In Between

 

Have you ever noticed biographical books are filled with highs and lows and pretty much centers upon the authors ideas and feelings as though the words they wrote were 'Facts'. The truth is way more complicated because there are huge gaps of time between the highs and lows as though there was nothing happening and that's actually where the truth lies.  Well, one truth anyway.

I won't see my next birthday and there's a lot of things which help defined the life that I've had. Yesterday my sister told me she was looking for the life insurance policy she'd taken out a long time back and couldn't find it so she asked Alexa how to go about finding it and was given a site which tells about a person's life. She found the one pertaining to me and paid the price and was more than a bit surprised. It had a record of pretty much everything that one would consider a high or a low, my arrests records, my military record (Which is still considered secret and I'm not talking because I don't really want to deal with the DOD again), and that I'm on the Federal Watch List and the FBI has some interesting information that I'd rather not go into. I've seen my (FBI) file once and it's rather large. 

There are reasons for all of the things which have been gathered about my life and I'm not going to sit here and say they're a lie or false, I did a lot of crazy and dangerous and, yeah, stupid things in my life, especially during the 80s. Now I'm facing my mortality and I accept my past as it was and, unlike so many who look at their impending end I'm not going to start believing in some fairy tale religion in hopes of escaping 'Hell'. I've lived and I'll die as a child of Earth from which my life came and in death will return. It is what it is.

I wrote a book around the turn of the century and did a lot of self censorship because I still thought I had a chance with my kids but that's just not happening. Before that book I'd had a stroke and really had to relearn how to draw, now I'm re-editing so that I don't leave the world with secrets. My parents left life with secrets, lots of them and that bothered me. Maybe someone will one day want to know about this crazy old artist and I want them to know there were more aspects to my life than being an artist and writer.

The life in-between.

Mostly, though, my life isn't the important part of my story. It's those that were near and dear to me which helped mold me into a person whose face I can finally look into the mirror and not cringe. They are the ones who I want to be remembered above my own. My mother, Lorene, my sister, Beth, my friends Alex Jay, Ray Castellano, Tony Salmons, all of whom shared this love of art which brought us together. Devon Oxford who helped save my sanity when it was stretched to the limits, Bethany who showed me that love can happen without alcohol and drugs and got me back onto the world I belonged. Jo, John, Richard Ochoa, Christy and so many more. Their presence in my life were both the highs and lows and, more importantly, the in between. 

The part that mattered.

Time is on nobody's side and if there are those out there you haven't seen or spoke to in a while, do so now because we live in a world where going to the grocery store, the night club, or place of Faith could be where you meet your end.

Love one another and embrace the in between because that's where most of life is lived.

Blessed Be.