Lately, I have realized how much I have changed over the past few years... I have had long talks with many people, and long email discussions,and somehow as a result I see myself from a new perspective. Someone would make one of those casual remarks that drop a whole load of understanding on you, a flash of clarity just like that.

I don't think that anyone ever knew the old me. When I was a child (some of you already know this part) I got a lot of pushing around and bullying from my peers. And worse. I didn't know why. By the time I was twelve I was socially dysfunctional, by the time I was fifteen I was suicidal. My parents also were part of that process. Don't get me wrong, they were always very good to me. I love them, they love me, and there's not a hint of malice in them. But somehow they're part of it. My father has been disabled since I was a child, my mother was still dealing with her own parents (who in turn were badly traumatized by what happened to them in World War II) and she still has difficulties in letting me go. I'm 30, but when my sister visits me she asks her to check my fridge and see if I need anything. :-) She means well, and I love her for it, but somehow she can't allow me to lead my own life.

Anyway... I survived by keeping people at a distance. I hated half of mankind and despised the other half. I kept a chart of people I would like to see dead. One day one of the guys on that list was showing off, riding his bicycle through the park at breakneck speed. He skidded in the gravel and hit the road with his face. (These are tarmac pathways with a layer of fine, sharp gravel on top.) His face looked like a small rodent that has been driven over by at least three cars. He didn't just fall on his face, he smeared it all over the road... I stood and watched, and I can't recall any time from those days when I've felt better. I enjoyed his pain very, very much. The memory of it would make me feel good for years afterward.

I kept myself amused by thinking up ways to kill the people on my list (which was getting longer and longer) as slowly and painfully as possible. Those ways typically involved things like burning them alive, slowly, an inch at a time, or crushing parts of their bodies one by one. I am serious. Not killing anyone became a matter of being unable to get away with it. I had already decided that dangerous criminals really had no place in society. (Yes, looking back I can now see how that related to myself.) I am still convinced that I could have killed someone in cold blood, back then, for no other reason than my sole judgement that the world would be a better place without him or her, if I had known I could get away with it. I became a very rigid personality. My thoughts followed the cold, crisp lines of cool logic. I became a rabid skeptic, life was just a matter of cause and effect, and everything followed that rule, pointless or otherwise. My whole life was pointless, since I could not see what the logical reason for it could be anyway. When Email got the better of me, I didn't have normal discussions... No, I made war. I absolutely had to argue with everyone who didn't share my skeptical point of views... tried to ram it down everyones throats. (With a notiable lack of success, I might add. This didn't stop me.)

I had very few friends, and even less people whom I trusted. I never spoke my mind, never really said how I felt. Eventually I didn't have any feelings anymore. I wouldn't allow myself any. Whenever I thought of feelings, I thought of pain, and nothing else. I was a hard and cold person. I didn't have any problems with petty theft. Most of my computers still consist of stolen parts (I haven't upgraded anything for a couple of years). I had decided not to kill anyone, but that was just a pragmatic decision (I didn't think I could get away with it). I made no new friends, I didn't date (and still never have, even at 30). At one time (and I have never admitted this, to nobody, and I mean *nobody*) I even wrote pornography. (Don't bother asking for it...)

I got very depressed. I became ill, I could no longer work. Physically there was nothing wrong with me, but eventually I got symptoms that hinted at brain tumor and I was hospitalized. They couldn't find anything, of course. I didn't kill myself because I'd feel guilty about doing that to my family. They loved me (still do) and although I didn't know why, I felt obliged to take that into consideration. Had I been released from that obligation (as I felt it) I probably would have done it (all it took was a jump from the top floor of our apartment building, after all) because there was no point and no fun in going on with my life. I went through the motions out of habit, but nothing more.

Spirit finally intervened, sending me a friend who suddenly had started wondering about me after not having seen me for years. He knew somebody who turned out to be a healer, and I'd just been released from hospital, so I thought what the h*ll, why not try it... I had of course realized that I could not live on like that, and I was ready to try "anything short of prayer", as I literally put it then. I expected to be disappointed.

That was five years ago. The past five years have been difficult, and painful, and wonderful. I went through a lot, from getting to know my own pain and realizing what I was doing to myself and why, up to realizing that I had planned all of this myself. I went through a regression under hypnosis (another long story) and I saw myself and my guides plan this whole mess, because I wanted to learn about being solitary, being an individual, and not belong to a greater Whole. I still have the transcription of that session... it's one of my most wonderful entries in the spiritual diary I've been keeping.

Today I am a happier person. Does that mean that every day is golden? H*ll, no! Every silver lining still has its cloud. I'm still fighting social fear. But now I'm able to enjoy simple things... There was a piano player in my local shopping mall this afternoon... I stopped en listened, and it was good! I enjoy seeing children playing, making Christmas decorations and smearing themselves and each other with glue, paint and glitter. :-) I enjoy nature, I see how all the parts of this universe fit together... And infinitely more... It's so overwhelming. I have also become more emotional. Beautiful things, or sad things, or whatever, can bring tears to my eyes. And the funny thing is that that doesn't feel bad anymore...

The old man is no more. He's gone. He's not dead, he's backed up on tape somewhere, and if I need bits and pieces of him I can dredge them up from the archives of my memory. So he's still part of me, in a way, and always will be, but he is no longer me, and I am not him. Today I am a different person. I have started to become a complete personality. (I have not finished.) I have finally seen that this is what I need to do first, and now I am doing it. I still wish there was someone I could share my life with right now, but lately I have realized that I may not be ready for that right now.

I do have the ability to love. I am, in a way, a nexus of universal love. That isn't meant to sound windy or arrogant. I receive it, I contribute to it, and thank God I can pass it on to others.

Many people have been part of this process. I haven't been able to thank most of them properly. They simply were there when I needed them, and later they dropped out of my life again. So be it. In the end we are all One, and while we all row it's Spirit that steers. (Note how I'm shamelessly robbing this way of putting it...)

So... It's still more difficult for me to say this than I had expected when I started writing this rant.. but I love you all. I'm supposed to be one of those level-headed, sensible guys (and that's still the face I show people around me) without a tendency towards gushy things like this... but I love you all, and I thank you all for being here, on this planet, and sharing this part of the trip with me.

I am an nexus of Universal Love. I am part of the All, and the All is part of me. Nothing is without cause, nothing is without result. I still don't know *why* I exist, or why any of us exists, or why the universe and Heaven exist... and I probably never will. (My guides don't know either. Does anyone know? Does the universe know? Does the All know?) I simply am. And I am content with that.

This bumpy ride that is my life is far from over. There are plenty of rough parts ahead. But they won't kill me. I might squirm a little, but I won't die. I have the feeling that I'm in for some bad times in the near future. I hope not, but if they come I'll just take them on as they come. I may need to vent occasionally, or just whine a little, or chew over old issues again, or fight depression... I hope you won't mind. If it happens it will just be old pain, talking its way out of me...

I have this compulsive need to write... Most of what I write about Spirit work is on my webpage in the New Age section. Every article there somehow represents a step in the process of growth that I've been though lately. I haven't added much recently, but I hope to put up another brief article this weekend. We're just helping each other along, somehow. What a great way to share this adventure.

Innerspace Main Page

Modifications and Maintenance by Wicked Imaging Hosting by Technical problems contact 12string@twelvestring.com

E-Mail to Julia