I Am The Almighty OZ!!!

Don’t look behind the curtain, the disappointment could be overwhelming.

I may have judged these young whipper-snappers too quickly. The ones that spend all their time uploading videos on YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TicToc and other such mediums. I thought to myself, why don’t these kids do something with their life instead of spending all their time uploading videos? The ones that I find myself endlessly watching for hours at a time… At least there would be nothing left for me to watch and I could get off my ass and experience life for myself! These little assholes are taking up all my time?!?!

All joking aside, the process of uploading a video is so much more complex than I originally anticipated. After my last post, I decided it was time for me to learn how to make some videos! Let’s be honest, no one wants to read my bullshit all the time. For starters, my grammer bad and so are my speeling! (please tell me you got the gist of that joke! If not, please exit this page and go find a vat of acid to jump in. That may have been a tad bit harsh. Instead, you could just stop reading, make yourself a nice PP&J, and go watch some cartoons because you are not intellectually capable enough to continue reading the words that I am gracing your insignificant mind with) ANYWAY… I digress, back to what I was saying… Hell no you don’t want to READ my posts! You need pictures, GIFs, and most importantly videos, this is 2019! The couch potato, fast food eating, Netflix binging, mindless drones that we have all become want to be entertained! And reading, my friends, is not entertainment. Reading is the devil! Worse yet, reading is manual labor of the brain! And how dare I ask you to use those fleshy, pink lumps of soft tissue between your ears. Outlandish I say, Just unthinkable! The nerve?!?

For those of you who have tasted the glory of mindlessly sitting on your plump bottoms while this amazing contraption (computer, phone, tablet… etc.) provides you with cinematic stories chalked full of pretty pictures, sounds, memes, GIFs, and videos for your viewing pleasure, then I must let you know that I am here to appease my ravenous audience! Ladies and gents, I would never force this unjust mind labor called “READING” upon your innocent and fragile little intellects! No mis amigos, I aim to please! Which is why I am learning how to make, create, edit, and upload these amazing videos! All for your benefit! You are most humbly welcome!

Okay Okay Okay, I may have exaggerated a small bit… I might have wanted to learn how to upload videos because I think they are cool. I also needed something to consume my time and make me feel like I was being mentally challenged. This may be presumptuous on my behalf and maybe a little optimistic, but I am assuming that if I use videos in conjunction with my writing that I won’t get bored with this “blogging thing” and the monotonous and mundane (I mean epic and amazing) events in my life will be cloaked with enough smoke and mirrors that my loyal fans (family) will be tricked into thinking that I am “interesting, knowledgeable, and worldly”. And the best part of all of this is that these short films of my spectacular endeavors can be ingested with glee through your optic nerve and downloaded directly into your frontal cortex where your underutilized brain can obtain joy from laughing at my dumb ass as I gallivant around the word (or South America, Semantics). Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to think that the infamous “you” (probably 4 people in total) will be vicariously living your lives through the short videos and blogs that I have graciously bestowed upon you.

Anyway, back to my original point. I judged these young “Youtubers” and “Snapchatters” a little too quickly. It took a good deal of research and learning to understand how to properly make a video. The last two weeks I have felt like the old guy that thinks technology is the devil and that these new-fangled-contraptions are too complicated for me. But don’t forget, I’m Nick Merriman… Vini Vine Vici!

How I took control

First, I had to figure out how to take a video. Sounds easy enough, right? WRONG! I ended up googling how to take a video with my pre-installed camera!!! This is embarrassing but literally, all I had to do was click the “START” menu and then click “CAMERAS”. I felt like an idiot for not trying that. Never-the-less, I overcame the complexities of turning the camera on and made my very first 7-second test video! Thank you, Thank you! Please keep the Emmys for the poor and starving actors out there, I need no recognition.

