I know, at this point in my life, that I will likely never be rich and/or famous… and as I’ve gotten older, both of those things have become less and less important to me. I will settle for being happy, and my happiness is never greater that when i am playing music, on stage, for people who truly enjoy what I am doing… I tried so hard to take the easy path in life that I could have done the right things and worked half as hard in the end. I suppose, for me, it took half a lifetime to come to this realization, and really own it. Even though I never really felt entitled to anything, I still felt that I had something coming to me somehow; that I was meant for so much more that what had become…

The only time I feel alive is when the music is playing, it’s then that I feel the energy pulse around and within me. I lost my way years ago, anger blinded me, fear lead me to bury my heart and hide away. I don’t know what I am going to have to do now, but, whatever it is, I am ready to face it now, unafraid. I am tired of being a cog in the machine of a system I want no part of, life is too short to live only to fund a future that you have no place in… I want to enjoy whatever time I may have with my whole being.

Get busy living… or get busy dying… well… I choose to get busy living. This is officially the final blog that I will write under the Kenny Is Losing It title… I will be starting a new blog that will chronicle my journey to regaining my heart and sharing it with the world… it will be called…

(to be announced… in a “title only post” very soon)

to all of you who have read my blog and supported me, I want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart…

- Kenny

Okay, the last couple of nights I’ve been really getting into some new software that I have on my computer. I’ve been itching for a creative outlet, and while I’m no Picasso or anything, I’ve done some decent work. Just some sketches, photo trace assisted, but all by hand, so, not bad. Tonight I actually created a piece from scratch, a little on the colorful side, not clearly defined, but again, not bad…

I appreciate all the support I’ve received from all my friends and family. If you don’t already know, the last year was pretty tough, and this year started out with some major cluster fucks. I won’t go into detail right now, but, with the passing of a close friends grandfather just days ago, I fear it’s not the last one in the near future. I’m hoping for the best but, unfortunately, preparing for the worst. You see, there’s not a lot of hope in that area. I’ll explain another time, but, my guess is if you are reading this, you just might have a good idea what I’m talking about.

I’ve been burning the midnight oil this week, I really need to get back on a “normal” schedule, which means I have to either get up earlier than I want to tomorrow or get to bed early tomorrow night. Either way, I say BOOOOOO! Even now as I write these words, my eyes are becoming more tired. I guess this is where I’ll leave you until next time. I’m hoping to continue with my new plan of attack… Comments and subscribers are always welcome…

- Kenny

While I know things could always be far worse for me, and things surely are for others, I feel truly helpless and don’t know how to dig myself out of this. Even if I were to sell every material possession I have, which I would be willing to do, I would not be any closer to a solution. I don’t really own anything of significant value to begin with, and that’s fine with me, that’s not what I want in life. I just want a degree of happiness on a somewhat regular basis; I don’t think that’s too much to ask for, do you?

I weigh 440+ lbs, and whether you want to admit it or not, that’s not just a physical condition; it’s both an emotional and social condition as well. My extreme weight affects my life every second of every day. You’re right, no one forced me to be this way, I know, so please don’t insult my intelligence. Please understand, I am not crying, “woe is me”… I’m just explaining where I’m coming from. There’s no reason why someone, at the age of 34, should be seriously considering filing for disability, but, I am. You see, what I’ve not made clear at this point is, I have another affliction to add to my list, and that is my recent diagnosis of Psoriasis. Add to that the delightful bonus (yes that was sarcasm) of having Psoriatic Arthritis. So to sum that up for you, and I will let you do the clicking of the links provided to research if you like, I get to add another layer of visual disgust and yet another reason to be in pain on a daily basis. Yes, most assuredly, there are others who have it far worse, but this, for me, is pretty damned bad and I don’t know how much more I can take.

I will tell you right now, I will never kick out the chair and swing, I will never look down the barrel and squeeze the trigger, but I am killing myself by an even more destructive and painful way, from the inside out. I feel as though my soul, whatever that is, what makes me, me… I feel it withering and I don’t know how to replenish it. The situation I find myself in is one of perpetual disappointment; in myself, in others, in the world I’ve created that is choking the very life out of me. I am trying, I am trying real damn hard not to be the angry man I have been for so long, but I feel it consuming me and bringing me deeper into the hell that I’ve created. I look around me and all I see is my failures and the success of those around me. I couldn’t even see through the one thing that I care about most in this world, my music. That, even more than anything else, I fear, is what is really eating away at the core of all that is good and redeeming within me. Even as I rejoice in the success of others and the dream that they’ve kept alive for themselves, a part of me dies every time I venture out in support.

