Survivors don’t always survive

When I was in college, my professor of English, John O’Neill, noticed something in my first class term paper.  Most specifically, he alerted me that the sentence in my term paper – “Usually these things get off to an unusual start” – was not only grammatically incorrect, it was also a use of a positive and a negative of a word in the same sentence.

Sort of like the headline for today’s blog.

I’ve made no secret that my life has been filled with peaks and valleys, with the valleys almost as deep as the Grand Canyon.  Valleys of abuse and neglect and regret.

Somehow I survived all that trauma.  All the beatings, all the torment, all the lies and all the pain.

But I know that “surviving” doesn’t equate to complete recovery.  Like graffiti removed from a building wall, you may not completely see all the paint marks, but you know that they’re still there, in one form or another.  Sort of like those ghost signs of old advertisements that I enjoy photographing.

I’ve dealt with the loss of those who were closest to me – the people who protected me from the demons, the people who inspired me to fight back against the abusers.  Those people are gone.  They’ve passed away.  And I remember them in my heart, and their memories and their kindness have found their way into my photography, into my artworks, into every character typed in this blog.

I’ve dealt with the feeling of worthlessness, of believing that my abusers were right and that I either shouldn’t have been put on this earth in the first place, or that my being here meant that life is terrible.  It’s a battle I face every day.  Every moment.   Every single time that I have a flashback to a terrible day, a painful memory, a memory that clamps onto my soul like a bear trap.

How do I survive all these moments?

Honestly… there are days when I can’t.

I’m being totally honest right now.  Even after my 49th Resolution, where I promised to not let those who put pains in my past keep chains on my future, I still have days where I feel about as worthless as a mud-coated penny.  It’s that sense of self-loathing, those moments when I feel like the worst person in the whole world.

I should be in good spirits right now.  Over the past week, two of my photos were purchased in cold buys – one from a blog reader, and one from a German magazine who saw my slitscan pictures on flickr and wanted to buy them for a cover.  And this morning, I’m bringing one of my framed artworks over to RPI because a film student needs some “quality artwork” for her student film, where the scene is set in an art gallery.

I should be in good spirits right now.

Competition season is coming soon, and I’ve definitely got some photos that can earn some silks in the various shows.  I’ve tried some new techniques, and between the Nikon Df and the Kodak Medalist and some of my other shooting equipment, I’ve definitely picked up my game.

I should be in good spirits right now.

And honestly… all I can think of at this very moment are things that have tortured my past, things that in a triggered moment, caught me off-guard and reminded me that no matter how many awards I win, no matter how many photos I take, no matter how many Dream Windows I craft, no matter how many blog posts I write…

It will never be enough to heal all my scars.  Not all of them.

I mean, yeah, I’m still here.  All the beatings and the torment, all the emotional daggers and pain, all the bullying and ridicule should have taken me out years ago.  I should have been a statistic, an afterthought, barely a memory.

And yet I’m still here.

Is there a reason for that?  Is there a reason for all these horrible feelings to pour through me like hot lava from a volcano?  Why can’t I pull one of those Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind moments and wipe the pain away forever?

I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll never know.

Maybe there’s no answer.

Maybe I am a survivor… who really hasn’t survived.

And I’m sorry, Professor O’Neill, but with all respects, this is my life.  And for me, usually it DOES get off to an unusual start.

I have to find a way to deal with all of the pain in my life.  I have to find a way to make it leave me.

Because its existence is ruining my present.  It’s crippling my future.

And no amount of blog-constructed levees can seem to keep the stormy seas away.

I guess this is just me.  Chuck Miller, for all that it means, for all that it encompasses.

A survivor who, on mornings like today, doesn’t feel like he really survived.