Foot notes

When I was growing up, my father used to take us to Purdue football games on the weekend. Being that he is an alumni, he figured we could all partake in a love of his while spending some quality family time as well. I wasn't much a fan of this idea; the last thing I wanted to do on the few days my lazy adolescent self could sleep in was drive to Indiana at 8 in the morning. Fights were had. Temper tantrums were thrown. Anyway, the times that I would go, I remember enjoying. It was towards the end of the 90's and Purdue had found this crazy good quarterback. He was quick and had an arm like a Greek myth and everyone knew who he was. Drew Brees became a household name for Purdue fans. We had confidence in him. We had faith in him. And even though he didnt bring us any titles, we got to watch him rise to the athlete he is today.

Across the line of scrimmage stood the rest of his team. The rest of the people who helped him get to where he is. And at the very end, towards out of bounds, stood a guy named Vinny Sutherland. He was Purdue's leading wide receiver and Drew Brees' go to guy. Like clock work, Brees could shit whip that ball 30 yards down the field and covered heavily or not, Vinny would catch it. Talk about hands and speed, that guy had it. We saw it every weekend. We knew it. We supported it. However, come draft time, he didnt make it first or second round like Drew. Shoot, he didnt even make early rounds at all. Vinny Sutherland got drafted near last as some scrap pick by some sub par team.

Two days ago, I found myself asking about what happened to him. I asked my dad if Sutherland was still playing and he replied,

"Oh no, he only did a year or two in. He got let go pretty fast."

I wasn't surprised as much as I was curious how Sutherland felt about this. Do you think he looks back at his time playing ball and says "that was the time of my life"? Or do you think he's bitter at his short comings?

This guy has family. He has friends and old coaches and people who supported and believed in him throughout his entire career. And every weekend, he went to that locker room, put on his cleats and his pads and went out on that field with hope that one day, it would pay off in a career. These people told him it would. They told him antic dotes from his childhood and how they always knew he'd grow up to be a great wide receiver. His coaches told him they always saw it. His friends bought his jersey. And three years later, he's a foot note to someone else's success story. Old news. Expired.

Now a days, I'd be surprised to find someone else who even knows his name.

This year has been full of really difficult lessons. Some I've taken quite well and others I've fumbled through like bad gloves. It hasn't been easy and it hasn't felt good. However, I've encountered one reoccurring problem and I'm not sure what I should be learning from it.

Multiple times throughout 2012, I've had people give up on me. Not just go our separate ways, but actually confront me on a real note, tell me things they're not okay with about me and then blatantly leave me behind. First, it was my brother. He told me I wasn't welcome in his house anymore. 3 years of close friendship and after one long winded confrontation, he was done with me. Next was someone I fell in love with. She brought me into her life and her family only to stop returning my calls months later. That one really fucked me up. Then my best friend stopped returning my calls. Then I met a girl who wants to just use me for my car. And now I'm here wondering if I'm really that easy to throw away or if I'm just constantly finding people who don't like me. I can't help but think the latter true.

The other day I texted an old friend. After the usual small talk, I just came out and said,

"Will you tell me that I'm not easy to forget ?"

She comforted me but it didn't work. I still feel really unimportant . I still feel like a useless foot note. I feel like I've been misguided with hope and rhetoric about my qualities and my potential and all I have to show for it most days is a broken version of who I want to be. Lonely. Forgettable. I feel ashamed for not being the person these people thought I was. For not being the friend that's worth keeping around. The boyfriend that's worth staying close to and loving. The son who's worth staying alive for...

I feel cornered by myself. I feel abandoned. But mostly, I'm sick of feeling this. All this. This blog is a testament to my bad choices and wrong moves and I'm over it. I need to make some drastic changes in my life and one needs to be the tone that I write in. My voice is even starting to annoy me. That said, this will be my last addition to this blog.

