Round Mountain

       When I was a kid, I had this recurring dream. This recurring nightmare. There stood in front of me a rock. Actually, it was a boulder. No, it was more like a mountain. A round mountain. I was expected to push this round mountain, to move it. All by myself. Nobody in the dream told me I had to move it. But I knew I had to just the same.
        I also knew that I would spend the rest of my life trying, alone, in vain, to move that round mountain. I knew that I would never get any help, and that it would never budge. Not one millionth of an inch. Every moment of my entire life was henceforth going to consist of trying to move this round mountain and never making any progress.
        Staring at this round mountain and contemplating the rest of my existence, I experienced downright suicidal hopelessness and despair. When I woke up, always in a cold sweat and breathing heavily, my relief that it was just a dream knew no bounds. I was grateful beyond measure.
        That dream recurred from the time I was about seven until late in my teens. Up until a few years ago, I had never told anybody about that dream. Not my parents, or my siblings, or my friends, or my teachers, or even my stuffed animals. It was too horrible to contemplate. So like almost everything else I felt then, I kept it inside, and tried to forget about it.
        That nightmare literally scared the life out of me.
        I’ve often thought since then what a sublime and subtly horrific dream that was for a child to have. What I’ve understood since then, is that although I was just a kid, I had already developed adult sized fears. I skipped right over the G-Rated phobias and went right to the R-Rated ones.
        What I didn’t realize as a child was that my waking life resembled that dream. An overall sense of hopelessness, despair, frustration, and melancholy pervaded me as a kid. The dream just reflected that, on the subconscious stage of my sleep.
        I don’t have that dream anymore. But I still remember how it felt, and sometimes I can go there while I’m awake. Sometimes, I still feel that nightmarish level of despair and hopelessness. And, just like it did then, it scares the life out of me.
        I’m good at procrastinating. I’m a pro at letting certain things build to a point where it’s no longer just a deed to be done or a problem to solve. Now, it’s a project. A huge, messy project. If I do that with enough things in my life, I can get that awful feeling again. What I call the “round mountain syndrome”.
        Not again, I tell myself. Not after all the work I’ve done. How the hell do I periodically keep coming back to this shit? Despite all my progress and growth. Despite the profound breakthroughs and awakenings and shifts I’ve experienced over the past six months. Despite all that, this fuckin’ waking dream will not go away.
        It comes up for a reason. It comes up because I still need to work on it. I know that, but that doesn’t help me when it shoves itself into my life. When that happens, I feel crushed by that round mountain. It takes up the whole sky. It takes up all my space, both inside and out. It looms omnipresent. It is both the immovable object and the irresistible force. Like the song by the band Boston, this is more than a feeling. It’s a pervasive, underlying attitude and perspective that still occasionally rears it’s butt ugly head. And I hate it. It goes against my natural enthusiasm and passion and energy. It feels like a cancer that I just want to cut out of me and be done with.
        But I always move through it. I take much better care of myself now, especially when I'm in trouble. I’ll work out more, and let the endorphins kick into hyperdrive. I’ll pray more, and meditate more, and do some yoga, even though I’m as tight as a piano wire. I’ll get in a few extra al-anon meetings, and talk to people about where I’m at instead of keeping it inside. I’ll write about it now too, and share it here. It all helps. And I move out of it much quicker than I used to. I don’t stay there long anymore. That alone is reason to be hopeful and buoyant.
        Maybe someday this feeling will go away and never come back. And then again, maybe I’ll have to deal with it for the rest of my life.
        If it does keep coming back, though, I’ll tell you something I’m actually looking forward to. And that’s being in bed some night with a woman I love and telling her about this dream. Sharing, for the first time in my life with my lover, this positively awful nightmare and that positively awful place that I can still sometimes go. Because I’m no longer afraid to be so vulnerable. I’m no longer ashamed to admit that some nights, I need to just crawl into her soft embrace and absolutely melt into her warm, loving body. Letting myself completely go. Breaking down if I have to. Crying if I need to. While she holds me, listens, and loves me back to the present. Back to a time and place where I can share the nightmare of the round mountain with the woman I love. Back to a time and place where I don’t have to go through this alone, and I can finally ask somebody for help.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a Round Mountain full of Wrongs) Reserved.