The test video was, exactly what it says… A test video! I needed to take something so that I could play around with how things worked. Due to my skilled, clever, and artistic mind, my lines were, “This is a test video.” and then named it… Wait for it… “Test Video 1″… Mind Blown! I know it must be difficult to read the words of such an artistic savant such as myself, but I appreciate the effort you are putting forward and if you are entertained now, just wait until you see the grand finale!

Now it was time to watch my masterpiece

The anticipation was grueling and after I hit “PLAY” the devastation was palpable! Within a span of 7 seconds I realized a few things:

I looked like crap
My room was a mess
I had trash everywhere
I am bald, very bald
There is a random black hair coming out of my nose
I sound like an eccentric homeless man
And lastly: my face was so read that it looked like an over-ripened tomato

My poor little ego wept.

Time for Video 2.0!!! I cleaned up, changed clothes, shaved, put a cap on, practiced my lines (due to their complexity), and voila!… Kind of… It only solved some of my problems. I still looked like and sounded like crap (semi, unavoidable) but my room was clean, I didn’t stutter like an idiot, you couldn’t tell that I was bald, and most importantly I plucked the black hair coming out of my nose so that it was no longer trying to grow its way to my lips.

By this time it was 12:00pm. Mind you that I started around 8:00am. So, after 4 hours of hard work, I was now in possession of a 7-second video! I was also on the verge of heading to my favorite little bar to grab a drink or 4. I needed to curb the onset of depression I was now a victim of due to the realization that I was a balding 32-year-old with a red face, eccentric lisp, small head, Ohh… and all that other stuff that I have been crying about on this blog for the past 2 months. I think a drink was well justified by this time, but I was nowhere close to done and there was work that needed to be done… I can live with what I can’t change. Someone once told me, or maybe I read it somewhere that you can’t worry about the things you can’t change. So, onward and upward.

V2.0 is now a reality and it is time to edit. Why edit, you ask? Well, there are a few reasons. First and foremost, the filters! I mean, if I can’t change my read face, I can at least cover it up with an awesome filter. If my phone has the capability of making me look better, then I’m sure that some video editing software will do the same. Secondly, I am not exactly articulate, I often make mistakes when trying to talk to this little screen. For some reason, I get some odd form of anxiety when I am recording myself. It’s quite pathetic how my mind goes completely numb as soon as I hit “Record.” This is something that I am sure will diminish as time goes on, but for the time being, I will have to heavily rely on editing and multiple shots to ensure that the quality of my video is up to your viewing standards.

Drum Roll Please

Well, my friends. after 1 week of learning how to make a video and 2 weeks trying to write about it (I had some setbacks along the way, spent a lot of time with my grandfather her the past 2 weeks and Easter happened last weekend) I am now finally ready to publish my first video Woo-Hoo! So, without further ado, I present to you my very first test video! please try to keep your emotions in check as you watch the artistry unfold before you… (as said by the short fat man behind the curtain of bullshit)… Enjoy, I promise you they will improve.

The Anticipation…

I have a following of 1 and counting!

First and foremost I would like to thank my 1st and only mystery reader for taking the time to painstakingly read my gibberish. I have yet to “publicize” my little hobby as of yet. My intention was to get the hang of this blogging thing and eventually “go public” (eek, a fear that I will tackle when I get there). But to you, my mysterious reader, the one that found my tiny corner of the internet amongst millions of other blogs… I would like to say “Thank You!” For what, I’m not exactly sure but you have given me a sense of buoyancy (for an emotion that I cannot describe, maybe pride?) knowing that someone read my words… Not just one post, but all of them, Well Done!

No worries mate, I have no idea who you are so your anonymity is safe. WordPress.com only states that I have 2 viewers for all of my posts (of course I’m the other one). I thought at first it was Amanda because I told her that I took her advice to do this, but she affirms me that it was not her. I think, in her mind, that she thinks she would be invading my privacy if she read this. Little does she know that this little blog that has been consuming so much of my time is my saving grace, my way of moving forward to becoming the man I want to be. The one I want to be for myself, my family, my friends, and for her. It could not possibly be an invasion of privacy when all I want to do is scream “It” from the rooftops. My only problem is that I do not know what “It” is that I want to scream. This is my Metanoia, my journey, my path to rediscovery. Soon it will be mine to own, grasp, and take… in time.

