Life: Revised Edition

It's been a year. It has been one year.

Since my entire world, and everything I knew.......collapsed.

It's been a year since I took life for granted. So many things have changed.

I have learned so much about myself. It's comparable to the movie "Twister" (one of my favorites of all time) when they finally get the Dorothy machine to fly and they've got more raw data from the flying censors inside the tornado than they can analyze.

My entire world, turned upside down. One year ago.


"When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."

My life's canvas was completely wiped clean. And for 4 months I stared at a blank white slate. Wondering what would become of my life. What I learned though, is that you cannot simply stare at a blank canvas.....and wonder when the day will come. When your dream will come. When your life will begin to rebuild itself.

You must get up. No matter how hard of a fall you've taken, or how damaged you are, if there is still breath in your lungs.....you must rise again.

The psychological truth about the way we store memories: the farther away (in chronological time) that memories become from the present, the less they haunt our minds. At first, you thought about her every hour. Where she was. If she was safe. If you were safe. The shock factor. Eventually, you may think about her once per day. Once every six hours. Before you know it.....four days have passed and she hasnt crossed your mind.

I suppose this is what they meant when "they" say "Time heals all wounds."

They got it wrong. Time does not heal anything. Time creates scar tissue. Scar tissue that fills in holes left in our souls. The thing about scar tissue, is that it's highly avascular (lacks blood supply) and it often has very few nerve endings. Those are the traits of a physical scar. And like physical scars, psychological scars that fill the holes in our souls have the same traits. Very few nerve endings. Very little feeling.

Somewhere I ran off track...



I made some wrong decisions.

I toyed with hearts when I wasn't ready.....and I created hurt. For those things, and to those individuals (who will certainly never see this post) I apologize.

But.....step by step (since my last post in February) I've slowly rebuilt my life. From the foundation upward. It is by no means a complete structure again. It isn't livable......but the foundation has been laid. The walls are up. The roof is on. My feet are dry. My home is warm.

I cannot begin to explain on this blog everything I have learned in the past year. This is not the time or the place to try and do that. I can only say that there is hope. There were days, yes, when all hope was lost. But it seemed that something burning deep within my soul has kept me going, even on those hardest of days. A flame.

In my heart I carry a warm flame. Such flame has been doused with water time and time again.....but it continues to burn. I must persevere. That is what I hear, when I listen to my heart.

As I continue to listen to that flame, I must remind myself of how far I've come. In the year 2015. As I sat, this time last year, without a glimpse of hope......I would have never imagined that I would not only be allowed to return to school to finish a second degree, but that I would do so and graduate Magna Cum Laude. I have been blessed, yes. Blessed with a supporting family, and a few friends that I believe truly care about me. But more importantly burns this flame. Which water, nor tears have been able to extinguish.

I have one task left, in rebuilding my life. The licensure examination. I believe, in my heart of hearts, that once I receive my licensure......the flame in my soul is going to burst into a wild fire, eliminating even the darkest corners of the forest through which I walk. It could take a month. It could take a year. But one thing's for certain.....they've never met another motherfucker like me.....and they'll never meet another one again.

The last chapter has not yet been written. This is My Life: Revised Edition.

K

A New Season

It is odd I suppose, that a man would write his feelings into a machine and then post them into a world where he knows no certain followers. But to write, and more dearly express, is perhaps one of the most liberating feelings I've known.

This blog has been through a lot. It has seen many battles played out within my heart over the past 8 years. But it is not only battle for which I come here to write. I come here, too, to write of joy.

Today I share with you, my joy.

Last night I kissed a woman. With a sweet, soft touch.....I held her sweet small hand in my hands....and kissed her lips with the deepest emotion in my heart.

It's funny how in that moment, my aches and pains, both physical and mental, fled from my body. She's new to the game of understanding Kyle. She knows only of my sweetness and passions for love of people, and knowledge. I'm new to the game of her.....knowing only the sweetness of her smile, and the blue of her weary eyes.

New love is innocent. New love is beautiful. And new love lasts only as long as a Winter cold front. These nostalgic times of love are what we tend to remember the most when we think about people dear to our hearts.