Tree

        Scared. Anxious. And lonely.
        These feelings go deep. These feelings go old.
        I know this, because they don’t require any conscious thought to surface. Like a big old maple tree in the back yard of my mind, they have been present for as long as I’ve drawn breath.
        Fear, anxiety, and loneliness took root right out of the womb, when I was separated from my twin brother and stuck in an incubator for he first three weeks of life. Like the maple tree in the yard that’s always been there, those feelings have created a formidable presence. They show up in the corner of my emotional eye even when I’m not looking at them. Like the tree, they can feel omnipresent, even when I’m not playing in them. Even when I’m not near them. They cast a long shadow. It sometimes feels as though no matter what I do, or where I go, or who I become, I can not get out of that shadow.
        If I look closer at that tree of fear, anxiety, and loneliness, I understand that it has a consciousness. And just like a real maple tree, we’re not always aware of this consciousness because, as humans, we can’t understand it. Or we don’t believe it exists.
        But It does. Just like a real maple is saying something to me when I look at it, my tree is communicating to me as well.
        What he’s saying to me is that, more than anything, he needs something. He wants something.
        He wants Connection. Community. Love.
        But he is deathly afraid that he will never get it.
        So the tree grows himself bigger and stronger and more beautiful. Because he wants to attract people. But at the same time, because he doesn’t believe he will ever get true connection or community or love, he’s trying to prove to himself, and to everybody else, that he’s so big and strong and beautiful that he doesn’t need or want any of that from anybody else. He can give it to himself just fine, thank you.
        That tree is the part of me that never knew what I wanted because to know what I wanted was synonymous with not getting it.
        As long as I kept myself in the fog of not knowing what I wanted, or as long as I consciously just didn’t want it, there was nothing to worry about. You can’t worry about not getting something if you don’t want it. That was me, my whole life.
        But by finally acknowledging that I don’t want to play life as a game of solitaire, that I don’t want to be a lone warrior anymore, I become vulnerable.
        No shit.
        Excluding material possessions, which were always plentiful, as a kid I learned not to want or need anything that I couldn’t give to myself. Perpetually lonely, anxious, and sad, at some point I stopped asking for what I needed and wanted because I wasn’t getting it. Unconsciously, I decided it was better not to want or need much of anything. I also decided that I better learn to give to myself, because nobody else was going to.
        So I set myself up for a troubled existence. I was created to give love, to receive love. To connect to others and build those connections into all types of intimate relationships. I was created to share what was inside of me, and to welcome what was inside of others. I was made to be part of communities that serve their members.
        When I was a kid, that’s all I wanted. That’s all I needed. And quite frankly, I didn’t get much of any of it. So I went the other way. Not socially, but emotionally. Not on the outside. On the inside. I blocked off all those precious things I wanted because I didn’t believe I could ever have them.
        And those walls came tumblin’ down this summer. So now, what I’ve always needed and wanted is staring me right in the face saying “It’s about time you saw us, and heard us, and recognized us. We didn’t go anywhere. You did. You’re back. Welcome.”
        But now I’m petrified because I want again. I need again. And I’ve spent most of my life running from that and denying it. And at the same time, a part of me doesn’t believe I can ever have what I really want or need. That part screams to me, in a voice so loud sometimes it’s all I hear; “You’ve been that route before! It didn’t work then! It won’t work now!”
        But now I can’t do what I used to. I can’t fight what my heart truly wants anymore. I can’t fight that part of who I am anymore. Not because I’m not strong enough. I’m stronger than ever. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. No. It’s because I’ve experienced the most profound shift of my life. The shift to fully embrace what I feel. To live from my heart and not my head. I don’t want to run away anymore. I want to run towards.
        And maybe it takes even more strength to embrace all of who you are, what you want, and that which you were made for, than it takes to fight it. Fighting it certainly takes strength. In fact, it’s exhausting. But embracing it takes strength and courage and faith and trust and belief. And it gives me energy, rather than suck it from me. Embracing takes a true warrior spirit. It takes more. So I have to be more. And I am more.
        And if I can own that I am more, I can speak to the tree in my mind. The one who’s scared and anxious and lonely. I can connect to that kid in me who’s cynical about ever getting what he really wants. What he really needs. I can connect to them and say “Trust me. I won’t let you down.”
        And I won’t.
        Because my heart knows better. My soul knows better. And that’s what I try to listen to now.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a tree full of Wrongs) Reserved

