A new opportunity has come on my radar the last few days. A woman gave me a book, which I read. The book was written by this guy who helped found this spiritual community in Scotland. I’d like to go live there for a few months or years. It could maybe even take the place of Thailand, but we’ll see about that. I still really like the Thailand idea. This other opportunity could be a before or after Thailand adventure. We’ll see how that unfolds. Hopefully the next few days will provide some clarity into where I should focus my efforts.
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We went to a play tonight and then karaoke. Both were really fun. If it wasn’t so late I’d share a lot about both of those experiences.

The play was about high school students. The two main characters were these guys who fall in love. One is the jock type and can’t come to terms with the fact that he’s gay. It was good. I’m very grateful to be alive today. Just like the jock in the play, growing up gay took a huge emotional toll on me and I’m lucky to have survived that. I was depressed a lot growing up and well into my 20s so it’s really miracle that I survived.

I remember thinking at times growing up, especially when I couldn’t really face my own problems, how much better my life would be if I had had to survive some type of adversity. If I heard about a story of someone overcoming some huge obstacle or situation, I found myself wishing I’d had to do the same. That if only I had to survive something I’d have a reason to stand up and be strong. The funny thing is, I did have a reason – many of them, I just never recognized them as such. I do now. I’m grateful to have had obstacles to overcome so that I have a depth to myself today I otherwise wouldn’t have.

I had hoped to state all of that in a much more eloquent, thought out matter. Unfortunately it’s 4 am here and I want to get up and go to a meditation tomorrow. It’s not very early, but I haven’t had to set an alarm in quite a while and tomorrow I’ll have to (for 11 am….) to make sure I make it there on time. I’m really looking forward to the meditation, but I also don’t want to be super tired for it. I should get about 7 hours of sleep so I’ll be ok. The meditation is about setting your intentions for 2013 and “to listen to the voice of your soul which is always directing our lives if we stop to listen.” I can’t wait!

Gratitude List:
Processing emotions through karaoke!
Wonderful opportunities to meditate.
Breaking free of old habits that are no longer working.

I’m tired and don’t think I’m making any sense right now. I just want to sleep.

MoMA —> Meeting —> Fellowship —> Guided tour of Manhattan

Gratitude List:
Meeting fun new people
Ability to push myself into uncomfortable situations to grow as a person (fellowship)
Walking tour of Manhattan

I think today marks 3 years of being nicotine free. I’m so glad I quit smoking. I remember a time when I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to quit.

I grew up about 90 miles West of the Twin Cities in a small town of around 20,000 people. My parents would take my brothers and me to the Cities pretty often. I will never forget the feeling I’d get as soon as the skyscrapers and lights of downtown came into view. I could feel the energy of the city pulsating within me and I loved it. I felt so drawn to that energy and knew someday I’d have to live in Minneapolis.

I’m now 30 years old and I lived in Minneapolis for the past 4 years. I love the city, but the energy I once felt has dissipated. It’s no longer this big, wondrous place I can’t wait to explore. It’s changed. It’s become much more comfortable and has a rhythm that really resonates with me, but it doesn’t hold the allure it once did.

New York has that excitement. It’s got the energy of Minneapolis I craved as a young boy, but on a much grander scale. I really want to take some time to explore this city. To find an array of interesting opportunities to learn from the city and the people who inhabit it. I’m really hoping to be able to do that over the next few months. I don’t have a long time I can devote to it, but I can definitely come back. I will call this city my home and the experience will change me.

I went to two meetings tonight. I took the Path train to the World Trade Center and as soon as I got off the train consulted the app on my phone that tells me where nearby meetings are. As luck would have it, there was a meeting really close to where I was that started in just a few minutes. I walked in and immediately thought “Hmm, hopefully I can make it through this entire meeting.” Talk about some immediate judgment. So it turned out to be a speaker meeting and I really enjoyed listening to Bob share his story. It was also great to be at a meeting again. I’m not sure how long it’s been since I was at a meeting. I think just a little over a week. The first meeting I went to was at 5:30 pm so when it ended at 6:30 I didn’t have anything planned for the rest of the night. I decided to check and see what other meetings might be going on. I found one that started in the West Village at 7:15 pm. Perfect, since my GPS told me it would take about 40 minutes to walk there. I assume the GPS calculates walking time based on little people legs. My super long, fast walking giant legs got me to the meeting much faster. This also happened to be a speaker meeting, but it was entirely different. The first meeting had 9 people there, including myself. This meeting probably had at least 50. It was also filled with a lot of the pretty gays. All the ones who have less than 3% body fat. I used to go to meetings like that in Mpls, but often times prefer to stay away from that crowd.