Looking into her eyes, all pain and suffering is vanished from my bones. And each day, I cannot wait to arise and see her again. While the pain of the past will always leave scars on our delicate human hearts, the promise of a future will always bring relief. Hope. And Joy.

I cannot wait to see what happens next. I cannot wait to read what life writes in the next chapter of my book. Whatever it may be, I feel a sweet peace that new love, and new life will soon usher-in some of the happiest days that i'll ever know.

All of my heart,

Kyle

Happy Valentines Valentine

As I sit here and stare across the back yard at the house that was once our home, I cannot help but remember your face.

This day is a particularly difficult one. As the world around us celebrates their love, I sit here with a hole in my heart that is your heart.

The pain doesn't stop unless I sleep. When I sleep, you're there. You're still the woman who walks with me in my dreams. As I hold your hand and walk through the clouds over Talimena Drive, you look to me and smile. You smile that infectious smile of a fleeting lover. In your smile I try to meditate, and make the world stop. Because I do not want to lose that moment.

I sit and think of all the things we might do on a day like this. Such a beautiful Saturday Valentine. 70 degrees, sunny. We'd have probably driven to the lake with the top down and talked about life at a concrete picnic table.

If only I'd have known that your love for me came with an expiration date, I'd have kissed you longer, hugged you tighter, and held you closer....all of those times. The best five years of my life times. The hardest five years of my life times.

Instead I sit here. I sit on this couch wrapped in a blanket that was once ours. One that we slept under so many cold winter nights when the heater didnt work. Instead I sit here.....and wish you a happy Valentines valentine.


Kyle

Bristow

I drove around town today with an old camera that I managed to get working again. It felt good to get out and explore the studio space a bit.

Here's the coolest shot I was able to manage. It captures a lot of the essence of the town in my opinion.

The sickness of Love and Relationship

Why do we do it?

Why do we choose to unconditionally give our whole heart to another human being and allow them to bury it deep within their bones. Why do we wrap around one another like grape vines. Like two trees who choose to grow together and wrap each other so tightly that we strangle the blood from one another's veins.

We do these things....because we're human. We're souls. And most of us have a deep longing (or at least fantasy) of finding the perfect monogamous love.

I've lived out every fucking John Mayer song that I could have ever imagined with the love of my life. And while it wasn't always perfect.....it was always perfect.

We have a tendency to be either runners or clingers. Most of us, when faced with trying times during the course of our relationships either choose to run....or we choose to cling. Cling for dear life. Cling for dear love. Cling to hope, a pillow that still smells like your hair, a blanket that we both once wrapped ourselves tightly together in. Tightly together for many years.

Or we run. We pull up every root (which often does collateral damage to the earth where we once lived) and we pack the leaves of life's trees in suitcases that fit perfectly into the trunk of our car. And we run like hell. On to the next life.....the next 'set of good times'.....We run to comfort, we run to the past, we run into the abyss....because we'd rather inflict pain by being gone than work through what surely has become a painful situation. We blow the bridges of our lives with C4 live viet-fucking-nam. And we run...

I was a clinger and she was a runner. Somehow we tend to pair up. I can't explain the depth with which I loved my wife. I realize I could sit and think of one million reasons why things would be better off if we were separate rather than together. But I could in the same sitting, with one glance into her eyes, give you five million reasons why it would be better to stay in love, and stay together.

If you could bottle up all of the giddy emotions you feel when you first fall in love with someone....the giddy emotions of later marrying the love of your life....the intense emotions of intimacy. All of these emotions and their intensity have a dark side. Just as there is light in the day, and darkness in the night....all of these emotions have their polar opposite. It starts with one word:

"I want a Divorce."

When you hear her say that....and you know she means it....get ready for the hardest emotional battle of your life. Darkness and evil begin to emerge and replace that soft face you once pressed against your chest and vowed to love forever (a vow that still stands, by the way). I cannot begin to explain the emptyness, the rock-hard heartedness, and the emotional toil that one sentence can bring a person's soul. If ever there was a reason God intended us to be life long monogamous partners.....this could well be it. To keep us from having to feel this evil which has been hung between the two pieces of our soul.