I've been placing my thoughts here for 2 years now. This has been my home. My confessional. My tissue. And now it's time to turn a new page. I appreciate anyone who has come by to keep me company and entertain my pitiful nonsense. Someday, whenever it is I can turn around and start producing stuff I'm proud of again, you'll find me. Unless you forget about me which in that case, fuck you.

Im Tim Minor and I'm stitched up and still running with scissors.

Home

He rolled over on his side to look at her. Moving his arm up her rib cage like water, he guided the hair over her ear and listened. Not a word was said. It was simple. Comfortable. She nested her head into his grasp and smiled gently like sun light. Air went in and out. Legs root twisted like vines. Locked. One.

"We're going to heal each other," he said.

There was silence. A beautiful quietness that said everything it needed to. And there they were, infinite in that moment.

Mantra

Some day, you'll find someone worth fighting for. Then shortly after, you will lose that fight. It happens. A lot. I can't tell you how many fights I've lost. Honestly I can't. But I can tell you that I've learned. I've learned to take it on the chin. Learned to wipe the dirt off and get up. I've learned to try again, even if when she left me she said she couldn't love me any more, I wasn't right for her or I just couldn't give her what she wants. Learn to feel bad. Real bad. Learn that it's okay to feel bad. Learn forgiveness. One of the most powerful actions is to stare advirsity in the face and say I forgive you. I don't hate you. I don't harbor negativity towards you. Even though I can't forget you, I can say you were one of the most difficult lessons I never wanted to learn and I appreciate your impact. Learn to cry . Openly. On shoulders or in cupped hands by the dumpsters at work. Just let go. Even if its just for a minute, it's necessary. Don't ever be ashamed of your emotions. They are you and you are entitled to them. You're entitled to happiness. You are entitled to love. Learn to keep loving. Learn to keep breathing. Learn to be. Just be.


This is my mantra for the week. Today is day one of my vow of silence. Time to think.

Pit

Most of the time, when I come to the page , I have some direction. Some sort of non fiction to twist into a meaning or build relevancy to where I'm at and what I'm dealing with . Today is different. I have nothing . Absolutely nothing . No metaphors or pretty language or anything.

Today I feel like giving up. That's about it. I feel like I need to express this somehow and being that I've surrounded myself with people who don't see that I'm drowning or are drowning themselves, maybe the page can be my band aid.

I have nothing going right. Still. Not one thing. I am ashamed that this has become my theme song. Which would then be followed by a womp womp and a down scale on a trombone and me with a single tear drop on my cheek. Funny or not, Im starting to think this is true. And I just dont get it. I try so fucking hard to just be and go and do and work and process and at the end of it all , Im still broken. How can shit pile up so fast? Just last week I was feeling good about things. Maybe I was coming down from all the praises from my birthday. Maybe I was just bein more optimistic. Whatever the case , I hate now. This very moment, I hate it. I hate feeling unheard. I hate feeling lonely. I hate feeling unaccomplished and stuck. I hate being looked past. Or over. Sometimes I just hate being looked at at all. The fuck you looking at anyway? I hate being full of hate. I hate not being good enough. I hate my fucking job. I hate my love life or what I would call one. I hate empty beds. I hate jealousy. I hate excuses. I hate gossip. I hate country music. I hate pt cruisers. I hate math.

But mostly I hate myself. And I hate saying that.

Lately, I've been having this feeling that's almost indescribable. The closest comparison would be to that feeling you get when you stand up too fast mixed in with the feeling of hitting someone's dog with your car . I feel like I've done something really horrible. And I don't know what but its scary. I've woke up sweating and in tears the last few days and every time, I come up with some radical conclusion. Yesterday, I decided I was going to buy a one way ticket. Today was a vow of silence . Both ways scream that I'm desprite. I'm grabbing at air. And it's then, right then that I feel the worst part of it all. It feels like something snaps. Like I don't know what to do but this isn't it and I can't be here any more but I am. For lack of a better way to say it, I feel like I'm going to jump out of my skin and I can't and I'm trapped and my heads spinning and my breathing gets tighter. It's troubling. It's tormenting. I feel like admitting myself ...

