FSE

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I remember moments as a child when I was selfish. I have a fuzzy memory of my mother helping me make gifts for friends coming for my birthday the next day. We made small paper boxes with party favors, to be fished out from the bathtub as a birthday game. I remember the envy I had for some of the trinket, too cool to give out, so I secretly went back and selfishly swapped around what I wanted to keep for myself in secret. My friends had fun the next day nonetheless.

I remember hurting my mother shortly before she passed away. I accused her of screwing up my romantic life by hiding into a workaholic lifestyle her own failed romantic life. As her sickness was getting worse, we had come closer, and she had admitted she would have loved to see grand kids but never hinted at it because she didn't want to influence how I lived my life. So that was a knife in her heart I regret plunging.

As an angry kid, during breakfast I would hide with my bowl behind a comic book to avoid talking to her. I didn't want to hear about her work, she would certainly not talk about me. I antagonized her putting up anti-tobacco propaganda on my walls, because she was smoking and I hated that.

She was a remarkable woman; quite selfless, dedicated to her work, she was a true friend to many. She dedicated her life to cancer research, got recognition she was too humble to accept without embarrassment, and even got posthumously a small alley named after her at the university. Her funeral brought friends from other towns and countries.

However, I didn't see the strong woman, I saw her weaknesses and failed love life. She was human and broken too. I regret not having the time to take her to Hawaii, nor Burning Man. She died of cancer, with one of her collaborators as her doctor. At the hospital visiting her at her worst times, I saw weak people whaling in self pity over their terrible fate, others sucking it up with dignity... My mother was working in her hospital bed on a mission to the end: one more paper to publish. Even though I wished she didn't work that hard and spent more time being a mother, I admire her for being such a weak/strong force of nature with an iron will.

But this is not about my mother, it's about me, my character flaws, my past selfishness, and basically just saying that I'm working on it. I've got my own weaknesses, I've learned to identify them, accept or fix them.

I've developed my own philosophy of life. I feel now I've become a role model to others, and I've become a contributor.

I have a nihilist view of life: I don't think I have any purpose in the universe, and so I have to make my own. I have been raised well, and discovered that selfishness and materialism is relatively counter productive and all in all doesn't lead to happiness. I think my mother was happy to the end, because she had found her purpose giving herself to causes she championed. I was one, and the other was her work. I found now that I get my happiness and energy through others. I am a bit starving in that respect in 2020, but I don't let this get me down. Action doesn't stop if you decide not to slow down. I'm moving, creating myself new challenges, and hopefully will make new friends along the way and give my life a meaning I want to champion.

I think my life has had a few distinct chapters, different countries, different activities, work and hobbies. A phase was outdoors sports. Adventure allowed me to run forward and ignore the emptiness inside me. Through tough emotional times, I discovered this new community, and with it deeper social interactions where feelings and emotions matter, and found a new balance. I finally got to face myself and what I was running away from.

2020 is a new chapter, I am hoping to become more involved with a community of builders and artists, assuming we rise from the ashes of 2020. I now want to be a contributor, I want to give and I want to feel satisfaction and fulfillment from that. I want to lead the way.

I guess I am not shameful anymore of the petty kid I was, nor my weird flaws that made me sooo insecure. I don't care that I was wetting the bed in my early teens anymore, though it was crushing my ego and impacted my ability to make friendships and do sleepovers. I accept that my escape through sports allowed me to see and experience the outdoors like few do, at the expense of hoping to build a family or a relationship. In a way this also made me hella cool to my eyes. I have come to accept who I am, and that makes me feel pretty good about myself. I have grown up beyond shame and regrets and learned acceptance.

I am in a new phase where I want to give back, and hope that through that, people will respect me, accept me and will become my close friends, and maybe be there when I falter. I am in a space where I can be the support to those who falter. I like to teach, I like to be a role model, I like to feel useful and important to people who matter to me.

I have random memories as I write this...

I had a beautiful cousin who committed suicide because she felt too short. She was too absorbed into that single facet that consumed her. Had she grown out of it she would have looked back and laughed at herself the way I laugh at myself now.

My dad had a broken life because he was probably bipolar, and suddenly violent often because something important to him was not being respected... I have vague memory of him throwing objects on the wall while arguing with my mother maybe when I was 5ish... or him trying to runaway with me in the streets holding my hands, escaping from the social worker's office, to be stopped by the cops... one of them letting me play with his badge back in the office... I remember meeting him in secret when I was 12 after he found out where we lived after years of searching, and how weird it was to meet this man who used to be my dad... I remember him throwing a fit in my 20's because I told him to not butt in about my studies, and me thinking this small angry man was not really scary... I remember how proud he was when I got my first job, and he was proven wrong when he thought my diplomas were probably worth no more than TP. And I remember him asking me to get married and have kids on his death bed holding my hand weakly. Ah it's not happening. I wish it was but it's not in the cards. I've also learned to let go of the guilt about that.

I'm sorry this is kind of stream of consciousness though I try to make a structured argument, but it brings up memories.

Ha talking of sex life... Now I remember weird gay moments that never fully materialized but were defining. As a preteen, I remember my two older friends, in my living room, trying to pull my pants off to see how big my dick was. Half succeeding, they stopped wrestling them because of my fierce attempts to keep them on. The awkward moments after they gave up. The older one had started puberty, he had abs and muscles and obviously packed more than me in his pants. My fighting was me being afraid of being ridiculed by how much smaller I was. I think I may have developed a confused crush on that guy too then. The trauma from that I never told anyone, I hid the shame. I remember trying padlocks on my belt and acting weird: I bought ninja stars and self taught myself to throw them on a wood board in the apartment poking holes in the wall while at it. I remember, in middle school one year I had a birthday party but nobody but one friend showed up. They all apologized the next day but I really felt lower than dirt. The only friend who showed up was a short peppy fun guy, I remember he always wore tight short shorts for some reason. I remember he didn't seem to be very endowed. I guess that made me feel good and I developed an attraction to him I hid from everyone including him. He was talented and always drew muscle superheroes on the school tables. Around that time, I also had developed an attraction to a black girl with a beautiful round face, being shy I never told her of course. A new more mature looking black girl showed up in class and when she introduced herself I offered her my friendship and was super awkward about it. I offered her to come play at my house, and she was happy about it. In my mind I remembered I had video games and she looked much more mature, so I stuttered, "and other games too", which she took as me trying to be a clumsy player so she got offended and put me down -and crushed my ego-. So much for talking to girls. When I was 15 or so, I had another wrestling moment with a friend, same thing it went nowhere, but at least it wasn't as traumatic. I remember talking with him of his (of course bigger) dick size... Well let's just say now I have a stupid fixation on dick size difference. After the high school diploma a friend took me in a classroom, and at some point caught me by surprise, he was rubbing a boner under his shirt and proposed a show me yours game, I walked out instead of participating. On the girl front I never had any events like that. Oh and I lost my virginity to a black woman in Africa, with possibly the speed record of all the guys she'd been with. I thrust a few more times to pretend like I wasn't done but yeah that was fast.... and now I find it kinda hot when guys are premature. So yeah, sex is weird, and there's that weird narcissistic attraction to my own flaws vicariously through others, mine's defined by all its not happening moments.

Anyways this community allowed me to grow past all my sexual hangups and was instrumental in helping me find some balance in my life. I think that's what I blamed my mother about: she was too broken and uptight for me to trust her talking about any of this. I was also fearfully shy about sharing anything personal. Had it been different, talking with her would have diffused all these psychological time bombs in my head and allowed me to muster the courage to date girls in middle school and not be a repressed person with screwed up shit in my head with weird fixations on guys. I'd be the dude with a wife, 3 kids and a dog.

I think I would have been a great parent to be honest. Being there and non judging, being trustworthy, small things make such a big difference. We humans are so emotionally weak. So many people are struggling through life because their parents were clueless on how to raise them.

Well this is volume 3 of my own introspection at this point. Life is worth living, you can change, life is hard, the way of the middle is good, find what truly can make you happy, accept yourself, yolo, life has no meaning, enjoy it, be kind, be understanding, don't judge, help.

I certainly haven't told you all my flaws, my dark secrets, but you know more than I ever told my parents.

I loved my cat so much. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. I miss my cat. He was so close to my soul. Someone ran him over, I picked up his mangled body from the pavement. I didn't cry but it moved me so much more than the death of my mother and my dad. That's fucked up. I just thought, "I knew you would die someday, I just wished it wasn't already time". But one has to move on. I'm not even mad at the driver, I just wonder if he laughed at his misdeed or went oh fuck and kept going shameful of the accident. My cat didn't suffer nor saw it coming and I'm grateful I didn't have to see him suffer. My gut wrenches at the though of me having to walk out and see him dying in pain.

Fate's a bitch, so just be nice with it and cherish your lady luck. Luck is good with me and I hope it continues. I believe in karma and good karma brings luck to everyone around.

It's been so many years already maybe it's time I find another cat and hope he'll be at least half as amazing as you were. Who knows maybe it won't be a cat and maybe I'll finally find a soulmate, but I'm too incredulous I think for it to happen.

You the reader that I don't know, I hope you have a good life, learn to forgive yourself and others, and help others do the same. If you have kids, find the time for a 1-on-1 when they're ready, to tell them to trust you to help fix their problems, and be on the lookout for small things that can have a big impact. Fix small things before they grow into personal monsters.

Future self... You know what you need to do: make friends, make a difference, earn respect, pay attention to fish that special someone if they exist.

Love, a grey muzzle :3

A note about the photo...

It's about being aware of the moment and how ephemeral things are - carpe diem. This is how we often slept together, my cat coming to embrace me with his paws and sleeping on my face. His fur was soft and had a slight smell of chocolate, I don't know if his chemistry adapted to what I liked, but I eat chocolate every day, i loved to feel the vibration of his little motor and his drooling on my face when he was happy. Anyways, I knew sometimes in the future those moments would not exist, so I took selfies in his arms a couple of times, to remind me how much I liked his attention and how much we cared for each other. This awareness made me live those moments even more intensely.