We never pursued God as a couple. We didn't pray together. We didn't go to church together. There was no need to. Both of our souls were filled to the brim with love for one another. So much that there wasn't room for anything else in our minds. I loved her more than I loved God. Any day of the week. I was a slave to anything she could want. And I loved it that way....because it made her happy. And if she was happy......I was content. Happy.

As I hit rock bottom on the floor of a jail cell just a few days after Christmas....I thought of God. I thought maybe the lack of his presence in my life was what had brought all of this about. And if my mental argument of "is there a God" ever seemed to waiver toward "No".........there was one thing I couldnt deny. Evil had gained a foothold in our home.

Satan exists. Aint no denying that. I watched lazily as he crawled into my home and tore everything I loved apart. For 5 weeks now I've just been living in the aftermath.

As hands were laid on my shoulders yesterday by one of my closest friends in the parking lot of Red Robin, I felt the fire of God's voice burn through my veins like acid. "Come home, my son."

All I want is my wife. But God knows.....ohhh how he knows.....that if he gave her back to me, I'd surely continue on a path in the direction that is not him. I would not seek his face.....if I had her back. I would begin again, more than ever, to worship her rather than him.

I trust that God knows what he's doing.....but in the mean time my soul sure is ridden with pain. It's like having a stomach full of rocks. The weight. The pain. The emptyness. All day. Every day.

I'm going to do what he ask of me. I'm going to seek his face.....and see what happens. Its not going to be easy and it's probably not going to happen within the walls of anyones church. But Im going to seek him. That is for sure.

The Fulfilling of Dreams and Prophecy

Any man can speak his dreams.

Any man can look directly into the eyes of adversity and proclaim "I'll do it, you'll see. I'll become a Medical Doctor."

But friends, i write you this evening to say, that I AM one step closer to fulfilling those dreams. a lifetime's worth of hope, dreams, sweat, tears, blood, frustration, break-ups, let-downs, lift-ups, and hard work is about to culminate.

On Wednesday, April 4th 2012.....I will interview to become a Medical Doctor. At approximately 8am, I will sit with my best shoes shined, inside of a building where doctors are built. And I will wait.

I will wait for my name to be called, amongst a list of others, who have worked equally as hard. I will wait for my name, given to me by my mother, reflective of my father, and great grandfather's name, to be spoken aloud. James.

I will be next in line. I will stand, straighten my coat, breath in slowly through my nose, and step forward. This is the day I've waited for, and I just might get it all.

I will sit in a chair so heavy with burden that it 'ought be built of solid oak. So many others have sat in the chair where I sit. Explaining why they are superior. Explaining why they love, what they love. Explaining why they breathe.

I sit.

And I speak.

I tell of my mother. And I tell of my father.

I tell of my victories, and my defeats. I tell of my passion, and my flaws. I tell of God's grace, and the alignment of the stars. I answer the why. then I rise, and exit.

The impression i leave, and the mark I make will indefinitely determine my future.

...am I, or am I not....to become a Medical Student.

If this message finds you, friend, I pray that you'll pray for me.

Pray for my soul, but more importantly, pray for the souls that I might save, given this grand opportunity.

Pray.

April 4th 2012

8am CST

shot for me (stuck in my head)

Ok look: I'm honest
Girl I can't lie: I miss you
You and the music were the only things that I commit to
I never cheated, for the record, back when I was with you
But you believe in everything but me, girl I don't get you
She says I know you changed, I never see you
Cause you're always busy doing things
I really wish she had a different way of viewing things
I think the city that we're from just kinda ruined things
It's such a small place: not much to do but talk and listen
The men are jealous and the women all in competition
And now your friends telling you stories that you often misinterpret
And taint all your images of yo "Mr. Perfect"
I could tell that you been crying all night, drinking all summer
Praying for your happiness, hope that you recover
This is one I know you hated when you heard it
And it's worse because you know that I deserve it...

-drizzy