Personal Journal

Beautiful Fucked Up Man

[forward from me: I don't usually leave such entries public, but for some reason I feel like sharing this after it's done).

I haven't listened to this CD since it made me cry the last time I listened to it. Listening to Sara McLaughlin. Mirroball CD (the only one I owned, but a great one).
I knew then that Jean was going to die, but I didn't imagine it could be this soon. I feel like I was so indifferent to it between then and now. I wish I could have done so much more. I wish to god that I had given more hugs and kisses and said to Jean more "You are precious in my world."
Because she was.

Dr. Young sent me a signed letter stating his sympathies, and saying that throughout her condition, he was always impressed with the love and support I gave to her.
He's the only man who I wanted to say something about me. I am a man of some esteemable character, but one who knows his own flaws, failings, and weak tendencies. Deep down somewhere I hate myself for the latter of these more than anything.
But I know I have some strength of self that makes me good. And in the presence of Dr. Young, I saw a man with so much more character than I possess, and I loved him in my own way for it.
Maybe that's the presence I have in the right viewing - people outside of myself don't see my flaws, and such, andthough they bring me pain, to others I am some comfort nonetheless.
But Dr. Young was one of the few men whom I have met in my 30s (where I find less now than in my 20s) who had more ... goodness in his self than do I. And I'm glad that he said I did the job well.
Because that's all I cared about.
I didn't care about the money, and that remains true. If I lost it to Tom, it wouldn't be as important as what I helped Jean pass through, and having done it well. And knowing that I did it as best I knew how, and that my best was good enough - it is a higher reward to me than any money could ever be. I owed Jean my best.

I'm still a fucked up person. I like sex the way few men do, and fewer women (though there are some who can tolerate it).

But I am there for the women I take into my heart. I used to... I still do fantasize that the angst-ridden teenager in me is still confused and dismayed by the fucked up world I live in (and he is), but I seem unwilling to admit that I've figured out for the most part, what's important about life, and I live my life that way.

Jean, I swear as god as my witness, I loved you with all of my being. I just didn't get long enough to do it properly. I appreciate you. I tried to understand you and respect you. And I tried to make myself respectable in your eyes. Because you mattered like nothing else in this world did.

I miss making love to you. But I missed that long ago when you started showing signs. I miss your laugh. I miss the softness of your lips and the innocence of your smile. I miss your uniqueness, and your smell, and the softness of your skin.

I don't know what to do now. I wish you could tell me that I helped you. I wish you could tell me that the love I tried to give mattered, to where you were as you were sick, and to where you are now.
But the world doesn't work that way, and I'm left to wonder what I meant to you, what I gave, and if it was enough.
To wonder what else you want me to do now, to know what I should do... what do I do?

Those answers I will have to divine with all of my soul. Because nothing can "tell" me. I have to figure it out.


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn