Pittsburgh, NM

NM stands for New Mexico.

And no more. And no more New Mexico.

And no mother.

And needs me.

As in no more New Mexico, Pittsburgh needs me.

I'm beginning to feel really really trapped. The lines between guidance and limitations have blurred. I can no longer tell them apart. I keep hoping it's just my depression flavoring my perception, but everything in my higher thinking tells me that I'm justified. I keep trying to steer myself out of this tailspin, to tell myself it's going to be okay, that everything happens for a reason, but it's getting harder and harder...

Life seems like a cruel parody of itself. Nothing seems real and everything seems arbitrary. I've lost the name of action.

I'm blathering and spiraling so I'll attempt to ground myself in some facts and lose myself in some storytelling.

A while back I was faced with a multitude of difficult events assailing me all at once (an increasingly common theme in my life). Without too much backstory it basically left me homeless, jobless and licenseless. But there was hope. A light at the end of the tunnel. That light has grown very very dim. Typically I am a beacon of light and hope for others. I can keep them positive, happy and motivated rather easily. However, it would appear, I am immune to my own medicine. I was able to deal with all the things I was dealing with because I thought I was headed toward an oasis. Rest. Well Deserved Rest. Everything I persevered through, though hard, seemed easy in a way because I knew I was heading toward something. Working toward something.

At what point does aiming toward a goal become more foolish than abandoning it?

I was due to move out west with my family and to attend university. Something I'd worked long and hard to zazz myself up about, and quite successfully so. I threw away many crucial possessions (bed, tv, entertainment center, washer, dryer, microwave, etc.) simply to be more mobile. I was moving halfway across the country. To live with my parents. I wouldn't need these things again for at least 4 years. Holding on to them would've held me back. Would've been too expensive to move it all. And I'd have no place to put it once I got there. But I did what had to be done. Or so I thought, at the time. I'd be able to afford new and better things once my education garnered me gainful employment. Why hold on to my dinged futon and nicked entertainment center? A California king and HDTV were in the works down the line.

No more.

Shortly after the incident with my car (see this entry for details) my mother disowned me. So now I'm down a sister and a mother. All I have left is my dad and baby sis. Both of which are pretty aloof to the whole situation. She stated her reasoning as this very blog. I suspect it goes far deeper than that. There is a very complex interplay of submissive and dominant personalities in my immediate family, it's for this very reason that my youngest sister and father are oblivious to these recent goings-on. On the outside world there is no question that I am an extremely dominant force (sometimes overly so) and the rest of my family is pretty much the same. However in comparison to the forces of myself, Taylor and my mother; my father and Sami seem tame and demure. And at times, when held in relation to my mother or Taylor even I can seem passive. Astonishing, I know. We are all very powerful personalities. While Sami, my dad and myself have all come to terms with this (for the most part) and let the dynamic shift and change as it will, it seems to very much trouble Taylor or my mother to be dominated. Especially so by me.

In essence I think my mom was saying, "You can't fire me, I quit." I think she has always feared abandonment by me and when the stakes got this high she preemptively struck. I also believe a hint of reverse-psychology was present to try to motivate me and switch the balance of power to her favor. Doing what I do best (pushing past things, moving forward) my brain got to work at rationalizing the issue. Two branches developed simultaneously. Denial and acceptance. Both due to pride. My initial defensive thought was, "Fine, you know what? She was holding me back any way." (Which I've come to modify and understand more realistically.) And then it developed into rage. I'll stay sequential. While I love my parents more than anything and wouldn't change them for anything (up to the point of disowning me) my mother has always been close-minded and conservative. Very "Christian". In the derogatory sense. Many of my sources of shame with regards to sex, swearing and religion came from her.

Growing up (and still today) my dad was always far more approachable. Calm. Rational. Open. Ready and willing to answer my questions about God and The Universe and sex and my own body and swearing and society. My mother however was very oppressive. Like the Pope."Why [x]?" I'd ask. "Because God says so." she'd reply. Pretty much any time I've ever felt shame in my life it's come back to her. Not God or my own conscience, but her. WHAT IF MY MOM FINDS OUT?! So her disowning me, in a way, was a huge relief. A freedom from a burden felt for a quarter century. No more needlessly worrying over a backwards individual's slant on my life and actions. While a lot of that still holds true (and is getting me through this) it's been severely altered since. She is still my mom and I will always love her no matter what. The lionshare of who I am (meaning mostly the good, but the bad as well) was directly plagiarized from her. While she often felt like I held my dad in higher regard than her, the truth was (and still sorta is) that I look up to her in most every way imaginable. While my dad is very nice and open, he's not very assertive and prone to getting stressed.. My mother is the picture of calm and strength (except when it comes to dealing with me) and I still try to exemplify the ideal caricature of her I have today.

The moniker of "Fat Toni" (as she is as authoritative, demanding, and scary yet relaxed as a mob boss) was anything but slanderous. This is still the portrait I paint of her to others. The Pinnacle Of Feminine Strength. And in a lot of ways nothing her present self does can ever sully this perfect portrayal of her. So while I still feel freed in a lot of ways there is an obvious and devastating sadness to surmount. This is, after all, my one and only mother we're talking about here.

Backpedaling and explanations aside, what she did is pretty much unforgivable. If she approaches it correctly and enough time has passed in between, I am near positive that I will forgive her. (Much like my sister.) But only if she asks. (Also like my sister.) At this point they are dead to me. Completely due to their own actions. I didn't want it this way, believe me, but alas I can not control everything. The sad part is her pride (again much like my sister) will probably prevent her from ever asking for forgiveness. Indeed she is probably reading these words right now feeling bitter contempt and seething rage. And all I can say to that is something she taught me a long time ago. "You made your bed, now lie in it."

At the risk of sounding dramatic pretty much the entire course of my life was swayed by this flippant decision of her's. Not just material possessions were cast aside. My career path and many other things have been caught in this maelstrom as well. And for that, a part of me will possibly forgive her, but will absolutely never forget for as long as I hold conscious thought in my brain. The one person in this world that I am supposed to be able to depend on, abandoned me. When all else fails, you have your mom. Not me. Not now. Not ever again. My trust is shattered and can never be restored. It is a one time only thing. While I might be civil with her in the future (not the least of which for the sake of my dad and Sami) we will never have the old relationship that we used to.

Point blank I think my mother is scared of me, and I think that her fear drove her to push me away.

So now where do I go from here?

I'm living with my girlfriend and I've got my license back, but my bank account is still in the negative, my car has a flat and I've yet to secure employment. Things are better than they were, but by no means ideal.

At what point does striving for a goal become more foolish than abandoning it?

I lost my ultimate goal in life some time ago. I wish I could blame it on this singular event, but I can't. Though it has certainly contributed greatly. I know all the little things I still want from life, (entheogens, Japanese culture, a gym membership, real whole food, to positively impact those around me, fame, freedom, some world travel, constant learning, constant improving in all three fields: spiritual, mental, physical) but I have forgotten the end goal. If I am currently lavishing looking at the stars on my way to the moon then consider that I have forgotten where the moon is, what it looks like and the fact that I'm even going there.

I love comedy and I love consciousness exploration but I can't fathom either of those blossoming into standalone career paths for me. They will certainly attach on to whatever I choose but I can't rely on them alone. Day in and day out one thing continuously stands out to me. One path screams at me. One path I've barely begun down but am extremely excited to follow. Movies.

Every time I watch a good movie I am energized. Moreover even if I watch a horrible movie. As long as I am not indifferent to it, movies motivate me. Good ones inspire me to catch up/keep up and bad ones inspire me to surpass and show how it's done. I am severely aware that I am simply talking to myself here but, there has only ever been one choice for me for what to do when it comes to my life. Make movies.

To me, it's the only thing worth doing on this Earth as a main source of income. I have trouble working for companies or bosses that I don't understand or sympathize with, but creating visual fiction with a band of individuals that share my goal sounds like heaven to me.

Maybe I'm not as lost as I thought....

There is another thought/fact that came to me a few days ago and has been working wonders to calm and focus me again: I have always been (and will probably always be) a late bloomer.

From where I was born in the Gregorian calendar, to the epoch I was born into, from the late age I first spoke to even hitting puberty years later than my peers. But that late puberty and the delay in speech held apparent reason: when it rains, it pours. I may have spoken later than my peers, but I began speaking in full grammatically correct English. No coos, no ma-mas or da-das. My parents were beginning to get worried that perhaps I was slow. Until one day... "May I have a cookie, please?" "You were biding your time." My mother said. From complete silence to full sentences. Puberty. While everyone else was getting chest hair and beards and growing taller I was seemingly following the same path as my father. Literally a single chest hair (I had a song about it), sparse leg and underarm hair, a shadow of moustache and nothing else. But when puberty DID hit, it hit like a ton of bricks. I went from zero to manly nearly overnight. To this very day in my outward appearance it is painfully obvious that I practically bleed testosterone. And this being from a person who had resolved himself to being beardless, hairless and puny for the rest of his adult life.

I have to remember that I'm ALWAYS late. ALWAYS. It's one of those things that makes me who I am. However, while I am usually late, I also usually go above and beyond. Far surpassing those that "arrived on time". This thought is quite comforting to me. Like a warm blanket. Heck I didn't begin lifting or smoking marijuana until my late teens and yet when I did.... BOOM. I went full tilt. With lifting, I went from 181 lbs. at 12.5% bodyfat to 225 lbs. at 9% in under 6 months. Steroid-free. I meticulously planned my workouts, absorbed knowledge from every available source (especially trial and error), fastidiously monitored my nutritional intake and constantly fine-tuned. One of my nicknames at the gym was "The Mad Scientist". Due to my stacks of notebooks chronicling my daily diet and fitness regiments. When I commit to something, I commit to it fully. I go hard. I was resolutely against marijuana and other substances that I was foolishly taught were "drugs" as a teenager until I moved to California and had my consciousness expanded and the truth revealed, and since then I've become a regular shaman. I own scores of books, I've read countless articles online, joined forums, done hundreds upon hundreds of hours of research on the subject, I ingest anything that can educate me about entheogens greedily and thankfully. I've smoked copious amounts of cannabis in different settings, quantities and potencies. I went on to explore alternative methods to smoking; vaporizing, oral consumption, etc.  I've taken a variety of psychedelics and been mindful from onset to several days later.

If I truly have cemented my life path (filmmaking) then nothing will stop me. I may be 25 and far older than I wanted to be when breaking into the scene, but I have to remember, it's all going to be worth it when I'm more well-known and more synonymous with movies than Steven Spielberg or James Cameron.

I will begin creating my New Mythology, here in Pittsburgh. I'm done fighting to break free from this city. If it wants me this bad, it can have me. ALL of me. Until it can't handle me anymore. Until I inevitably grow too big for it. I'll resume my writing, utilize my resources and friends, jump on stage at the improv, I will do whatever it takes to succeed.

"Don't let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." - John Wooden