I’d be happy to dig ditches, flip burgers, wash cars… so long as I could do so from a seated position. The fact is, I cannot stand for long periods of time. Mainly due to my severe obesity, but compounded, now, by my arthritis. Typing has become a monumental feat at times when I have a flare up. Fortunately the pain comes and goes, unfortunately the pain is fairly unrelenting when it’s present and it’s present quite often. It has caused this blog to take well over two hours to produce when it would have easily taken a fraction of the time a year ago. My point in all this is that, the will to do something is there, the way is not as clear. I am truly on the verge of tears as I type this knowing that this won’t really be any more productive than if I had just gone to bed instead of spewing forth my insecurity and angst for all to read. There is something somewhat therapeutic about it though. It may be a cry for help, though I don’t really know how anyone could help me, except for sharing the windfall of a winning lottery ticket or inheritance. The tragedy is that, in life, there is no reset button, you have one life with many decisions and you must suffer the consequences for the action or inaction of your life.

With another 365 days ahead I feel as though I have wasted half my life, maybe more, and I am having a really hard time seeing any light at the end. Today, more than any other time in the past year, I wanted a pack of cigarettes and a comfortable bar stool. I am not a religious man, but, I want now more than ever to believe there is a reason for all of this and there is something beyond all of this. The thought of eternal nothingness is terrifying to me, especially if I am unable to change my life and my body, because it might not be far off if I don’t find a way. I’ve, over the past year, lost a couple of people to cancer, good people who didn’t deserve to die that way, no one does really, it’s a devastating way to go. Driving my fear and thoughts of mortality even further is the likely death of my best friend. He, it would seem, has lost the will to live and has given in to his addiction. I feel unable to help him at all; I can’t even help myself. For so many years I envied his life; his home, his loving wife and children. He came from such inadequate and meek beginnings in a family that didn’t deserve him, and built what I thought was the “ideal life”, one that I had pissed away for myself, having been given everything I needed to succeed handed to me. I developed my work ethic much later than he had. I jumped from job to job while he has had few in the 15 years since graduation. He and I have been like brothers since we were ten years old, though we have drifted apart for a number of reasons over the past few years. I thought I knew him like I knew myself, little did I know, lurking beneath the surface was something that would eventually destroy the man I once knew and bring about someone who I hate to admit that I dread. I hope for the best but am preparing for the worst; his loss is one that I am not ready for, not yet.

I know I’ve wandered a bit here… it’s just a little hard to maintain a cohesive train of thought with all that’s rattling around in my head. I’m looking for that light, I need to find some hope to get me through this. I am at a loss, truly…

I’ve got to get some sleep… Don’t worry, though it may seem so, I’m not suicidal, just not really in a good place. May my dreams take me away from the pain and offer solace in the comfort of a warm, happy memory.

Goodnight

I’m pointing at myself in this too. Though I don’t prescribe to any particular religion, I have found myself offended by fat jokes on a couple of occasions, and I am trying to desensitize myself. There is a stark difference between an attempt at humor and an act of hatred or contemptuous vitriol. If you’re just being mean, you might want to stop and question your motives and consider what is actually causing you to lash out in ignorance.

Many times I’ve said that I really, truly, want to believe in God and Heaven. It would be a lot less terrifying to know that there is something beyond our relatively short existence. Religion, most that I am familiar with, typically states that you must believe what they believe or else you are not “saved” or whatever term that religion uses. My question is, how could any God not understand that the beings he/she created would question his/her existence?

I would wager, arbitrarily of course, that 90% of us have never had a direct conversation with a divine being, and all that we know of God or Heaven is what we have been told by other fallible human beings and books written by other fallible human beings. Some of which believed, with much fervor, might I add, that the earth was flat and at the center of the universe.

While I have no reason to doubt the existence of Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha, or any other revered religious icons or any reason not to believe that they were loving and respectful of life; I have no reason to believe that any of them and those who have followed their teachings for thousands of years could be impenetrable to the human condition and its inherent mix of good and evil. Could one not be contaminated and twisted to fit the ideals of an individual or group with enough influence to sway the masses? Was Hitler not blindly followed, does the promise of 72 virgins not prompt a suicide bombing or two, does the threat of an abortion not prompt the killing of a doctor in the name of God?

