I'm a Cheap Date

This is not the post I originally intended for today. The post you were supposed to be reading dealt with the one true Satan, Sarah Jessica Parker. HOWEVER, since tomorrow is Memorial Day and seeing as how a bunch of you all will be taking the day off from work I figured what better time then now to start fixing our lives, right?

Ok, I have received a few emails regarding this blog. Some from people I know and others who I don't but I guess that they can identify with what I'm writing. These emails share a common theme and it goes something like this -

Dear William,

Love your blog. I'm sorry that you are going through some tough times but you seem to be handling it well. As for me, my life is crap blah, blah, blah................

Keep up the writing.

Thanks,
Name Withheld

I am not making light of your problems with the 'Blah, blah, blah' and I'm truly glad that you are getting something out of reading my nonsense. So lets fix ourselves together.

I have been at the bottom. The truest, darkest place where I had never been before. A few days after my wife told me she wanted a divorce I found myself in my backyard in the rain, a bottle of pills in one hand and the phone in the other. My plan was to call my sister in law and tell her that by the time she got to my house I would be circling the drain and that she should take the kids and go. Instead I called a suicide prevention hotline and got help. Actually that isn't true, the hotline didn't help me at all. But I found myself laughing when the woman answered the phone and said this "Hello, my name is Joy, tell me what's going on."

Yes boys and girls, the fact that a woman named Joy worked at a suicide prevention hotline just cracked me up. And I never thought about ending myself again.

So here's what we're going to do. I will give you a list of things that I need you to really try to do as soon as possible. This is my list so it may not work for everyone but if you've actually sent ME and email about how much your life sucks then we need to try everything we can to fix it.

So here we go -

1. Go to the mirror and look into your own eyes for 3 minutes while doing nothing. When the three minutes are up say the following phrase to yourself while still looking in the mirror -

'Yesterday is done and gone. there is nothing that can be done to change the past and I must accept that'

Say this as many times as you need until you start believing
it.

2. Identify the one thing you dislike most about yourself and be honest about it. You know if you're fat. You know if you're bitchy. You know if you're a lazy slob. Be honest.

3. After you've identified the one thing you dislike most say the following.

"I am (fill in the blank)...so fucking what.

You are not at any point in your life to start making radical changes. But you need to know what it is you want to change so when you are strong enough you will have a idea of where to start.

4. Do something that you would NEVER normally do. Start up a conversation with stranger, hit on the Food Lion cashier, go to the mailbox in the nude, whatever. Just do something grand and totally out of character. You need to get the adrenaline pumping, your heart needs to race. And if what you decided to do didn't make you pee your pants a little (if you were wearing them) then try something else. You have to understand that it is possible for you to change. If you don't then you will never believe you can ever be in any place better then where you are now.

5. Reward yourself for doing that one thing. Eat something you know is bad for you, send yourself flowers, sit in the bathtub all day with a couple glasses of wine and a book. You deserve these things.

6. Identify why you are distressed. Many of us are out of sync because someone we know is or had treated us like crap. If this is where you are now I want you to go back to your mirror and say the following.

"I am a fucking moron for allowing that person to dictate the way I feel."

If you wanna be a healthy an eventually happy again you have to understand that it's not the other person tearing you apart. You are the one tearing you apart. Do not fool yourself into dumping this on anyone else because if you do you will never truly recover.

7. Lastly, drown yourself in something that will help you forget about you. Be it your children, a church, your friends, a sports team, or an online video game, submerge yourself in it totally and completely. Find a reason to be happy and continue to do it until you start to feel the change from negative thought into positive feelings.

Do these things. I promise you will feel so much better about life that some day all this despair will make you feel like an idiot.

And really lastly, if this helps you at all let me hear about it. Leave a comment or send me an email. The two things I am trying to drown myself in are my children and helping others. And I'm an egomaniac. :)

I love all of you, even if I've never met you.

...and smile damn it.