I haven't figured out if I'm staying or leaving. Time will tell. All I know right now is I need a hug. No words. No nothing . Just an embrace so I can break a little and then I don't want to speak of it ever again. Just let me lay in your lap and feel loved for one second. That's all. That's all I want.

I know that's a lot to ask for. I wish love was free.

Vinager

Sometimes I wonder if I'm crazy. If there's more than the normal few screws loose and if I'm seriously missing something here. I have a feeling that I'm not too out of the ordinary for feeling this way, but after being institutionalized, botching bad suicide attempts and drug addiction, I stumble upon this thought quite frequently. Go figure I guess.

A few weeks back, I decided I would organize the dinning room. Unfortunately, since my mothers passing, this room has just become a clutter haven. It's sad. All the 18th century china is masked behind boxes of Kellogg products and dust and home canning utensils and bottles of vinager and just useless shit that leaves a good third of this house unusable. After getting under 100 some scattered family pictures and a few empty Rice Crispy boxes, my dad came downstairs and asked if I wanted to go golfing with him. He said it was to raise money for a local high school and being that I was already sick of that dirty fucking room, I said yes and went along.

On the ride home, my father remembered that he needed to grab some things for canning and figured wed stop at the store. For some reason or another, over the past couple years, my dad has decided to start up a garden in the back yard. Romaine tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes. Just a lot of shit. Including a bush of raspberries. He does all of this, every year, simply to crop it and turn it into salsa or make pickles or jam and store it all. It's a cool hobby; I won't knock it really. It's just really fucking random. Anyway, he had told me that he needed to stop and grab some stuff for the cucumbers and so we did. As we walked up and down the isles, he began to run over the list with me. I figured I'd go get stuff while he was to cut down time.


" Okay, I need garlic, basil ... I need horse radish, vinager, and probably a few green peppers. I'll grab the garlic."

When we got back to the car, I began to fester on this thought of insanity. I took a deep breath and decided to start a conversation with someone who needed it as much as I did.

" So dad, do you ever question your memory at all? Like do you ever have days or moments, like recent, that you just have nothing on? No memory, no nothing?"

" Hm... No. I don't have those problems. Why?"

" I don't know I mean I don't feel like my memory is that bad but sometimes, people will tell me things I did or said or whatever and i'll literally have no clue what their talking about. I'm kind of afraid that Xanax broke my brain."

" Well that's not good. You never know with that stuff. It could probably do that."

It got silent for a second. I was beginning to realize that I wasnt going to get much reassurance out of this conversation and so I paused and thought if I should even bother saying more.

" ... Well , what about grandma? Doesn't that scare you at all?"

" What happened to grandma was a a crazy chance. Same to mom. And me really. Neither one of her or my side of the family had history of cancer and nothing on grandmas side said anything about dementia. As far as biology goes, who knows if anyone of any of us will get that or if you'll get cancer or anything because it wasn't there before."

We got home and brought the groceries in. I went over to the pantry and turned the light on. As I put away some jar lids, I looked over into the dinning room. There, underneath the table lay 5 half used gallons of vinager. I turned the light off and went upstairs.

They say the second you start questioning your own sanity, others will too . Maybe that's why my dad chooses to ignore it. But I can't really. Already in my short 24 years here, I've ran into crazy situations with cops and spitting and jail cels wearing bam bam gowns and suicide wards with What About Bob playing on 24 hour loops next to someone in sleeves covering up the stitches from what the steak knife did and more spitting and acid. Lots of acid. It's been really confusing and every once and a while I land on this notion that maybe, I've lost it. Long ago. That maybe I'm watering down my reality with trying to accept where I'm at and my vices and what I'm working on when, on the outside, I seem way out of control. Like I'm in denial or spiralling down the same path I always have and I just don't see it because I'm proud and arrogant and stubborn or whatever. I can't help but consider that sometimes.