Ok, so I have a problem with the pretty gay crowd. I’ve always felt rejected by them. As a result, I’ve always done my best to reject them before they get the chance to do it to me. Honestly, this isn’t serving me well anymore. It’s totally fucked up my dating life. Actually, it hasn’t fucked up my dating life as much as make it completely non existent. And really, when I think about it, I was not even close to being rejected by those people. From a completely logical standpoint, although I wasn’t the best looking guy in the room, as far as physical attractiveness goes I can hold my own with those boys. Aside from the hard body I’m not sporting , they really don’t have anything on me. I’m also quite certain as soon as I open my mouth and start talking they’ll most likely laugh at whatever I say and like me. Not only that, but a few of the pretty ones were actually quite friendly. As I was walking in and trying to figure out where I was going, one asked me if I was looking for the meeting. We chatted for a minute. He didn’t try to light me on fire or anything, so that was good at least. And they (surprisingly?) didn’t have a machine to calculate body fat percentage outside the door to deny entrance to the non gym rats.

I guess the moral of this story, as I see it, is to stop trying to change my physical appearance to feel like I fit in with the pretty gay crowd and start changing my perception of them. Some of the pretty gays have good hearts. I’ll have to be careful, but really they aren’t out to get me. I’m out to get me. And I do. Goal for the next 10 days: Give the pretty gays a chance. Quit writing them off as vile. Grow up and be an adult about this situation. You’ve been allowing this to hold you back for too long. Be done with it.

Gratitude List:
Being able to go to a meeting.
Being able to walk.
Pretty gays.

Wow, first day of the new year. And what a great day it was! I didn’t leave M and M’s condo for the entire day. It was fantastic! We played Monopoly and laughed our asses off with the other A playing catchphrase. I can’t remember the last time I laughed that much at one time. We made this great salmon we bought at Costco a couple days ago for dinner. All in all, I can’t imagine a better way to start the new year than laughing and enjoying a relaxing day with great friends.

I started this blog for a very specific reason. I needed to get in the habit of writing. Especially writing on a daily basis without judgment on my part. When I sit down to write, which is generally the last thing I do before I go to bed, I don’t proof read or labor over sentences, word choices, or any of the things that used to trip me up in the past. I sit down, I write and then I’m done with it. It’s great. It’s also helped me get much better at verbalizing how I feel about things and provided a clarity I needed regarding the past and the future. Without making a point of writing every day I wouldn’t have that clarity. Things would still be swirling around inside my head without an agenda or a structured way to express them and move on. I’ve been doing this for 4 months now and the benefits I’ve gotten from it are really more than I’d hoped for. There are a lot of memories I’ve gone into and a lot of soul searching I’ve been able to do because of this writing experiment. I haven’t held back much, but there are still some things I’ve not touched on. Mostly things related to the heights of my addiction or past mental health concerns. I’m hoping to get them addressed in a more concrete way over the next month or two. It really shouldn’t take longer than that as long as I stay focused and dig a little deeper, so to speak. So that’s going to be the focus. I’m hoping by the end of February (and my 31st birthday) to have addressed all I wanted to address and start looking at the next steps.

The major reason I started writing so much is because I really would like to pursue a career writing in some capacity. Honestly, my ultimate goal is to write a book. I haven’t thought too much about the outline of it at this point, but that’s probably something I should start doing. I’ve had some thoughts swirling around in my head lately regarding it all, so here goes: I’d like to blend past experiences with my current reality – basically a what it was like versus what it’s like now type of thing. I don’t want to run through the past in a chronological way, but rather use stories from the past followed with an accurate picture of life today. Not necessarily every story from the past, but ones that are relevant. I have a memoir of sorts pictured in my head, but a very uplifting, inspirational story. A story about surviving and overcoming obstacles in life. The one obstacle I keep thinking about, which is maybe not even an obstacle, is that I’d like to feel more settled in my current situation. Especially in regards to a job or what I’m doing. I really think the trip to Norway and/or Thailand would really give me the perspective I need for that. I definitely feel like I could use a different lens with which to go through all of this – or a higher reality to compare the past to. I’m sure that will fall into place over the coming months. One other idea with how I could structure it that just popped into my head would be to have chapters, or sections of the book, that are feelings or levels of helplessness/hopelessness. I’m not sure exactly how I’d do it, but I could label a section something like “We’ll get through this, just like we always have” and then use different stories related to different struggles, eg bipolar, disordered eating, addiction to go through that. Hmm, I’ll have to mull that over. Oh, I also want it to be funny. I haven’t put much humor into my writing on this blog because that’s not what I wanted out of it. I wanted something serious, but when i actually get down to writing this book I want my whole personality to shine through and that will have to include humor since it’s such an integral part of who I am.

Gratitude List:
Laughing my ass off while playing games.
Spending all day inside.
Going to bed with no alarm clocks set.

Happy New Years!

We went out in NYC tonight and had a great time. We started in Brooklyn at this very hipster place. It was a really interesting experience. Definitely outside of the mainstream bar scene. We only stayed for about an hour, but I’m glad we went. After leaving Brooklyn, we headed into Greenwich Village and went to a couple bars. The first was one we’ve been to quite a few times that has a drag show. We hung out there for a little while before going to Stonewall. We ended up going upstairs at Stonewall and dancing for a little while. The music was pretty good and I was having such a fun time I let loose and danced for a bit. I’m normally a lot more self conscious when it comes to dancing – or rather my inability to do it, but tonight was much better. I felt such a lightness in my heart. Such a contentment. I think it was mainly because I’ve been around such great friends lately and having new experiences. I’m finally breaking free from the old, boring, mundane nature of my past life. It feels wonderful.

