Humpty Dumpty

I'm broken.

My brain isn't wired quite right. Kind of like a car built on Monday morning (hangover time!) or Friday afternoon (can't wait to go start working on a hangover!). All the parts and pieces are there, but a couple of screws never got put in so now they're rattling around in the bottom of the junk drawer.

I have a condition called Schizoid Tendencies. I don't hear voices telling me to kill people, and I don't break out into gibberish and take off my clothes in public, but I'm not quite...right. Stress is a huge issue for me. Depression comes easily to me. I have a hard time meshing with other people. I'm afraid of clowns. OK, that last part has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

I spent the first half of my life as an island. It was just easier that way-playing well with others was too annoying. It was easier to just think of no one but myself. I got involved in some good causes, helped people, did some good things, but in the end it was really about making myself feel good over my good deeds.

I figured if having people around was going to be such a troublesome pain in the ass, I'd have things instead. I drove Cadillacs and sports cars. I was the first guy on the block to have a cell phone. I bought expensive clothes. I lived by myself, for myself.

Then my dad got really sick. He'd had Parkinson's disease for years, but towards the end he started to get much worse. He became such a burden, my mom's health began to break down from constantly caring for him. My brother and sisters had all moved away years ago. There was no one to pick up the slack but me, so I slowly came out of my shell of selfishness and began to care for a man I'd disliked and feared all my life.

Now don't get me wrong, my dad was a good man. The best. He could build, fix or grow anything. When the church needed repair or some widow's house needed work, my dad would show up with tools in hand. He was honest and believed in hard work and self-discipline and everything that made the WWII generation great.

But the Schizoid Tendencies I didn't even know yet that I had, made me the opposite of what my dad wanted me to be. I was unmotivated, untidy, disorganized, scattered. It drove my dad crazy. Let's just say, we didn't get along very well.

But now I found myself responsible for things like taking him to the bathroom, making meals, driving him to doctors' appointments, filling prescriptions, on and on. And as I cared for this once-powerful man, now crippled and a shadow of his former self, I stopped being afraid of him. I began to see him for who he really was, just a human being with frailties and failings who made mistakes when he raised me, but who did his very best.

I loved him.

The end came so suddenly. It's usually pneumonia that kills Parkinson's victims, and my dad was no exception. So soon after learning to love him, I sat at his bedside and realized I was about to lose him forever. I couldn't stand it. I nearly went crazy. But all of my rage and tears couldn't change the outcome.

In the aftermath of his death, I came to realize that nothing I had ever cared about or chased after really mattered. Expensive things and a few good works wouldn't make me happy or fulfilled. I began to look at the world around me and found it filled with unhappiness and greed and fear and hopelessness that mirrored what I felt inside.

I hated it. I decided that since my fate was in my own hands, I would spend the rest of my life figuring life out. And I would make a difference if I could, and in doing so, maybe even save myself.

And that brings me to where I am today. I doubt very many people will ever read this long-winded melodrama, but here is where I will write down what I've learned. And if someone who stumbles across it happens to read it, and sees themselves, and lives a little better life because of it, then it will have been worth the trouble to write.

So here we go.......