My point is, there are certainly exceptions to every rule, but, I would again wager that more have died in the name of someones god(s) than for any diminishing fossil fuel or ship of innocent sunk. So why can’t there just be good people; human beings being good to humans just being human. Okay, okay… I had to do that… just try to say that 10 times fast… (levity injection, successful)

I’ve written all this as it came to mind, and it may have wandered a bit, but, I redirect a bit…

I believe in the power of prayer… That’s right, you read it right! I think that wondrous things are possible through prayer supplemented by our actions. No more than I can explain the origins of life, can I explain the reason prayer works. I lean towards the mostly untapped power of our mind. They say that the average person uses only 10 percent of their brain. So is it unreasonable that maybe some other part of the remaining 90 percent might be able to affect change somehow?

I suppose either way you go, there is an amount of mysticism. For me, at this point in my life, science explains more than any scripture or psalm ever has. I hope that no matter what lies beyond my time here, that there is no absolute. Blind faith just doesn’t do it for me, though it may not be my choice, I don’t know if I want to be any part of a “supreme being” that has no forgiveness for someone who may have had faith in something or someone else. Faith in one’s self and ones own ability to be good to everyone and live a life that is peaceful and in harmony should be enough to qualify you as a being of light, no matter what.

I feel trapped in a life that, no, not a life… in a body that I don’t feel is mine. I never wanted to be this way; uncomfortable in my own skin and disgusted by what I see in the mirror. I don’t mind WHO I see in the mirror nearly as much as what I see, which raises the question of, “are we the sum of our life experience?”, and, “would I be any less or more of a man if those experiences weren’t exactly the same?” Now that I am at a point in my life that I would literally do anything to get healthy and happy, I am at a point in my life where I can do nearly nothing about it. That is not a defeatist statement at all, it is the truth, I am physically incapable of doing all that I need to do. The fault lies squarely on my shoulders, that also is certain. Willing to accept the guilt of the injustice of my poor health, I feel as if there is no hope.

Even having written all of this, of which I will probably never post for all to read, I am not participating in “full disclosure”… The truth is, with things going the way they have been lately, I have been contemplating mortality and the importance of personal relationships. I keep telling myself that I cannot be happy with someone else until I am happy with myself. I keep asking myself, how can you be a father and be in charge of maintaining the life of another person? Being selfish, as I have been my entire life it seems, I keep telling myself I have so much I want to do in life that would be impossible with a wife and child. I have to call BULLSHIT on myself. I have wanted a child almost my entire adult life. I find it hard to function without the love of someone in my life to share my life with. I’ve hidden in the bottom of a bottle and in the smoke-filled dark of countless strip clubs all in an attempt to drown my sorrow and fill the empty space with increasingly empty relationships and calories. Truth is, I have pushed away love on more than one occasion, real love, love that liked who what in my mirror and didn’t care what was in my mirror. I’ve been able to maintain friendship, removed as it may be, but, I fear that I’ve burned the bridge irreparably, though understandably for the false hope and pain that I caused.

I don’t know what happens when we die, I am not a religious man, but I hope there is something after this because the thought of eternal nothingness is inconceivable. I just hope that it’s not too late for me to find a way to be happy and not be alone for the rest of my life. I need to stop running away from those who would love nothing than for me to be happy and want nothing but the same for themselves, oddly enough, being with me was all she wanted from me. That and the ability to give her a part of me that both of us could share and that would live on beyond our love. This one is about me too, I was scared then, and I am scared now, but this time it’s because I couldn’t move past my fear to happiness the last time… go figure…

Of all the regrets in my life, I regret that the most, because everything else is easy to fix with someone that loves you by your side. I’m sorry… from the bottom of my heart.

Today I went to a movie and, as has happened too many times to count, no matter how big and empty the theater, the couple with the whiny, noisemaking, drool factory saw fit to sit directly behind me. Why would you bring such a small child to a movie? One reason I never had kids is so I wouldn’t feel inclined to drag a small figidy, whiny, slobbering, noisemaker to a place where noise is generally frowned upon. Restaurants, movie theaters, stores… okay, I know parents have to tote their genetic cocktails from time to time, but, you know… sometimes… YOU NEED A BABYSITTER!!!

I honestly don’t go out hoping that I have to hear your damned kid shouting, crying, whining, screaming… etc… It annoys the ever-living shit out of me! And to the people who say, “you wouldn’t feel that way if you had kids”, yeah, you’re right… my kids wouldn’t act like that and I wouldn’t bring them to places like the movies or a restaurant where their noise may ruin someone else’s good time! Rent a DVD, order food and eat it at home or for christ’s sake go to Chuck-E-Cheese or something similar… trust me, I won’t be there and I certainly won’t bitch about it!!!

THERE IS A TIME AND PLACE!

PERIOD!

that is the way I feel about it, and I really DON’T apologize if you don’t like it…

til’ next time…

Kenny