We all walk around in life with some sense of control. Some sense of knowing. And lately, I've felt like I have none. Almost every other day I feel like I'm crashing into something I have no control over and I'm losing hope. I can't control my habits. I can't control my needs. I can't control my bank account or my dogs aging or my god damn heart. I have no say over how many people decide to give up on me or think of me as an issue. I just feel like I've been on auto pilot, watching all this dumb bull shit happen and by the time I catch up with where I'm at, I'm really pissed and lost and wonder why I didn't say this or do that ... And then I'm back to auto pilot. Wash, rinse, repeat. Over and over. It's stupid. And it doesn't make sense and it feels like I'm stopping at the grocery store to pick up vinager when I already have 5 gallons at home.

I hope I'm wrong. Really. With the little hope left in me, I'm using it on my sanity. Maybe someday I'll find strength in this space but right now, my guard is down. Ive been getting hit for too long. I'm defeated. I'm tired. I always feel in the midst of want but can't figure out what. I'm done. With this too, fuck a good ending.

Past the little thicket

A friend and I were walking our dogs on an Indian reservation. We would visit this place about twice a week and walk the trails, letting our dogs free to romp through chest high grass and wrestle. Its sort of rare to find places where we could do that; letting a pit off their leash anywhere usually invokes a crazy response from folks. And I get it. I do. But breed or not, dogs need to be dogs so as an owner, I cherished those moments where they could both run without restrictions. Without pulling on me or giving me thirsty looks for freedom and just exhaust all the doggy energy they want.

The day seemed like any other day. Just another excursion. Just another late afternoon walk two or three miles deep in the woods. We were far enough in so we agreed to let the dogs go, trusting that they would stay within calling distance as they always had and continued on the path with our conversation. The specifics aren't important.

Weaving our way through nature, we passed a downed tree split over our trail. As we ducked underneath it, my friends dog ran back to his side. I looked around and thought that maybe my dog had just gone down to the creek for water, as she tended to like to do. Or maybe she was sniffing around or taking a shit or something else dog-like. However, it was odd to have one and not the other. I began to call out for her.

"Yee Yee! Yee! Merc! "

Nothing. No brush moving. No pattering of paws coming from behind us. No yells from other hikers or anything. Just nothing and at that moment, miles deep in the woods with an hour or so left of sun light, my heart dropped out of my chest. I felt it. My hands began to sweat and tears built up in my eyes. I felt myself nearly paralyze in an uncomfortable abandonment of security. Intoxicating helplessness. Fear. Of what the fuck, what do I do? Do I retrace my steps hoping she just stayed in one spot? Do we split up and try to cover more ground or do we stay together? Do I prepare for a spur of the moment night of camping?

What exactly is the smartest approach to losing something so important?

I had nothing but in the heat of that moment, I decided that I couldn't just lose my dog. That wasn't an acceptable option. Frantically, I began running back where we came from and yelling for her. I figured she would hear that at least. She had to. She had bat ears; she'll hear anything, and especially if its my voice. This had to work. She couldn't have gotten too far.

Sure enough, she had. After about an hour of back tracking and asking bikers and families if they had seen a pit bull with a spiked collar on, we had nothing but a few disgruntled fathers looking down at us and some pissy bikers. All of them said the same thing,

"Yeah, she came up to us about 200 yards back. We didn't touch her and I kind of hurried past her but she was up there."

" Go back up that hill and take a right, she was there last I saw."

Or simply

"Nope, I haven't seen anything."

I was beginning to feel like I knew something that I didn't want to. I was defeated and dreading having to even get near accepting that I had just lost my best friend somewhere between US 131 and Texas Drive. I didn't want to think about all the morbid possibilities of that. As the sun began to set, I dragged my feet back to the parking area. This sucked. I didn't know how I'd allow myself to get in a car and drive away from that area. I couldn't do it.

