hat-holder got to me after I *called* him to come over – that $5 was the only bill that they left with.
Still, they left the car in style – saying their thank-you’s & smiling.

After the day with Isa & finally back in the City, walking through Civic Center BART there were a couple guys around my age setting up – one in a wheelchair, but still somehow tall & lanky with pencil-dreads, his partner shorter but still thin, and looking close you could see what appeared to be not an easy life in their faces.

Then, as I took the first couple of steps up the escalator, they started singing – and I jumped back down. Goddamn. They sang an old spiritual, lanky in a *low* base & his partner harmonizing beautifully – I had $3 left in my pocket, so gave them that…

and I made my way back up the escalator into the frigid San Francisco night with my p-coat pulled tight, hat brim down – and an enormous smile beaming out from underneath it, still humming the spiritual.
And none of this would have ever been able to happen without you – you know who you are.
Thank you.

 

Another Day

He looks at the blank page, the cursor blinking more & more impatiently it seems as it sits there, unmoving, unwanted, unused, just hoping for someone to come along and remind it what it is there for.

He thinks a bit, feels a strange yet familiar empathy with the cursor, as if it were alive.
As if he was.

He knows that this is the one single thing that he can go to when he feels this way; when he’s so weary of the daily fight to live that over & done with sounds so inviting. What would it matter if he just let go?
What would it matter if he just stopped fighting?

The days have become harder. The support that was there isn’t anymore, and he can’t get what he needs to live. It wasn’t so much the money though without it nothing else would matter and there would be nothing left for *him* to give.,
but with every dollar came just a glimmer of light back into his heart. The shine from every gift of gold stopped by his spirit and there, it took hold.

Not afraid of death, the greatest terror is the weeks that would lead up to it – again watching his body shut down, smelling his own flesh rotting away… but he’s planned for this. Bottles of Morphine in his drawers & hidden away in tight containers, and half of any one would do the trick. Hell, he probably even has enough in the pill thing on his keychain to easily step off this train…

But no. This is just fantasy, something that needs to be written out from time to time to scrub this poison from his mind and go on with the day to day to day, and maybe just maybe, today…

everything will be, at the very least, just okay.

A decision that could either kill or heal…

(Five minute read.)

Something needs to change.
There are many nights, laying in the same room, same bed for the past four years… many nights, after I close my book & turn off the light, before I shut my eyes and I give myself over to randomness of thought, it’s at these times when it all seems so unreal and it feels as if I’m only a rough sketch, indiscernible, an extra in the life I once starred in.
I seem to have forgotten who I am again. Who I was. Who I want to be.
The fight drains out of me, the passion for life I once had has been lost along the way, replaced by the fight not to die. They’re not the same in any way, I’ve found.

One keeps the mind engaged, excited, learning how to get past the challenges and constantly growing, becoming more, creating anything out of nothing.

The other is just fighting to stay well – being reminded that I’m sick every single time I need to ask for help, seldom being able to escape that as the focus of my primary existence.

Each morning and night I do a meditation, one that focuses on repairing my liver & giving thanks for another day. This meditation helps – I am certain beyond doubt that is what played a large role in surviving when I was in the hospice…
Yet each time I have to ask for financial help to get herbs, it rips that apart and I need to spend days building up the nerve to ask again, all the while thinking of what will happen if I don’t ask.

But having to ask, having to focus all my thoughts on what is killing me, is perhaps the main reason that it’s taking so long to get better, to get *well* – so after this, I won’t be asking anymore.

There’s a vicious battle inside of me each time the herbs begin to run out and I want more than anything to simply be able to throw them all away or give them to someone else, and as I begin to die again I have this vision, this dream of finally being able to live life, even if only for a short time. No research on what would keep me healthy because it wouldn’t matter anymore, finding the passion I once had to LIVE and make every minute count, knowing that they were quickly ticking off…

But I can’t do that. I made commitments – to myself, and a very few of my older friends – the people that shared parts of my life besides just occasionally, accidentally seeing me “out”…
Now, the battle is with myself. I need to figure out how to make life feel real again – and I know exactly where to start.

The cirrhosis is what is killing me – the cause of every symptom, from the swelling to the anemia to the severe lack of energy, and all the pain & discomfort those bring. There are herbs that, if taken regularly, will be able to reduce the cirrhosis to the point where my liver does what naturally comes to it & rebuild itself, repair itself – but those are the herbs I can’t regularly afford.
I’m slowly dying for one reason and one reason alone – I can’t afford to live.

But – I can’t ask for your help anymore either.