So to my mysterious reader: Please feel free to keep reading, message me, write a comment. Hell, you could laugh at and heckle me for thinking what I have to say is in the smallest bit interesting. But It would be nice to know who took the time to peek into my thoughts and know what he/she thinks about them. If not, that’s okay. I know our relationship between writer and reader is young, new and fragile. I am quite the gentleman and in no rush to move too quickly. We can take our time I won’t even try to get to second base until you feel comfortable… PS. Welcome to my poor excuse of humor. I would like to say that it gets better, but alas it is not going to. I hope you can handle it.

I Owe You Some Things

Family first: My mother is home. She is still not in great condition but the doctors at the hospital have ruled out anything life-threatening. Her next steps are all outpatient and primary care provider follow up. It is going to be a tough road ahead since her head still hurts and her vision is blurry. I will keep you updated.
After my mom got back from the hospital I got pretty sick. I had a pretty bad reaction to some immunization shots that pretty much knocked me out for 3 days. this is one of the reasons I haven’t updated in so long. But now, I’m getting back on my feet.
Follow up from my last post in regards to how I felt last weekend. The events that led up to the decision to take a “HUGE” baby step by communicating my insecurities and worries to Amanda. I would like to let you know that since last Sunday when we talked that I have felt better, more confident, and happier than I have in a long time. It paid off in dividends! This past weekend I was able to relax, be myself, have fun and smile. Amanda and I had an amazing time and it felt like a weight was lifted. I want to emphasize the importance of talking through things with those you care about. If done right, it will lead to a stronger relationship. Also know, that if it does not… You deserve better, you deserve to be able to speak about how you feel to the people in your life. We can talk more about this later because #3 is what I know you have been wanting to hear.
The long-anticipated story of how I came to be here. How and why I found “Metanoia”. Why I am writing this and what I expect to gain from it…

Eat this shroom, drink this tonic and take a walk with me down this hole as I explain.

You will have to accept my apology for the remainder of this post. I fear that I will sound almost mechanical at times as I explain some things. I will do my best to avoid this however I have never been great with communication in regards to emotion. Furthermore, I have never expressed much of what I am going to divulge in any format to anyone, let alone to a potential worldwide community of strangers. Short sentences that are direct and to the point are a coping mechanism that I have developed as a means to not put much thought into the subject matter in which I have spent most of my life trying to avoid.

While much of this will seem minuscule and irrelevant please realize that what you are about to read are accounts of real-life experiences, my experiences. Experiences are difficult to interpret when you are not the one that lived through it. Much like quantum mechanics or string theory: As a laymen or bystander you may be able to derive trends or a vague understanding from a 10,000 foot view but unless you truly understand the layers and tangents that makeup one’s own universe you will have to be content knowing that this story is much deeper than what you will be reading. I suppose that if I had a higher intellectual capacity and or the ability to convey a holistic story like the authors of epic novels, that I could do my story more justice. Then again, if I had these skills I would probably be writing this from a mansion on a beach in Fiji funded by my outrageously large bank account after publishing my New York Times bestselling novel and not from my old kitchen table that now doubles as a desk in dog’s room (our animals have rooms that we share… kind of an inside joke type of thing) of my girlfriend’s house on the laptop I bought at a discount from my old boss.

Lastly, before I start, and most importantly I want you to realize this key fact: As I stated in previous posts, I am still in the beginning phase of my own recovery. While I have desperately tried to cloak this ruse of “you” my followers anxiously waiting on the edge of your seat to hear about the riveting tale that I call my life, I know that the infamous “you” could probably care less. Mainly because I know that “You” do not exist. The true intent of this post is my attempt to take the next step of my journey through “Metanoia”. As any good problem solver knows, you need to get a full understanding of the larger picture, the past, and current before you can move forward.

