Go Thunderbird Little League!

My mistake, it was that Dodgers and Yankees that were to play tonight, not the Diamondbacks.

Yankees took it, good game boys!

These days...

These days...I'm hurting...

I lay out by a tree this evening at a school play-yard. I've made my world so small again, my pain so big I nearly forgotten how to simply step outside.

It's nice getting outside again; watching the trees move in the wind against the sunset, feeling the air against my skin as I merge with it all and in the midst of it clear my head letting the breeze blow a bit of hope inside me.

Things have been difficult; I have been in the hospital on three separate occasions this semester having been not sleeping, withdrawing all my classes for the second time now. Walking around barefoot on the too-dry-for-comfort grass wasn't bad though. I realized a few things I can do to help myself this summer - one of them was to drop the full-on pursuit of an Associates of Sciences degree and go after a teaching degree now as opposed to later.

Out of the blue I up and decided to go for a walk Tuesday, two days ago, that walk carried me around my apartments towards the back and into the school play-yard. I felt a sense of calming and relief. I'd not been out of the house in three weeks but to go to the grocery store, mail box, or garbage. Last night I happened upon a little league game taking place on one of the diamond fields and after having a good talk on my cell with a friend I had not heard from in some time I sat in to watch the rest of the game. Diamondbacks against the Dodgers, playoff game. Dodgers took it. I chatted with the league president a bit, a lovely woman by the name of Debbie. She told me about her three sons in the various divisions inside the league and about her life as a lawyer and living back East. Next game is tomorrow night same match up, I plan to go.

These days...I'm hurting...but there is hope.

God Bless,
~Chad


[Image Credit]

ENG 101 - Eassy 1 - Rough 6.doc

A paper I turned into my English class Fall '07, this being a late rough draft version.

A sickening beating began besieging my bed-shared window. I was thrown awake, as though brought to my death; a demon screaming on my porch, behind her the wisps of a biting December night. My heart, already begging release from the nightmare just beginning, was thrashing about in my chest, deafening me from the crazed figure howling outside. Rolling over I found my mother: locked out of the house.

Legs dangled limpidly over the edge of my bed, weak and in a haze, I moved slowly, unsure of my strength and footing. From my bed where my feet hung to my bedroom door, a trek of some seven feet, I grabbed a hold of anything stable; from the base of my bed then to desk to desk chair, then, finally, the knob of my door, peeling it open to reveal what I already knew; the front door's security lock was unset.

I was more conscious now, a minute had yet to pass though an eternity had reigned in my mind. I rounded my bedroom door into the hallway. My mother's pounding had ceased to be upon my window and now continued on inside me, I felt stricken with her blows as if I had become that very pane of glass separating the sane from the unreal. I forever inched closer towards the front door, the ground quicksand below, wallings began taking on a breath of their own; the beat of their expansive chests caving and convexing as I braced myself upon them, steadying as best I could my walk. I reached the front door.

Now sweating, I slowly set my hand upon the front lock in disbelief, the image seen not but moments ago from my bedroom hallway remained true; the secondary was unlocked, leaving the apartment open to anyone able to manage a fitting key, which my mother had. Carefully and proving that I had not, by any means, brought this torment upon myself, I slipped the standard lock back and eased the door open.

Starring out into the black extent before me I closed my eyes, I knew it didn't matter; facts, reality, proofs, nothing was to save me. No amount of court-room proceedings or sound displays of logic or reason was going to rescue me. I carried on despite, ever the eager to prove to my mother that her predicament was no failing of mine, her 15 year old son. I made for the patio.

The pounding returned to the world outside of me, now on the patio door, I pretended to not notice that although the front door is fitted with a second lock, the back door has no such thing, and the very same set of keys in her hand was fully capable of unlocking and opening the door she now stood before. I open the door, her hellfire now upon me, in an instant I am all manner and sort of horrible things, undeserved of the very air I breath, saliva becomes spit, words become projectiles, love becomes sick. The continued onslaught lasts sometime and the rocking of my heart sometime longer still.

The following morning something was more then terribly wrong. Walking was oceanic. Dreamlike I carried myself over wave after wave towards my high school, and as I got closer the realization set in; the sheer impossibility of navigating the flooded halls between classes: I would go straight to the nurse's office. A call and a few hours later I was at my grandmother's. There, upon her couch, I drifted off into poppy fields, nursed asleep by a faint lullaby, "Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it."

