Convinced of My Deception

I’m really not sure that I like this process of getting to know myself. It always seemed like such a noble task when I was younger.

I’m sure that this, and near-future blog entries will be a bit on the melancholy side. However, I’m also convinced that the honesty will be valuable and nothing short of an oasis for anyone of like-mind.

The older I get, it seems that the road of “Know Thyself” is wrought with ever increasing pain and incredulity over who I have become. There is a song titled “Frail” that I’ve been enjoying listening to over the past few days.

Convinced of my deception
I’ve always been a fool
I fear this love reaction
Just like you said I would

A rose could never lie
About the love it brings
And I could never promise
To be any of those things

If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be…
I would be…
I would be…

Blessed are the shallow
Depth they’ll never find
Seemed to be some comfort
In rooms I try to hide

Exposed beyond the shadows
You take the cup from me
Your dirt removes my blindness
Your pain becomes my peace

If I was not so weak
If I was not so cold
If I was not so scared of being broken
Growing old
I would be…
I would be…
I would be…

…frail

When I was younger, this song was enjoyable for the instrumentation. Although I still find the background to be beautiful, the lyrics have now taken hold as well. Whether or not it was the author’s intent (and I think it most likely was), I connect with the deep-seated irony that, although he knows it to be true, the poet cannot admit that he is frail. In fact, it is beyond simply admitting frailty – and more importantly – he is a living icon of that denial. No signs of frailty are allowed.

I am definitely frail. As I once told a psychologist, my ability to cope in life is becoming more and more inelastic. It’s not as though I’m going to snap, but rather – the greater of qualities that I used to cling to like hope and faith are becoming worn upon. To use a pre-modern imagery, I’m very afraid that I might someday become a useless wineskin. Too fragil and frail to be of much further good.

To talk this way is generally not permitted in my family. Fear, maybe? Then again, maybe my whole family feals like the poet.

Actually, to talk this way is generally not permitted in our society. If I wasn’t so weak, if I wasn’t so cold and jaded, I could admit and live as the frail person that I really know myself to be. Only then would I be free from being weak and cold.

The dirty trick that we’ve all fallen for in this culture is that frailty is a bad thing.

It isn’t.

Binding Details

Who has identity marks they would like to share? I have hundreds of them. Tattoos – most on my soul, only one on my body. The one on my back is the one I want you to remember. It’s the one I want to believe. Most of the other tattoos can’t be seen, but they can be heard in the form of a word like “hurt” or “indoctrinated.” Others are inexplicable in too few words, and the tattoo can really only be seen at the end of a story.

I don’t blame anyone or any particular thing for my marks. Not even a bit. That doesn’t mean that they don’t affect me for the better or worse. Talking about these marks is also not a pity fest. It’s a willful act of honesty and release. Here are some of my more instrumental and/or devastating marks.

• Absent father. It truly makes me chuckle to myself whenever I recall my self-assurance that I had conquered my father wounds by the age of 16. Well done Brandon. A sad story full of all things unhappy. A cliche of our times.
   
• Middle school. Dear God, I’d rather have a set of kidney stones.
   
• Kidney stones. Yup.
   
• Romantic. Some benefits, but quite a burden in the long run.
    
• Spiritually over-zealous mother. They mean well, don’t they? She certainly did. And what a fantastic mother. Also, what a fantastic imbalance she bestowed on my mind. It has taken years for me to engineer some sort of awkward balance into my life.
   
• Innovative
   
• Christian
   
• Lonely. It fills my naustrils and pours over my eyes. Thick like water. I can’t swim in it. I can’t drown. Won’t someone please take it away? … but they can’t.
   
• Legalism. Not a personality trait, but a curse imposed upon my childhood.
   
• My dear, sweet sister. My other blog about Allison details more of the experience. But on the other side of my altruistic love for my sister lies a selfish heart that smolders at the long memory for loss of my childhood. How I wish she could have lived a “normal” life.
   
• Fun
   
• Intelligence
   
• Elevate. This is a special line-item for only my close friends to understand. To say more would be to slander.
   
• Divorced.

As I stop my list here, the point hasn’t been to show off my misery. There are many more people in the world who have experienced much worse than I have. The point…the point is to be honest with myself. If only for a brief moment, to let myself know that: yes – I am frail. But that doesn’t make me bad, or broken. Being frail dosn’t make me a throw-away like many magazines and Internet sites would tell you that I am. My frailty is just as much a part of my core as my strengths, and without it, I would not be human.

But now, beyond this brief moment of sanity, the tradition of popularity tugs at my coattails as I try to walk away. And so I will aquiesce. Thus ends the blog, and I will return to the contrived strength and contemporaneous joy that you see in me at work and at play.