Let us begin

Have you ever written a text, deleted it, re-wrote it, deleted it again, re-worded it in a nicer way, then say, “Fuck it!!! I’m not doing this!”, and start typing again? This section has been consuming my entire life. For 2 weeks I have been trying to string this together. I do not know what to say or where to start.

My father left when I was young. He was a charismatic, charming, eccentric, and idealistic man that had big dreams and a bigger heart. He was also an abusive alcoholic that fought depression and bipolar disorder. These facts (depression and bipolar) were unknown to all of us at the time, including himself. I believe that if this was known earlier on in his life that things may have ended up differently. But the past cannot be changed and those were the cards that were dealt. I find it interesting to even myself that I led off with that statement. As if I derived the beginnings of my story with this defining statement. But like any good story, we must start somewhere.

My parents split when I was 5 years old and full custody was given to my mother. But not without a nasty battle that that was full of what became pure hatred between all of us. My mother left him after a particularly nasty drinking bender which ended up with some broken furniture, minor bruises, an emptied bank account, and the knowledge that my father had been living a second life with another woman for the past 2 years and she was pregnant. It didn’t help that this “other woman” was a friend of both my parents.

So for some time, we went through “The System”. This is where my mother made it as hard as possible for my father to see us (my sister and I). But after a few months and some court hearings, the court-mandated weekly monitored visits as well as individual and group therapy sessions for Ash and myself. These were great times (sarcasm). Largely because this human game of volleyball, where our parents spiked us back and forth with the intent to break each other’s noses ended up creating a lot of family resentment. What I’m trying to say is that there was a great divide in my family. My mother and Ashley were on team “Righteous” and my father and I were on team “flaming dog shit”… Don’t get me wrong, I hated my father for ruining our family. But my mother and I never quite got along. I always clicked very well with my father and found him to be the most interesting person that ever lived. He was my dad, and all I wanted was to be with him even if my mother hated him.

This is where things for me started getting messy. I chose dad, but mom had the courts on her side (the abusive alcoholic part didn’t help his case). From my perspective, my mother was taking my father away from me and not letting me see him. I hated her for it. It might not have been so bad for those couple years but my insistent pleading to be with the man she hated so much started to wear on our relationship. She started becoming resentful towards me and in her defense, I cannot blame her. I would not have been able to hide my hatred especially if my kid wanted to be with the person that caused me so much pain. To her, I was a constant reminder of him and when we would fight she would make it clear that I “was just like my father”.

A few years later my father went AWOL. Got up and left everyone. He packed up his new wife and son and disappeared off the radar. Not a single soul knew where they went. What we didn’t know was that he was on the downside of a bi-polar swing that lasted the better part of 6 months where he finally came to the conclusion that, “If he didn’t leave he was going to hurt someone, and then kill himself”. In his mind, he was choosing the lesser of two evils. I learned this many years later when he told me via an email he sent me where he also told me I needed to be careful that I too didn’t have the same demons that he did.

As you can imagine, I was devastated. I was old enough to understand some things but not mature enough to not take it personally. My father left ME!!! No one else mattered. In my mind, it was my mother’s fault and I was alone in this world. So, I did what any other kid would do in this situation. I became the biggest piece of shit that you could imagine, every day sinking further into my own shell and hating everyone. My mother did her best. But she wasn’t exactly equipped to handle all of my shit when she was trying hard to keep her own shit together. She worked hard to keep a roof over our head and food in our bellies. But on an emotional level, everything was fucked. After he disappeared, mom gravitated to Ashley like stars to a black hole. I think it was her way of distracting herself from the world. I, on the other hand, continued to be an emotional wrecking ball that would put Miley Cyrus to shame. I started to feel like the red headed stepchild that you kept out of pity.