I asked everyone I came in contact with if they had seen her and no one could help me more than the last. All dead ends. We made it back to the car and my friend looked at me and said,

" Well man, Mercedes is a strong dog. She'll be fine for the night probably and you can come back in the morning and look. Or maybe she'll get turned in. You never know."

I knew he was just trying to be positive and realistic but as I looked at the busy road next to me, I couldn't help but freak the fuck out.

"Merc! Mercedes!Come here girl ... Mer-ce-des!"

I paced back and fourth screaming like those were my last words. I had nothing left. This was it. Then a man came out of the woods to my left from next to the boy scout cabin.

" Did you lose a dog?"

" Oh my lord, yes! Yes I did why!?"

I began to follow him through a little thicket of trees and peered around a fence. There, leashed up to a post in a front yard, sitting like a present on Christmas was my dog. Unharmed, panting, with a bowl of water in front of her. The man explained to me that he was doing yard work out front when he saw a little black dog trotting through the parking lot. After seeing a few families cower away from her, he noticed her breed, realizing she was a pit. Thankfully, his son had two american pits in the garage so he knew pits. He knew their stigma. He knew she was scared but knew she was inherently amazing and decided step up to help her out. Finally, he was able to coax her back to his yard with a treat and get her taken care of. We did quite a lot of small talk but really, all I kept saying to him was,

" Thank god for you sir. You're my hero for the day."

Smiling with tears in my eyes, I shook his hand and thanked him for all of his help. We put my leash back on her, walked back to the car and happily went the fuck home.

That night I thought about how much I admire a dogs mentality. How much I envy their ability to just know. See, when she got separated from our pack, she had one of two choices. She could have A. Tried to track us down or B. Found her way back to where we started. Both are risky and would involve a lot of nose action but ultimately, she had to choose. And unlike a human who could take hours to choose what to eat or what to wear or what to smell like, she went from lost to found in a matter of seconds. She put her nose down, put her feet to work and knew that she had to get back to where we began and find help. She didn't question it or look back. She just knew it was smart. It would work. Someone would be there.

I feel like this is something I need to get better at doing. There is definitely something to be said about that type of intuition and complete trust in help. So often when I get lost or derailed or separated from everything I believe at the moment, I freeze up. I get stuck in fear and a need for comfort and try to retrace all my steps to get back to what I think I need. At the same time, rejecting any and all help. I rarely just go for what feels right. And then I find myself more lost. I end up sleeping in forests made of insecure nightmares and wake up not knowing if I even like myself any more. It's something I need to work on...



I know where I'm at right now is where I am meant to be. I know this. But being here sucks. Some days I want to run as far away from you as I can. Others I find myself wanting to retrace my steps back into your heart. I know neither can work. And so I'm trying to get back on my path. I'm trying to pick my head up and get over and back to feeling okay about me. I promise, I am.

But if you ever end up looking back where we started, or thinking about going back there some day, I'll be there. Leashed up next to the memory of your touch. Waiting. Hoping that one day, you'll wander back and notice that I still exist.

I miss you.

Complex Simplicity

I saw two birds chase each other into a tree today. As my eyes focused in, I realized that this tree was very complex. This tree had always been a tree. It had always stood, in one shape or another. Maybe as a shred of grass at one point. Maybe as an awkward stand alone bush. Maybe a manicured project. In the literal sense, everything we would think of a tree being, it was. And as I looked at this tree, and saw everything it was made of, I couldn't help but notice it's leaves. The beauty in its ability to stretch limb into leave as a perfect dome hovering a sturdy trunk. Its complexity.

