Confession, Part One.

I was born with two club feet. My first surgery was at nine days old (I've had several over the course of my life). It took me a long time to learn to walk without braces. I wasn't supposed to play sports, but I pushed really hard and spent the bulk of my early childhood playing basketball and everything else under the sun until, inevitably, I'd severely re-injure myself (including one that almost killed me in the 90's).

My feet have hurt my whole life. Foot pain, along with childhood trauma, were the primary factors in developing a reliance on, and later, an addiction to, pain medication (I later found my way to heroin, but that's a story for another time). Various opiods and benzos were wonderfully efficient in helping me remain upright. However, kicking them (been clean a long time) was no easy task and learning to live with the daily pain has never been as difficult as it has in recent weeks, with my pin slipping and my arch collapsing. The problem with surgery? If I get back on those meds, I'll die. I'm sure of it.

Pain. Some of us have an intimate and grotesque relationship with it. Mine causes frequent suicidal ideations. I made it through 2018. Fingers crossed for next year.

I wasn't allowed to join the military. Couldn't keep playing sports. Wrestling, MMA and Baseball are no longer possibilities. I can barely stand for an hour to play an acoustic set and I used to OWN the stage. So.. For now, I'll do what I've been doing and what I suppose I'll always do.. I'll stretch them for 15 minutes when I get up, I'll put on my braces and I'll go to work. What other goddamn choice do I have?

Wolf Tickets..

Okay.

Enough sad shit from me. Enough debilitating depression. Enough shame spiraling. Enough being afraid of showing my cards and living out loud. Enough of the near daily suicidal ideations. Enough goddamn drowning. Enough waiting for winds to change or the "time to be right." Enough fucking running.

I've had 42 years of this shit. 42 years of getting my feet under me only to sink back into the hole over physical pain and emotional exhaustion or unresolved childhood sexual trauma. I've beaten severe birth defects, parental abandonment, addiction, horrific injuries, near fatal illness and unimaginable loss; and yet childhood has never lost its grip on some part of me. I spent my teenage years being dishonest with damn near everyone because I was terrified if they knew the truth about me they'd abandon me. That voice always told me to build a wall, that the real me was wholly unworthy of their love or praise; that I had no gifts to share and that my heart was not any kind of treasure. Even when I could get a handle on things and gain some sustainable momentum, even when I started being honest and trying to be brave as the years wore on, that inner voice telling me how much hurt I deserve would always reemerge, sometimes when I thought it had been silenced forever.

Well.. It's time to set the alleyways of childhood on fire. Time to slay dragons and bury ghosts. Time to put Durzo and Charlie to rest. Time to make joyful noise and share the sonic architecture of my heart. And no more extra soft bullshit, either. I appreciate that some people value my capacity for empathy, compassion and tenderness, but the time has come to also embrace the beauty of the shadow self and reconnect to my most ancient and primal frequencies. No more apologizing all the time. No more feeling guilted into saying Yes to things I don't want. No more being afraid of being abandoned and unloved. No more creating distance. No more accepting situations where I feel used or manipulated or unable to connect. And no more allowing people to minimize my masculinity by trying to tame it, or define it, or own it for themselves, or call it toxic.

Nobody is f*cking with me anymore. I'm handing out Wolf Tickets from here on out..

I love you somethin' fierce, but you've been warned. Govern yourselves accordingly.