In no way does this mean I won’t continue to need the herbs and your help just as much – but I also know the power the mind has over the body, and my mind has to think thoughts of getting well again instead of describing over & over to you what will happen without the herbs I need in hopes to inspire you to help me.

To put it simply, one last time – without the herbs to keep the cirrhosis from getting worse, without the herbs taken on a strict, regular basis to help heal it – I will die.

unconscious for nearly two weeks. Hooked up to All of the fancy machines, and the one that goes “BEEP!”

I will still desperately need your help – it’s what HAS kept me alive this entire time – well, that and the shitload of will I have inside of me *not* to die – you just aren’t going to hear about it anymore.
I can’t expect to get better when all I do is whine about being sick, in pain, and terrified… so I leave it up to you now. You won’t hear anymore from me regarding being sick after this. I’m putting myself in a fragile position, but I can’t help but think it is for the best. For all of us.

One more time, My Paypal address: kSea@CultureFluxMagazine.com

The GoFundMe page a friend set up is at: https://www.gofundme.com/fightingkflux 

So finally, I will be writing about other things again. The things I used to write about. The beauty I see, the magick all around us, and yes, silly observations about daily life in general.
I’m looking forward to that.

I love you – be well…
And PLEASE, Share this – and if you can, support this goal I have of getting well, not just… not just not dying.

Until again,
~ Casey

P.S. – To those who have written me privately or commented on posts saying that I inspire them to fight through their illness, please keep doing so. Continue to ask me questions, continue to stay in contact, and above all, continue to fight – but the above is the best advice I think I can give to anyone; focus on your LIFE, not what is preventing you from living it in the fullest way you can.

 

consequences

In the past week alone, I’ve heard of three separate people who have recently passed from Hep-C complications. Without you, I would have been one of them four years ago. That doesn’t mean, however, that I’m in the clear. It’s still a daily battle, closely monitoring everything about my body, doing special exercises, tending to wounds and doing what I need to to keep from getting sick again.

I don’t just “get sick”. If I neglect to do anything & my health goes south, I end up in the hospital, to face an even harder fight if I get out.

But I also need to think of the consequences. The swollen legs & splitting skin, the distended abdomen, the crippling pain – you think just the thought of that would be enough for me to push aside my fear that you’ll end up despising me, or at the very worst, ignoring me. Scorning me, my words…

 

Every single day I fight like hell to never go back to this…

But your financial help is the ONLY way that I can get the various herbs, foods, and other things I need to avoid being hospitalized and fighting to stay alive. Especially because right now, thanks to you, I AM getting better, and feeling more of the person I was before all of this… but I’m out of money, and a few days away from being out of some of the herbs I need.

Because I was afraid of what you might think of me, I got myself into a somewhat terrifying bind.

There is no other option I have, and as much as I loathe having to keep doing it – I’m the guy who goes through complete hell if, like last time, I don’t try every option I can think of, and there aren’t too many.

Therefore I ask again, and will until we either have won the fight, or I end up in the hospital again, wondering if just returning to the same fight is worth it.

And thank you, for everything. With all of my heart, with all of my hope & spirit, thank you. 

I love you.

~ Casey

the fight inside

It’s been quite a while.
Many things have happened, and are happening.
The book – MY book, is still in the forefront on the priority list – and it’s right up there with staying alive.

I have no desire to literally  be a ghost writer… let me get known just for writing while alive, first. Then, we’ll see what I can pull off when the time comes.

This is my latest update on the page that is helping to save my  life in this battle – please share it, spread it around, let people know that they can REALLY rock my world. It’s at a critical point right now, and I need people joining me in my fight to stay alive.

Thank you.

~ Casey

There are bad days, & still worse nights – but generally my health & the way I feel are improving, getting close to what I was before I ran out of scratch & herbs the last time & ended up in the hospital.

This is when the fear creeps in; when I begin to feel the stress I know that trying to cheer myself up and hope that it may not happen this time is futile. I’ve been there. I know this place.
The money runs out, then the herbs, and my body begins to fall apart… again. Again, and each time it is more difficult, takes longer & a much harder fight to come back – and I don’t know if I have the strength to anymore. I don’t know if I want to.
I don’t want to have to wait until I end up in the hospital for the help to come, but when there isn’t an emergency, when it just seems to be daily maintenance, maybe you believe that your help in this fight is less appreciated, less needed – when in fact, it’s the exact opposite.