My Internal Beloved

       Having pulled my finger out of an emotional dam yesterday, and admitted on this website that I still love my ex-girlfriend, I’m now awash in very murky, turbulent water that randomly vacillates between bitter cold and boiling hot. It’s so uncomfortable and frightening, that I’m periodically reverting to an old standby to protect myself: numbness. One moment I’m crying. The next I’m angry. The next I’m joyful. The next I’m numb. I’m all over the fuckin’ place.
        Let me tell you something about this blogging thing. It doesn’t matter how many people read yesterday’s post. It’s out there. The act of posting it was the symbolic removal of my finger from the levee. Unleashing that truth produced a movement and a direction, like a river cutting through a canyon. I initiated that flow, and at the same time have no idea where it’s taking me. I just know how I feel. I know my truth. That’s why I said it. What life gives me after that is out of my hands. And that’s scary.
        Part of me doesn’t want anybody on earth to read what I wrote yesterday, because of the judgment I’ve attached to it. The voice of judgment comes from my inner Judge. And he’s a monster. A brutal monster.
        He’s 400 feet tall and built like The Hulk. He breathes atomic fire like Godzilla, and has a PhD in psychology from Harvard Medical School. His IQ is so high that it can’t be measured by conventional methods, and he’s constantly pissed off. He doesn’t sleep, and I know this because some mornings, he’s on me a few seconds before I even open my eyes. His voice is loud enough to drown out the sound of all life. He can bludgeon me to pieces, or he can subtly undermine me with the skill and precision of a Machiavellian master. And he’s all over me today.
        “What the fuck is wrong with you?”, I hear the Judge say. “You weak, stupid, fool. No wonder you’re alone. Your feelings are WRONG. Never love anybody who doesn’t love you back. In fact, loving anybody at all is a mistake. You are a mistake. Your life is a mistake. All the working out or writing or attention or ANYTHING on earth will not change the fact that YOU ARE A LOSER. Do you hear me? Loser.” I told you he was brutal.
        The Judge hasn’t been this angry in months. He’s been relatively fine as long as I’ve written around the truth of my still loving someone who doesn’t love me back. But I didn’t write around it yesterday. I simply wrote it. I wrote it again today. And he’s going nuts.
        But I know something about the Judge that he doesn’t think I know. As much as he sounds like he hates me, I know he’s just trying to protect me. He honestly believes that assassinating my character actually helps me toughen up. He judges me because he believes that he’s helping me. We all know people like that. They’re called family.
        So how do I deal with this inner maniac who’s convinced that he’s actually helping me by calling me a mistake?
        I used to hate him right back. After all, it sounds like this jackass is trying to kill me. I have every right to defend myself and try to kill him. But I can’t kill him. Because he’s a part of me. So the more I hate him, the more I hate myself. The more I try to destroy him, the more I destroy my own life. I tried that. It doesn’t work. It doesn’t lead to happiness.
        It’s actually easy for me to hate myself. I have lots of practice. What’s insanely difficult for me is to love myself. But that’s the only thing that’s going to save me. I know that. I can’t always do it. But I know it. Somewhere deep inside.
        What if I take all of this love that I want to give to someone else and gave it to myself? What if I look at myself as My Beloved? My Internal Beloved.
        If someone I loved came to me in tears, feeling that their life, that their very being, was a mistake, I would treat them vastly different than I’m treating myself today. I would give them all the love, support, and care that I had in me. I would dig as far into myself as I could go and offer them whatever they needed. I would hold their hand, or hug them into my body, and not let go. I would carry them, on my back or in my arms, until they could walk again. Why can’t I do that for myself?
        That’s my lesson here. One of them anyway. While it’s true that, since my heart opened up, I’ve experienced periods of self-love on levels previously unknown to me, it’s obvious I have a long way to go. All that I want to give to her, she does not want from me. Sounds like a great opportunity to give it to myself. I don’t always know how. In fact, there are times when I don’t have a clue. But I can learn. As my father used to love to say, “When you’re through learning, you’re through.” Right on dad.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and a judgmental amount of Wrongs) Reserved.

