What have you learned; what is worth knowing? And a few tunes.

I am listening to the song Whiskey in the Jar sung in Norse or maybe Finnish, using an electric water organ and a synthesizer among other unusual instruments (including using bird chirps and calls for the guitar parts). I guess I don’t have enough surreal experiences that I need to create them. Actually I have over 40 different recordings of Whiskey in the Jar, it became this obsession for me, because the song has done in 30 years what folktales do in generations, turn into whatever the singer needs. Which is a bit like us crips and a bit like death and dying if you think about. We are cautionary tales of what can happen if you don’t watch your cholesterol one day and then sharp sticks to the butts of couch potatoes the next: “If a poor wretched girl in WHEELCHAIR and on OXYGEN can do this than what should you be doing?!!!” Which is a bit like how they used to show that apes and elephant could do things, sort of a “you people aren’t so smart after all” and a freak show combined. A nice cautionary social tale of how YOU, the able bodied person slacking a bit could be the butt of a joke soon - you could be outdone by a CRIPPLE or a SPAZ!

Back to Whiskey in the Jar: one of my favorite tracks is by Hazeldine, maybe because it is a woman talking about taking her female lover and hijacking dudes up on this or that mountain. It is a good version, not just because it is a lesbian version. I like how in one version the woman is ENTIRELY at fault (never trust a woman!), while in another, the robber is just surprised. In one version he is caught and escapes, in another he calls for his brother in the army. In one version the last verse is sung from prison, in another his brother has left the army and they are out on the road drinking whiskey. While one rather grim version has him and his AWOL brother holed up atop the same mountain they robbed the Captain, waiting for the army to come get the two of them. In Hazeldine’s version she takes Molly with her, and Molly doesn’t deceive her, rather, as Captain Farrel comes through the door, she shoots him with both barrels and escapes with her lesbian lover. Here is one particularly high octane version of the song when the Dubliners combined with the Pogues in 87 (only in Ireland could a TONE DEAF lead singer become the representative of Irish singing: he isn’t drunk, he just can’t carry a tune in a bucket).

Truth be I look at my life a lot like this song. Sometimes, I am the big risk taker, winning against the odds, taking on the establishment. Other times I look at myself and wonder, “Am I the biggest idiot of all time?” I have certainly failed at more things than I have succeeded. Yet another day, I will realize that I have done, have accomplished more in 15 years than most people do their whole life. But another week and I realize that I am but a very little mote of dust in a giant universe and that what I accomplished will blow away or be forgotten. And then there is the just the, "But this is what I like to do best" verse.

If you made it down this far, let me ask you, this day, today, looking at yourself and your life, what do you have to pass on? What have you learned that is worth passing on? (please don’t put “Don’t bet your house on an inside straight against a royal flush” or “Don’t try to beat the red light without looking”) Seriously, there are a lot of insightful people here, people with life experience. I want to know, for myself, for everyone, and I'm asking for you to look at yourself: at the good, the bad, the experiences you had, the ups and downs and evaluate them, not according to what society, or your parents, or the critics or fans say, but what you say. What is worth knowing, what have your experiences taught you, what have you learned?

I tell you what I’ve learned, I learned that though I WANT to hit people who say, “I’d do it all over exactly the same” it is better if I don’t (actually shame on me, the easy answer, the answer I didn’t want.).

Okay, take two. If you had asked me two years ago what was the most important I would have said my books, my brain, and the time taken to get an education which would pay me over the next decades in both money and the people I get to teach. Right now I tend to think of that person as very naïve.

What don’t I regret: I don’t regret coming out, and living or dying as a person who does not wear a mask; I have tried to live a life where I am the same person at work, at home, at play, in competition, every aspect of my life. I don’t regret trying, but it sure hurt sometimes. I told myself as a teen that if you don’t try to do the impossible then you will never know what is possible. That is a shorthand way for saying I hit a lot of walls and cement floors...hard. Some were metaphorical, some literal.

I spend decades wanting to die, of failing, of falling but I kept going (till I found a good doctor and the right meds and therapy and more). Nothing I do now is as hard as getting up after five months of wanting nothing every minute but to stop existing, to crave dying like drugs and yet just.... keep going on. I worked hard to be free, I had nightmares every night for probably 25 years. Now I just have nightmares some/most of the time.

So in the end, for me, this is it: love Linda and become a better person. Both have taken unbelievable effort; where you face yourself in the mirror of the other person’s eyes at their worst, at their most tired, and you drink it in and you decide that you go on anyway. That love is both a choice and something that is written to the bone. Linda could have left many times, and I betrayed her by trying to killing myself many more. Until I realized that the pain I felt and the pain and fear she felt at my attempts were the same. And that true love means that you limit yourself willingly, sacrifice yourself in the little things because you enjoy it, but communicate, so that you stop hurting each other unintentionally. We are together because we love each other, and we will stay together for the same reason, not because anyone else is vested in our relationship but us.

As for becoming a better person, that doesn’t happen without pain, without humiliation, and learning humility, sometimes the hard way. I try, every day, and every day, I slam into a wall, some days I do a bit of good before I hit that wall. I believe that when some thing is good it must be done, whether it is rational, whether is what convention says or what people expect. That is why I send out postcards, that is why I blogged every day and while I still do. Because I believe that it does good, often unseen, unnoticed, and if 10 cards are sent out for the one that arrives to the person in just the right time to help them go on, then it is worth it, it is right, it is good. And today I did four cards. That took me 2 hours and 30 minutes (not a good day fatigue wise). It was worth it. Because the idea is good. And I will blog every day because people say that this is a community, and I know that being part of something is better than being alone.

I had to have everyone reject me when I came out to know what being alone felt like. I had to know what fear and fatigue and the weary of tests, of being objectified, not as a woman but as a thing, a diagnosis, a moving medical device with meat inside. It made me a better person. I hope it did, and I hope that I will show the evidence of that as long as I am able. People matter. Caring matters. I do not tolerate those who bully others, I do not let someone stand alone. I have done nothing of lasting note, but I did stand up a few times, when others did not. And twice stayed silent when I knew I should speak. That I have to live with.

I guess I’m not very succinct. I think the following video sort of sums up part of who I am, and you know what, I’m not ashamed of it. Yeah, I walked the dark side and yeah, I self harm, or I used to and try not to (after twice in 9th grade I have never physically hurt anyone other than myself), and yeah, I take pills to keep my mood stable. That’s human. How can I be ashamed of that?