I need you the most when I am getting better. When things are less dramatic, when it doesn’t “appear” that I’m fighting for my life – just taking my herbs like someone else a bit more fortunate takes their 1-A-Day vitamin…

But EVERY day is a fight. I take 15 different herbs, document how much of each & play with the quantities. I write how I’m feeling each day, if there is a noticeable change, try to determine if it’s because of the herbs or just the day. Meditation, physical exercise, focusing & visualization, breathing exercises, wound cleaning & dressing from where I gouged myself due to the insane subcataneous itching (which drinking Aloe I just discovered helps a LOT) – but by far, the herbs are the most important.

That’s why the terror sets in when I’m broke & running low. I still need to eat as well.

Right now all I feel is dread. I’ve ended up in the hospital too many times, have fought far too long & hard, have endured more than enough pain – and I don’t want to have to go through this fight again for such a stupid reason as not having the funds to purchase what I need.

Though I am getting better, I still desperately need the herbs & teas & everything else that I take everyday to win this fight – as without them, it all goes to hell – and I’m so dreadfully weary of going there.
I just want to write my book, and not fight back the tears that come as they try to right now, when I don’t have enough money for the herbs I need because I need to purchase coconut water to fight the cramps.

I’m getting weary of asking, but right now, YOU are all that I have to keep me out of the hospitals, and I need you in this fight. NOW is the most important time – not after I’ve ended up in the hospital… as by then, it just may be too late. Too much work to come back, just because I ran out of what I need now.

Please. I need you in this fight, I need you in this battle for a life that I DON’T have to fight for every single day, and I need your support now. Now.
Please give, PLEASE share this *everywhere* and continue to share it, because apparently there are a lot of people who aren’t online 24/7.
***Another way to support the fight besides the campaign is my Paypal Account – ksea@CultureFluxMagazine.com – they don’t take the 9% of everything that GoFundMe does, so that’s really nice.***

It rips me apart to say this, to admit it, to ask over & over – but I really, really need all the help you can offer.

I mean hell – we’ve come this far, and I’ve been busting my ass – (the herbs are only a *small* part of the daily regimen) – so lets keep going, please?
I’ve decided that I really don’t like hospitals – at least not spending months in them.

FIGHT with me, SHARE this campaign – and from the bottom of my heart – THANK YOU!

Bones: The moment that I became

Wandering through my writing from the day that turned everything around – the moment I made the decision not to wait and hope for my dreams to come true, but actively make them.

I clearly remember when I was offered the choice. I had been laid of from my job a few weeks before and was overwhelmed with stress & worry – about how I would pay rent, how I would feed Bean, how I, myself, would eat.
Somewhere in the background of my mind & spirit I was happy to lose that job, as it had turned into everything I was anymore. I couldn’t have a simple conversation with *anyone* without looking solely for that moment I could turn the conversation in a direction that was focused on finding an “in” with their building manager at work…
I wasn’t paying the game anymore. I had become it. I dressed in $700 Donna Karen suits (costumes) –  and damn, I looked good in them – but regardless of how good the outside appeared, the inside was vacant, save for every day and sleepless, stress filled night, thoughts of how to become better at my job… a job I no longer wanted, but was too afraid to leave.

Too afraid to give up even that small bit of security…

In a moment of clarity, I listened to what was being suggested. This is what I wrote at the time. A couple short weeks later I was working with The Dresden Dolls in a position that seemed to be designed entirely for me, and head-over-heels in absolute love with life. Now, as I look back & see how everything from that moment has fallen so perfectly into place to get me where I am today, writing the story of an incredible life that began at the very moment written about below, I can’t help but smile at how beautiful everything is.
And I am still completely in love with this life.

November. 2004

Oh, the things we suppress. What is squirming around inside of us? What do we have that could completely stand the world on end if we let it loose – gave it breath – acknowledged its life?

 

No. Can’t do that.

 

Everyone resume the game they’re playing. Everyone pretend that nothing is happening, go about your business, and roll your dice. If you work at it hard and long enough, really put your nose to the grindstone, follow the rules, get to work on time, deny the pain and the madness and the ennui and completely lose all that you are in search of the “American Dream” that they told you to dream, you just might die with the most toys. You just might win.

 

Fuck, I’m in a strange mood.

 

I like it.

 

 

Shit. I’ll never find a job this way…

 

 

But see, there’s a catch.

(There’s always a catch.)

 

The things I want to do. Learn, travel, experience, grow, give, help, inspire…

 

Eat…

 

It comes with a price. It all comes with a price. Many things don’t necessitate one in a monetary sense, but still, many do. It’s a matter of survival. We’re caught,

 

but not defeated.