This is dumb… I fell like I’m just whining

I know that you are reading this as one fluid train of thought but today is now April 11th! I have now been trying to compose this one singular post for over 2 weeks. And the only thing that I have come up with is a bunch of sappy crap that I keep deleting because I either don’t want to spill all my dirty laundry out there for someone to read or it starts getting a little too close for comfort on my behalf. So, To help myself out as well as everyone involved… AKA my mystery reader… I am going to clean this up and move things forward a bit.

Dad left when I was young
Mom and I didn’t get along
I spent a lot of time being really angry
When was 17 I got into a fight with my mom and moved out

Life is a game

There are winners and losers. Winners were happy, took control of their life, didn’t dwell, or have issues. They made their own way. Losers were always a victim of their environments. They complained and always found excuses as to why they couldn’t make it.

I decided to become a winner. This meant moving out of my house and starting my own path. Subsequently, this is also when I started to hone my craft of becoming a robot. Emotions were messy and unneeded. They completely ruined the majority of my life and I didn’t have time for them any longer. I was perfectly capable of having a happy and successful life while keeping everyone that played in my game at a far enough distance that with or without them I would be able to keep going without missing a beat.I created a game plan for my life. I mapped out where I wanted to be and when. I even drew it out with milestones and career goals… Remember that 19-year-old cocky Nick that I talked about in my first post? This is where I defined him. This is where I took full control of my life and everything in it. And Hot Damn did I do a good job! I was successful in every aspect of my life. I worked hard and played harder. I had a wide network of acquaintances to party with. From a work perspective, I was an up an coming success. Every project I took on became gold! And the more I did, The more I took on. I dug myself deeper and deeper into being “The Best”.

I worked my way up just like I had planned! I was unstoppable! little did I know that my emotional walls kept getting higher and thicker as I lost touch with my own internal and personal happiness. I was running on autopilot. Every decision I made was on the premise of “That is what a normal person should do” and never “What I wanted to do”. Looking back as I went through life, I knew things were piling up, I knew “Something” wasn’t right. The more I felt this, the harder I pushed it away. I was running from a building title wave that would soon crash down on me.

Time to speed this up again.

To make an extremely long and confusing story short: As I sped through my twenties, I also got married to my best friend’s sister. I knew in my gut that it wasn’t right but I did love and care for her. So I worked hard to make things work, I gave up on things I wanted, I pushed away people I cared about and even tried to move out of state so that I could attempt to have the “perfect” life that everyone thought I had. But when things are not meant to be, the world has a way of ensuring that they do not work out. We separated 3 years later. Our fallout was not easy and it took a while before we were finally divorced but I know that it was the right thing to do.

For me to put this entire section of my story into one paragraph is an injustice, but you must forgive me here because there were a lot more emotion and confusion than what I am willing to try and put words to. This is where you must accept that this happened without knowing the details behind it. I will say this about getting divorced: It sucks.

We are getting closer to current time

This is where I would like to introduce Amanda. She has been a good friend to me for a long time and if truth be told, I loved her in many ways for as far back as I can remember being her friend. I have a secret for you that is not a secret to that knew me back in my early 20s: Before I started dating Teri, Amanda was my partner in crime. We were very close and did everything together. I even tried to date her at one point. She turned me down, of course, and who could blame her? I was a cocky kid that was very selfish and only had one goal in mind. She didn’t want to jeopardize our friendship and we each had our own paths to walk down. I will be brief when explaining this but I always considered Amanda to be “the one that got away”.

She didn’t go very far though. For years we both did a very good job at putting our feelings about each other away so that we could still be friends. We dated other people and all hung out as a group. It was difficult at first, and when we drank it was messy at times but we never acted on it. We were better friends than most people ever have the chance to have in their entire life. Funny enough, we never even shared so much as a kiss the entire time we were friends (not to say I didn’t try when we were younger… But I got shut down quite a bit).