I never made the association between that Thursday night in December and the following morning. No I never drew the proper connections until some years following when I found myself a member of a little known support group 'Adult Survivors of Child Abuse'.

Lies, Lies, Lies, All Lies.

It is here at 1:30am that I, while designing a website for a small community, realize what I want to do. As I comb over another edit, aligning paragraphs and fiddling with fonts and colors, I long to be creating something meaningful, something I would actually enjoy, something my small group and I talked about but never brought into fruition, creating a community site for a missions trip to Mexico.

Another semester has begun and with it another lie uttered to my small group, they once again believe I am enrolled in classes at GCC, alas I am not. I'm here at home, all day, most everyday, not doing much of a damn thing. It is out of sheer boredom that I began the website, trying to organize a group of pirated game players together online; it's not what I want to be doing.

I've been going through another hellstorm of self loathing and abuse, I'm deeply depressed and have been since last June.

I can't carry on like this much longer.

Photos: With Joe Shin at Prescott Corvette Show

I've been having some trouble lately, going through a lot so Shin wished we spend some time together Saturday morning. We enjoyed a Wafflehouse breakfast and took a lovely drive up to Prescott where we happened into a Corvette show near a commons, park area.

Tree & Bench.

WWI Statue, it took some effort to get a shot with the flags alive.

Fellow enjoyers of the park.

Tasty!

He thinks he's so cool, cocky punk.

Me, just hopping into my ride.

”$75 for a complete 40-volume set of The Yale Shakspeare“, maybe next time.

Joe, Me & Supergirl spotted in the background. [View rest of album]

Photos: Small Group goes to White Mountains

Guys and Dogs [Elliot, Shin, Louie]


Roadside Photo Op [Self, Shin, Louie, Chong-O* (not liable for inaccurate spelling)]


Check out the whole album!

A truly breathtaking weekend spent with nature.

peace,
~Dixon

Domestic Situation

All my life I've had difficulty sleeping at night, started as child and continued on through my adulthood. The bouts with sound sleep arrive in waves; it comes and goes, I again find myself in the mid of a now week long stretch of sub 3 hours per night. I keep a little flip book log for myself, in the morning I record the hours slept (an estimate of what digits I can't recall having seen on my alarm clock) over the hours attempted - time spent laying there. My little red book has a string of 2/6’s and 3/6’s dating back to April 30th.

I have a quiet routine I go through to wind down my night; I keep myself pretty mellow for the half hour or so leading up to when I lie in bed. I used to take an over the counter sleep aid, whether effective as placebo, by its active ingredients or ineffective entirely I'm not aware. I have known one technique to provide a sound and comforting rest every time I use it however - my fantasy domestic life.

I have a little home that hasn’t been built, neatly tucked away in a bit of a forest that can’t be found, nurtured by a lovely little lady that doesn't exist at the relational capacity I hold her in - I do just that too, holding her I rest.

The home has been a work in progress since 2002, back then it was just a studio apartment with a bare wooden floor I would imagine myself dancing across. Over the years I used this safety zone to experience and express my personality traits I was too afraid to dawn in the light. Much love has been tracked across those bare wooden floorboards as the home grew from an apartment to a house, single room and bath to two bedroom, two baths, full kitchen, laundry, patio, car port/over hang. Dinning with friends, talks by a garden fire pit, movie screenings, dance parties - home events I invite real life friends into, a place to calm me.

Here I have a future, potential to grow, validation, acceptance. A place of rest.

I have struggled with it, how I came to bring into this love of mine a living person who I do have a real relationship with - it was a long fought battle, often going back on my word as to being 'OK' with doing so. I recognized when I began "I don't want this, but I find nothing else, it's not forever, I'll be alright". Now it is time to stop. Now I want to use God.

In Desire, John Eldredge quotes Thomas à Kempis:

“There is nothing created that can fully satisfy my desires. Make me one with You in a sure bond of heavenly love, for You alone are sufficient to Your lover, and without You all things are vain and of no substance.”

It has been difficult, I didn’t realize how integrated into my life and emotions this domestic situation had become, without an imaginary warmth of love wrapping me at night my hours slept drop from a healthy six to the at-best three I get now.

I have faith however, and find my rest in knowing God is with me.

peace,
~Dixon

Photos: Small Group

Last group prior to Louie's move. Bye Louie's old home ;(

Back: Shin, Louie. Seated: Andre, Ludlum, me ;), Elliot. (Not Present: Brad)


I love you guys!

peace,
~Dixon