 

All there is, is to shine as brightly as we can, never losing sight of what we need to evolve. Never giving in, never handing our lives and our own dreams over wrapped in our soul in order to make it one step further to a lovely little retirement in geriatricville. Never succumbing to the temptation of personal drama in order to feel substantiated or validated – or just in order to feel. Maybe that’s what happens. We lose ourselves so completely in trying to be a “success” that we need to create situations around us simply to bring us back to life, to remind us that we’re human.

 

Fuck that.

 

Love. Breathe. Wonder. Explore. Dream. Go back to the eyes of a child. Look around and, again, and see how much beauty there is in everything with this remembered knowledge. You’ll see how everything shines so incredibly brightly, and how it’s all a part of you. You’ll walk down the street with a warmth and subtle smile, knowing that this is the only thing that truly matters. Try to remember it, because if you aren’t careful, it will be taken away again, suffocated in the mundane. Do everything you can to keep it, and give it away at each and every opportunity. Eventually, you will know. The language of your story will become true, you will repair your wings with paste and bandages, and learn to fly again.

 

That is success.

It is time to follow my dreams, regardless of how terrifying it may be at times, or the false sense of security that I must give up to do walk this path. I have lived far too long as someone else’s pawn.
It is time to live for me, to remember who I am and do what I can to help, to give, to remember how to love myself – and in doing so, perhaps inspire others to do the same.

loving someone to life

Glancing over the past few years on Facebook Not for anything specific that i can recall now, perhaps a photo, or just wandering down the long valleys where the memories are kept…I brush away the moss & dust that has settled on them as life goes on, the wonder and appreciation of new paths, changing lives casting shadows over the older moments we have learned from…

Is it only me that feels this nostalgic sorrow for not remembering every mention of love and caring that people have invoked my name in? For months on end I now read them, on after the other, wishing me well, calling to others for the sake of my support, reachingout to people I don’t even know because someone that they know needed help to stay alive.

The thoughts of what was call tears to my eyes, and as they roll down my face, no longer gaunt and skeletal but full, shining and healthy as if none of this ever happened…

I remember how very much I owe to them, to the people who gave so much love to keep me alive.

I come across one line, a line I have never forgotten that took all the strength I had to write.

***November 27, 2011 · San Francisco, CA · 
Drowning, please, need someone to take me to emergency room ASAP
If I remember correctly, Bob found me only semi’conscious in my motor-home… nothing but what I wrote is clear until I woke up somewhere around ten days later in the ICU having little idea what had happened, only that I didn’t have the strength to talk or even write.
I remember trying. I couldn’t form a single legible letter.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I owe so much, in such profound ways.
To all of them… for the chances they have given me, and all that I have been blessed with since…

and now, I need to give them the most honest and loving thing I can possibly create, as small as it actually sounds…

I need to give them all of me, all that they don’t know, all that I could never say then, never disclose.

I need to give them a book; my book…

and inside of it, the closest thing to my soul that I can offer.

Another Great Step Forward for #MyBook!

HELLS YES!

I just secured the amazing Chuck Revell’s photography as some of the awesome multi-tier rewards for the Early-Bird & official Kickstarter campaigns for #MyBook!
Out of the kindness of his heart & to support this project, he will be donating some beautiful fine-art images, and *EVEN* for a few *very* fortunate contributors, a personal photo-shoot!

Check out what his extraordinary eye catches through the lens at RevellRay Photography:

Of course there will be many more fantastic rewards for those who support the creation and publishing of my book, but I really wanted to be able to offer some extra rewards that are less common in a publishing campaign, and supporters should have as much beauty to choose from as they deserve.

The “official” Kickstarter campaign is involving tons of work and lots of waiting for others (mostly for the video).
Needless to say, I (and others who have been on my ass to write the book since I first spoke of it) am far too excited about getting the thrilling but arduous process of #MyStory in gear to wait for everyone else,  so I’m creating something very special.

In order to get this book rolling ASAP, there will be an Early Bird Campaign launched very soon (this Mon. or Tues.)
It will be independent of the Kickstarter, but hold true to and even above the same promise and pledge to its supporters.

The really cool thing about it is that it will offer *very* special, limited edition, and one-of-a-kind rewards that will NOT be available on the official Kickstarter campaign, as a special show of appreciation from me to you! One they’re gone however – they’re gone, never to be seen or offered again.

If you don’t want to miss the opportunity to find out what *those* kick-ass rewards will be, then follow me here, On Facebook  or on Twitter at @kSea_flux –

And please – feel free to share this *everywhere*. I’ve got a HUGE & beautiful project in front of me, and it will need as much support as possible.

THANK YOU!

Love love love,
~ kSea