Pulling Out

       I’ve had writers block for almost a week. It feels as though there’s nothing inside of me that I want to say. But when I go in deeper, that isn’t it at all. It isn’t that there’s nothing inside. I don’t have a block. I have my finger in a levee that I’m afraid to pull out.
        Well I’m pulling out. Now.
        I still love my ex-girlfriend. I still love Principessa.
        I rhetorically ask myself why the hell would I ever admit that. Why can’t I just know it and shut up? Better yet, why can’t I just deny it? I’ve done that before.
        Then I remind myself that my most valuable gift is my self. My self is rooted in my truth. Once I get to that truth, I can either accept it or deny it. I can either embrace it or fight it. I’m choosing to embrace it. I’ve tried life the other way. It didn’t make me very happy. And it took up most of my energy.
        And I remind myself that I want this website to be about sharing my self, my truth, with whoever wants to see, hear, and know me. If I start editing that, I’m not being true to myself or to my vision.
        That sometimes means owning, and writing about, things that are very uncomfortable. Like this.
        The last time I was here, I was about eighteen years old. I spent the next twenty-five years making sure that my heart didn’t get broken again. And the last time I loved somebody I wasn’t with, I was incredibly depressed. My life stopped.
        But this time my life hasn’t stopped. It’s full steam ahead.
        I feel somewhat psychotic. I’m not used to feeling this much. I’m not used to experiencing extreme sadness but not being depressed. I’m not used to crying about not being with the woman I love in the morning and then feeling good enough to go out and flirt with women that night. One night I feel like a rock star. The next like a hopeless romantic.
        In two recent YouTube videos, Salem Night Fever and Clint Carnival, I'm getting lots of attention from, and giving lots of attention to, women. I ask “How can I feel that happy and attractive and special in those moments and then the next night cry my eyes out?”.
        Because I’m finally big enough to hold it all at once. Because I’m open. Like a container that grows along with whatever is put in it. Instead of being of a finite size that eventually doesn’t have any more room, I grow and I expand. Sometimes, like right now, quite painfully. And as my self expands, my feelings, my thoughts, my creativity, my life, expands with me.
        I don’t look at my life as an either/or, polarized dichotomy anymore. I’m big enough to hold the joy, and the sadness. The pleasure, and the pain. The love, and the not love. What is. And what is not.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and wrongs) Reserved.

Giovanni & Boy - Part 1

       Abraham Lincoln said “A House divided against itself can not stand.” I offer that a person divided against him or her self has no better chance than a house.
        I was once a much more splintered personality. A man in conflict with himself. I had no idea what I wanted, because I was fighting with myself to find the answers. Today, I’m far from whole, but I’m getting there.
        Nowhere was I more emotionally conflicted than in my relationships with women. One side of me adored women without limit. The other side was in mortal fear of them.
        I was petrified because women could, and had, hurt me worse than I ever dreamed possible. And my macho bullshit ego believed that it was absolutely, completely, no-questions-asked-please-take-your-suitcase-and-get-the-hell-out-of-here-unacceptable to admit to yourself, or anybody else, that a man could be afraid of a woman. So I simply denied it.
        On the other hand, I was very in touch with the part of me who loved women. I’ll call this part “Giovanni”. I loved this guy. So did women. But I wasn’t crazy about the other dude. In fact, I hated him. I’ll call him “Boy”. He was fearful and anxious. So I hid him. From myself and from everybody else.
        But this Boy was still inside of me. And he still had a job to do: protect my heart. He got good at that. He could pull me away just a little, or completely shut me down, or employ many other methods. To keep me safe.
        Only when I accepted him, listened to him, embraced him, and had compassion for him, like a father does for his troubled son, did Boy stop trying to protect me. Only then did my relationship with this Boy, who was petrified of women, change.
        I did that this past summer when my heart got ripped out of me. I faced this frightened little Boy when his worst nightmare came true. He came running to me, devastated, alone, sobbing uncontrollably, screaming in pain. That’s when my own heart melted for myself.
I could not hide him any longer. I could not deny him or negate him one more moment. He was hurting worse than I had ever imagined. He had to be seen and heard. So I watched. And I listened. I spent lots of time with him and I got to know him. I got to love him. And so I got to love myself too. Funny how that works.
        Ever since I can remember, this Boy who feared women was in a No Holds Barred Steel Cage Texas Death Match with the other part of me who absolutely loved women. Within my own being, it was perpetual emotional mayhem. Giovanni and Boy were constantly duking it out.
        The dichotomy between the two of them was of Jekyll and Hyde proportions. While Boy is deathly afraid of women, Giovanni finds them the most compelling, beautiful, alluring, fascinating, magnificent creatures on the planet. He can barely contain his enthusiasm when he’s with them.
        For instance, I love placing my face firmly into the neck of a woman and inhaling. Lettering her sweet, unique scent fill my entire body, I experience a broad spectrum of sensations and emotions. Soothing contentment. Burning animal desire. Helpless rapture. Passion. Weakness. Love. And that’s just from smelling her neck.
        Reconciling this, and countless other intense female induced experiences, with the part of me that had to protect myself, took up considerable space inside me.
        There was, in reality, no reconciliation. There was forced tolerance. Like a couple who stays together not out of love but out of necessity. Giovanni and Boy coexisted because they had to. They didn’t like each other. Or understand each other. But they lived in the same house. Me. And that house was divided. And that house could not stand. Not any longer. So I crawled. On my knees. Into a new house that could.

©2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights, Wrongs, and Otherwise Omitted Deficiencies Reserved.