Points of Light, I'm finally ready to come out of the cold. Happy tears for beginning to give up the gravity of anxiety for the grace of accepting I need to feel emotions, then share them others while being willing to accept how others want to share them with me.
A life lived is never simple and it's not simply understood. For years, more precisely, for a majority of my life, I lived in the darkness where emotional pain would feel like hideous, ravenous beasts with razor-sharp teeth nipping at my flesh. This was a time and a place I desired an escape from. The good news is how I've fought hard to realize this escape and how recently I've learned my truth - I've always been fighting this darkness using the tiniest fragments of light I could find - in the form of words - to write colorful stories. The truth is that while I felt I never had anything beautiful to look upon, in these tiny, colorful stories, I'd find beauty, and then for at least a moment, I could see enough beauty be made happy. With each moment of happiness, I could either chose to giggle or shed a joyful tear.
So Points Of Light, I'm finally at a point in my life where depression and the deep emotional pain associated with my depression is, while not entirely vanquished, is being defeated day by day. The power of light's color in word paintings allows me a chance to find all the beauty I need to defeat depression, period. Well, honestly God first, then my word paintings, then the ardent support of my family and friends, then the help of the medical profession, and always by my hard work. Because of all of this, and a resume that is my amazing and full life, I've chosen to help all of you. I need you to know I love you so much that I'm literally tearing up as I'm writing this. I see you, I see your light, I see your color, I see your beauty. I'm proud of you and if you're reading this blog because you need help, please know this, you have the guts to do something not everybody has the guts to do!
But Points of Light, I have a new battle I'm finally willing to face. Anxiety lives and breathes in my life. It clings to my soul, and like the kudzu plant, anytime I think I've paired it back, it relentlessly grows back ten times worse. This anxiety loathes, hates, and abominates emotions.
The problem with this is that I'm a deeply emotional man who's extremely passionate about everything that I feel - and I feel, I feel a lot! I mean, for years, you'll have been putting up with the commentaries I write on every song I ever hear. These commentaries are me experiencing everything I deeply feel vicariously through the emotions expressed by these songs I know and love so much. But I also experience a whole range of emotions when encountering my family and friends, emotions that you never get to see because anxiety never allows me to yield to you all the light, color, and beauty my emotions desire to offer you.
Then if someone happens to intersect my life, and they make me feel exceptionally good and happy, happy enough to make my heart smile, giggle, and even get excited, I'm at a loss. After years of holding down my emotions, disavowing them, and denying I have any feelings at all, I've lost so many potential close friends, both male and female, for those few feelings I allow to escape because I become confused, and I have no idea how my feelings should behave. Do I need to tell you in my confusion they end up acting poorly?
There's a potential person, a potential valuable occasional friend, that's made me feel this way. I've decided I'm going to allow for feeling something good and sweet, but Points Of light, it's hard because most of my emotional life can be described in what I wrote 2010:
Tod Thomas Price
September 5, 2010
This Much Only
Pieces of me, that’s all. Stay where you are. Come no closer. You need not know more. Stay where you are. Where I am you shall not come. You cannot enter. Here behind the veil lies all of me, something I keep in reserve, hidden, set aside for me and me alone, my secret guarded. One knot is my lock, Gordian knot to be sure, tried and true. Stay away. I will share, but on my terms and please be sure that only I hold these terms also within, they are mine as well! What is within is within for my reasons, for the purposes I choose. So stay away, and our unison will be strong. There are things within, many, many things—some good, some bad—but they shall be held with steely grit and determination. My life, my way, by this I am bound; and by this, I live or die. The things within may be hideous, they may be wondrously beautiful, but I am free of your rule. You have no power over me. I will be a rock, a fortress. If I acquiesce it is on my terms, and you shall see a little, but not all, never all. And be confident of this rule with firm resolution, for in that I will be happy. Do not pry, do not prod, and do not hope to know more than all that I reveal! There is so much within. Why do you wish for more? Don’t I know best what to deal out? Ask not the question “Who does he wish to protect?" for rather I protect myself or those without, only I can choose. The lock is strong, it will remain. Stay where you are, and with you do not think to bring along Alexander!
Separated, isolated, aloneness, and feeling lonely has left this man feeling bitterly cold and shivering by myself to feel even micro amounts of warmth. I'm tired of feeling cold, and truth be told, I'm finally ready to come out of the cold.
Developing...more to come!
As Always -
Love and Peace
Tod w/only one d
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