Its simplicity.
See this tree has been passed by. Looked at from a distance. Watered by nature and people and basically blended in with every other tree around it. Unnoticeable. Normal. Nothing about its form or its look would make it stand out or look different. But for the first time, I stood by this tree and saw it in its simplicity and its complexity and honored it. Its journey and its creation. Its trunk. Its leaves. Its bark that grew over older bark to build a foundation for it to branch beauty into our lives.

Its a beautiful process how it became what it is. How it turned a seed no bigger than the tip of my thumb nail into a majestic tree I can't even wrap my arms around. That simple over looked change is considered to be normal. Considered to be natural and understood. But what we look past is the obstacles it over came to get where it is. Someone didn't mow that shred of grass. Someone decided to water that bush or let the rain flourish this seedling into an unmovable mass that will continue to grow on long after we have walked past it.

I felt privileged. I felt humbled.

And then I thought of my body. Of the complex simplicity of it all. How I began as something no bigger than the size of a conversation and grew into a mass that I dont let many people close enough to put their arms around. How I've been walked on and walked past and given up on but yet, my body still breathes. My heart still pumps blood into my veins and produces new skin cells to grow over the old ones. On a molecular level, my body is a powerhouse of building. And renewing. And changing and so is yours. But this process, this growing and shedding is often looked past because we have understood it. Or at least tried to. We wake up and see the same face and think nothing of it. Thats my face. We walk on the same feet and feel normal and complacent with that. It's just walking. It doesn't feel like new or beautiful sometimes. It doesn't feel magical or microscopic sometimes because most of the time, we're too focused on changing everything in our environment to actually sit back and revel in the beauty of whats changing effortlessly inside us. Around us. Our feet wouldn't be feet if our bodies weren't producing foot cells. And those cells wouldn't be cells if our bodies didn't pump blood and oxygen to them. And our hearts wouldn't pump blood if our heart didn't have heart cells. And those cells wouldn't be cells...

It goes on. Forever. And its beautiful. Not just because its broken down and acknowledged as phenomenon but because when we don't think about it, when we don't even put thought to any bit of anything,

we change. And we change without pain. Without being asked and without having to initiate it; it just happpens.

And then I ask myself if that tree ever thought it would have to seek out water. If it ever thought it needed to dodge lawn mowers and loggers just to survive. Or if it simply did and became what it is because the obstacles thrown at it were meant for it. It was meant to grow. It was meant to have birds fly into it, nest in it, flutter around and knock some of its leaves loose and leave without saying good bye. And tomorrow, it will still stand,

same as it did today.

I guess this is why trying to change is so hard. Our nature is to change without trying. Without thinking about the processes and the outcomes; it just happens. But we have a conscious. And with that conscious comes an inherently dissatisfied reality. We are always looking for better cars. Better jobs. Better living conditions. Better people. Better relationships. Different everything. We are always looking for ways to change things unnaturally and against the grain and thrust things into a state of control that we weren't meant to have when really, change will happen. Whether you want it or not.

So if you leave me today, if you give up on me and wish me the best because my project is too much for you... well, you're right. My project is too much for me sometimes. But I am constantly changing. I am constantly experiencing and digesting and working on myself so that tomorrow, I can stand bigger and stronger and blend in with the other trees around me. And if you decide to fly into my life, ruffle up a few leaves and disappear without giving me a fair chance than I will thank you.

Thank you for being a part of who I am. For leaving your nest inside my branches so that tomorrow, I can look at it and smile because once upon a time, you laid your head here. You rested everything that you are on me and left me with the memory of your laugh. Of your green ringed iris in the sun light. Of the way you move to your own rhythm. Of the way you kissed me. Gently enough to put me to sleep but with enough passion to keep me twitterpated. You taught me what that word really means... You taught me a lot actually.

Even though I just Google'd ' what to do when someone can't love you', I wont cry because I lost you. Okay, maybe a little bit. For a couple days or so. Or a week. But after this shitty phase, I'll smile because I met you. You'll always be the ball of energy I'd want next to me.

I'm sorry I'm like this.