It was last Wednesday evening that things began making sense to me again. One year ago my life was in absolute shambles. I had plans, the means to execute those plans and high expectations. I had this mental imagine, a dream have you of the way the rest of my life was going to pan out. If I learned anything from Steinbeck its that “the best plans of mice and men may go astray”. Shakespeare has always warned me to “beware of the ides of March”.
At that time in my life I did not head either great writer’s advice. When things went awry I had no where to turn in my mind but the bottle. Anyone who reads regularly can attest to the less then stellar results that have come out of such. If your new here just peruse some blogs exactly a year ago and maybe a few from the summer and fall. They will fill in all the blanks immensely.
I was lucky in that I had a strong support system of friends who were not about to sit around and watch me destroy myself. You know what I am still here and sure I still drink a bit too much, but “kill all my demons and my angels may die too”. In all seriousness I have been working on reducing my alcoholism back down to a safer level. I must say it has been a crazy, scary yet invigorating ride to arrive at the point I am at now.
There I sat out in the middle of a very disorganized lineup at New Jetty with two other guys out making the most of the crossed up lefts that were coming in. It was more then just a surf. The sun was going down, the lighting perfect to allow the mountains to reflect all the colors of the sunset. I looked up the coast line, one where the mountains literally meet the ocean, then back out to the horizon at the channel islands ominously floating in perpetual solidarity. The world around me is so breathtaking. That is why I live my life. That is why I always have.
I let myself get so dragged down into the mud that I forgot what being alive was all about. I still have no idea what is going to happen, but then again it really is not my place to know. If one knew his own fate would his life still be worth living? I know I have been lost for a while now, maybe the last four years of my life even. I had put all of my cards into surfing and as that ticket slowly ran out I was unsure of where to turn. I think that was where Adrienne came into the picture.
She kind of gave me a new reason to live. I was wrong to put all my eggs in someone else’s basket and ultimately I don’t really know how happy I was with our arrangement anyway. I spent so much time trying to glorify it and living in a constant state of veneration of what we were that I clouded what our reality was. The truth is Ade’s and I lived very separate lives for a couple and both of us let a lot slide with the other cause it was not worth arguing about. When I look back on things now I realized that we almost never fought and I know on my side of things and I believe on hers too it was because neither of us cared enough about any topic to make it worth our while. All the big issues we never resolved just pushed under the rug.
I was never good at compromising and I am pretty sure it is a skill she lacks as well. I know right now your reading this thinking why is he rehashing all this? The answer my friends is that sometimes I need to put things into writing when my thought process on them has finally reached a conclusion. Call this my final closure on the Adrienne issue. I have been stewing on these thoughts for a year.
So basically the reason we did not work was because neither of us found it worth while to put the necessary effort in that two people in relationship have to in order to keep it moving into a forward direction. Ultimately we hit an impasse and by the time I realized it things had already spiraled out of control. Looking back objectively now things sort of went down hill steadily after we moved in together. Much of that is due to many factors that we never bothered to address. Its like a car, over time there are certain maintenance issues that need to be regularly handled for the vehicle to remain functional. If you miss oil changes and regular service eventually that car will break down no matter how strong it was initially.
In our a case neither of us really gave a shit about making things work. Now that I see that clearly it is no wonder what happened happened. I mean could the situation had been dealt with better sure, but I guess what went down was in true Lisanti Land fashion. In my world there are only extremes and nothing in between. I must say I would not have it any other way. Insanity or as Micheala put it Lisanity becomes me. I think the moment I went wrong was when I tried to compromise what I am about.
Where does that leave me? My new roommate Dan put things in perspective perfectly a few weeks ago after spending just a short time in Lisanti Land. This guy lives in the palace full time and those of you who have spent time here know exactly the level of ridiculousness that goes down on a normal week. To my readers if you think you get the full story here you don’t know the half of it. There are plenty of instances that go down that are either too embarrassing, incriminating , just plain wrong to put on any kind of public record or go lost in the mix of all the other craziness. Those are the stories you have to come to the palace to hear from my lips to your ears. Then live your own adventures with us.
Dan being a complete outsider to my world. I mean I could not have found a roommate who comes from such a different walk of life then myself. The guy is on the total opposite of the spectrum. I think for me he has been and may be the necessary evil and contrast I need in my life. An outsider looking in can often better observe what is going on then those directly involved. About two weeks ago he said to me that I am an artist at life.
That is what really got me to understand myself and my entire reason for being. On greater thought he is one hundred percent correct. I am an artist at living and the entire world has been my canvas. Since as long as I can remember I have custom tailored ever facet of my existence to suit me perfectly. Every detail down to the color socks I wear, the type of bed I sleep in, the club I frequent, the drinks I consume, etc has been thought about with meticulous detail.
My life has been always about not compromising and you know what I am proud of that. When given the option of doing something I did not really want to do and be with friends or being alone I have always chose the latter. Does that make me selfish or narcissistic, I don’t really know. I know for the most part I get the most out of every minute of my day I can and always have. If I seem angry, sad or frustrated at times it is because things did not work the way I saw in my head. In other words I could not paint the picture I wanted.
The reason I have calmed down a bit in recent years is that I have learned that sometimes I have to learn to paint with in the parameters of the rest of civilization, but still manage to make the statement I intend. I hope some of this makes sense to you. It is a bit confusing even to me, but I finally do understand more about myself then I ever have. Forget living out of spite cause the only person I was spiting was me.
Over the next few weeks I have some new long term possibilities (I’m not going to call them goals or plans anymore cause that seems so final and definite) I want to explore here. And yeah I don’t know whats next. I can promise that I am going to continue my art, that is the art of living and living well. I always said one of my best characteristics was that no matter what I always knew how to appreciate the finer things in life. As summer is upon us I would like to declare the summer of 2012 “The Summer of Alf”. There will be more explanation of what that means soon.
A surprise barrel on an other wise less then optimal surf day is definitely one of those finer things in life.
Ready or not "The Summer of Alf" is upon us.......
Surfing Ruined My Life 