2013 is going to be an amazing year. It’s going to involve a tremendous amount of personal growth. I’ve come so far already towards becoming the person I want to be, but I still feel like there’s room for dramatic improvement. Like I’ve just uncovered the tip of the iceberg. I have a feeling now that I’m no longer shackled to that vile, vile job I hated the growth is going to snowball on me. I have so many awesome things potentially in the future – namely Norway, Thailand and of course exploring NYC and the surrounding area as I wait for everything to fall into place. It’ll be wonderful to be able to work out again, too. I’m so excited to get back into the gym and hopefully get back in some kind of decent shape. I feel like my knee problems are very close to being over and I can’t wait to move on with my life!

I don’t feel like I’ve been doing a good job of giving my full attention to my posts lately. I have had a lot going on with the holidays, moving out of my apartment and driving across the country, but I hope to start giving them some more thought going forward. I guess tonight would be a good day to check in on how a few things are going.

I mentioned how out of control the eating had gotten. Christmas was more of a sugar fueled cookie eating fest than anything else. And before that I was eating between a pint and a quart and a half of ice cream a day. A quart and a half! A few days ago I’d had enough and decided to cut out sugar for the time being. I’m not really sure how long I’ll be going without sugar, but so far it’s going really well. I’ve been sugar free for at least 3 days now. It really hasn’t been that bad. I haven’t had much for sugar cravings. Tonight we went to the grocery store after my friends picked me up from the train station and did feel like buying some candy or ice cream, but thankfully I didn’t. I feel much better about myself and my weight now that I’ve cut the sugar out. Much, much better. I still feel gross and out of shape and like I should just hide from the cruel gay community altogether, but it’s gotten a lot better since I haven’t been gorging on sugary things every day.

Honestly, I don’t get what I don’t get about this. I am clearly a sugar addict. Why am I so unwilling to just say “You know what, just like with alcohol, I can’t control my consumption of this substance and would be better off abstaining entirely.” Wow, it feels great to write that down. I really don’t have any control over it. I start off telling myself it’ll be ok to stop at the grocery store and buy one of those tiny little things of ice cream, but as soon as I start eating sugar again it’s not long before I’m eating so much of it I have to cut myself off completely. It’s hard to admit you have a problem with something you so dearly don’t want to quit consuming. On the one hand, I feel that since I’m a recovering alcoholic I should realize when I don’t have control over something or a situation, but on the other hand I really like sugar and don’t want to quit consuming it, either. I just keep thinking about Step One, which is “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.” That totally applies to me and sugar, too. I am so powerless. And it’s really the same kind of powerlessness which stems from a complete lack of control. Once I’ve started I can’t stop. I guess I’ve got some more to think about now. I should really just quit sugar entirely and for good. This back and forth with it is pretty exhausting. It’s not nearly as destructive as the drugs or alcohol in the larger picture of things which is maybe why I allow myself to keep going back to it, but I’d be happier and feel better if I gave it up entirely.

I don’t remember what else I was going to check in on. Oh, now I remember. The dating or lack of any significant romantic relationship in my life. I don’t want to stay single forever, but I also feel myself closing myself off to the idea of a relationship. Crawling back into my hole. I’m pretty sure a lot of this right now stems from how icky I feel about how I look. So many poor food choices and I’ve clearly gained weight. Not only have I gained weight, but I don’t feel strong or powerful or athletic in any way anymore. I just feel out of shape and flabby. I hate it. I can’t imagine having sex with anyone right now. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to have sex with me right now. Or if they did, what a disappointment things would be for them once I took off my clothes. I hate feeling this way, but it would be better to save them from the disappointment and me from the embarrassment/shame/rejection that would inevitably follow any sexual encounter. I hope someday it won’t be like this.

We finally made it to New Jersey. It took us around 26 hours for all the traveling. Unfortunately, we hit a snowstorm in Pennsylvania that really slowed us down. I’m really glad that we finally made it and I was able to sleep in a real bed last night (updating the post in the morning for yesterday, instead of last night).

I now have about 2 weeks to fill out here. A lot of it will be done with my friends since both of them have some time off work right now. I also don’t have a lot of money, so adventures into the city will have to be done with that in mind. We are planning on going out in NYC on New Year’s Eve. It’s going to be awesome. I’m also looking for the more obscure things to do that I haven’t done on the first two trips I’ve made out here this year.

Driving to New Jersey. Drove for about 6 hours. Handed over the reigns a few minutes ago… Sleeping soon.

Thank god for my mother. I’m 30 years old and clearly not capable of getting my apartment into any kind of decent enough shape to move out of. My mom drove to Minneapolis this morning and we spent basically the entire day cleaning my apartment. I had a final walk through with the caretaker this evening and handed in my keys. I officially no longer have a place to stay in Minneapolis. It’s scary, but for the most part I’m just really happy to be moving forward with things. Tomorrow I’ll be heading to New Jersey and spending the next couple weeks out there. It’s going to be awesome.