I am having a very hard time. I was served divorce papers the day after Christmas. As one can imagine, this doubled my trauma of being abandoned, not celebrating the holidays at all - I was alone. I am not going to speculate the intentions of my spouse because doing so will just send me in a tailspin. I won't give her that power. Additionally, I am navigating a severe concussion as a result of being assaulted. On top of this I am also handling a workers compensation claim - the accident occurred before the assault. This had led to a mess of paperwork and various entities trying to sort out the mess and the withholding of any monies. To make matters worse I'm navigating a divorce. All this just brings up notions that I am not made for this time. That I do not matter - confirmed by abandonment - repeated narcissism by various loved ones. The Oakland police department confirmed this by letting my attacker go. Their reasoning was that I was "in the wrong" for defending myself. As I write this, people are marching just as they did a year ago in support of women's rights. I am trying not to be critical of such displays of power; however, something just feels inadequate and insincere. Marches. The same tactics. The same old shit. To be seen. To hold a sign. To pose for pictures. MLK day. Same old shit. Lets champion the dead and frame them as some idol to project our collective longing on. The 1960s are over. The system just laughs at the cyclic actions of "collective" acts that just predictably fizzle under the guise of individualism, meritocracy and capitalism. The masses go home after they punch their card - acting - to the safety of their homes as if they did their part. Nobody truly cares about the well being of their "brother" or "sister." It's all cliches. And the ones who've perfected that cliche make a living off of it - a good one at that - and enjoy the abuses of power mirroring the very systems they rally against manifesting in philandering, harassment, exploitation. Perhaps this is all expected. We are all human after all. Some have integrity, some don't. The grip of the cultural revolution that was the 1960s in America is ever unwavering. The byproduct of Baby Boomers - their offspring - is left to sort out their mess and legacies: Civil Rights, Women's Rights, Gay Rights, Disabled Rights and we never get it right. Those of us who were children of hippies deal with the reality that our upbringing was not correct; that we were raised by children shunning rules; that everything was OK when in fact it was very wrong. Those raised by parents captivated by freedom under the guise of power get swept up in the rapture of careerism and representational politics only to be continually let down by illusion. They often get caught up in the familiar - the popular culture of their childhood - clinging to music and films of the 1970s like a mothers bosom. Its nectar comforting, nourishing and providing the often much sought after unconditional love that was absent from their upbringing. The music of the hippy generation - in particular the Beatles - resonates throughout my body as it does for many others of those with hippy parents. Youtube revealed some unreleased gems. One - Child of Nature - later reimagined as Jealous Guy by John Lennon brings me to tears. I remember running wearing a Chinese down embroidered coat at Cal State Hayward with a huge smile on my face. I often wonder where that child went. The child full of wonder. The Wild Child - as Jim Morrison sang. I soon fall into a pit of despair recounting tales of California Babylon: my fathers unsavory friends, questionable babysitters, counterculture gone wrong, the lack of boundaries. My body tenses. My jaw and temples pop as I'm ridged as a board. My creation and the reminder of it - my birthday - presents itself as a reminder that I am a survivor - that I'm still alive. I've lost a lot of friends. I temporarily lost my family due to an accident and have slowly mended relations with my sister and my mother; however, I will doubtfully ever extend the same forgiveness to my father. My wife left me. I have forgiven her; however, I doubt if I will ever marry again. I doubt if I will ever love again. I doubt if I am even lovable. Nobody seems to want to take responsibility for what happened to my spouse and I after our union. Neither families. Nobody. As if it was an anomaly. It is what hurts the most. Love was destroyed because nobody could accept what was. Now I'm just left with what is. Abandonment. Being left. Being misunderstood. Being blamed. And nobody cares.
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AuthorDarren Brown, PhD. ArchivesCategories |