Time did that thing it does and kept moving forward. I started dating Teri, things started getting serious, and my thoughts of Amanda dwindled away… So I “did what I was supposed to do” and I got engaged a few years later.

Remember when you were a child and you did something that you knew was wrong but you couldn’t change it? You made your cover story, you rehearsed it until it became the next best thing to the truth. Then you went out and tried to play it off like everything was fine. You knew if your parents found out what you did that they would more than likely beat you within inches of your life, lock you in a closet, and then put you on auction for some child labor camp because they didn’t want to see or hear from you again…

That was the exact feeling I had after I got engaged… But I was Nick Merriman, My life was perfect, I was on my way and I was stopping for nothing… So I created my cover story of happiness, went out to the world and played it off like nothing was wrong. My non-emotional robot programming was on autopilot and I thought that I would be okay with just being happy with what I had, even if it wasn’t what I wanted.

I don’t know about any other kids but no matter what happened, I always got busted. Worse, I got in more trouble for making up a tale after making a mistake instead of just owning up to it. Well, in this case, I got busted big time! My punishment wasn’t getting sent to my room or no toys. It was an onslaught of hurt feelings, pain, confusion, lost friends and family, and a big feeling of being an asshole. As you already know, my marriage didn’t work out. It is funny to me that the sentence you just read was at one point in time 6 long paragraphs explaining why and how. But it just gets messy so I thought I would save you the trouble.

Amanda was there to help me through all of it. I don’t know where I would be or what I would have done without her. It was almost like it was when we were kids. Just two friends, talking all the time. Since I lived 500 miles away, we would find places that were between us to hang out. We called them “Bubble trips” where we didn’t have to worry about or talk about anything outside of our bubble. Inside the bubble there were no problems, life didn’t matter and we were able to just enjoy each other and life. And something amazing happened: Over time we let something happen that we would not allow as kids. We opened ourselves up to being more than friends. And that, my friends, is something that I could spend a lifetime trying to explain how it makes me feel. Not because it would take me a lifetime to write it, but because I would enjoy spending all that time thinking about it and putting it to paper.

We are here!

My story started when I was 5 years old. Nearly 20 years later, some pretty big gaps, a lot of fragmented thoughts, and a lot of poor writing… I have brought you to the point of why I am here. I am recovering, rediscovering, and redefining who I am. I am on a journey to fix my broken mind, body, and soul. This Journey I have named “Metanoia”.

I no longer want to define myself as the workaholic or want to be a robot that pushes his feelings away. I want people to know me for me. I want to be remembered as the man that enjoyed life and brought smiles to the people in his life. I want to be the son that does nice things for his mother even if they haven’t always gotten along. I want to be the brother that helps his sister because he can and wants to. The grandchild that takes care of the people that took care of him when he was young. I want to be the man that brings joy to his best friend’s eyes every time she sees him. The kind that, at the end of the day can tell a story about how he enjoyed life and his happiness was infectious to everyone around him.

How do I plan on getting there?

Well… I quit the job I hated, divorced the girl I shouldn’t have married, told my best friend how I feel about her, and decided to take an entire year dedicated to rediscovering myself. During my year off I plan to take a 4-month trip walking through South America where I will learn how to slow down and enjoy life (they seem to have a pretty good handle on taking it easy). I know it is extreme, but I was and still am extremely broken. I plan to document my trip and my recovery. Talk about my learnings and document all the cool places that I see. I will not be alone on this journey, Amanda will be there with me the entire time and our friends Zach and Rose will be joining us for a time as well. I hope to use this blog as a means of helping myself to understand who I am. I also want to use it as a means of communicating my trip to friends and family. which means that they will all be reading this at some time in the near future. I’m not looking forward to that but it is also a step I must take. I need people to know who I am and what I want. They need to know how I feel and what I am doing. People are not mind readers and they do not know what is going on in your head if you do not tell them.

After 2 weeks of typing, I am going to end this post. I know it seems incomplete and at times very broken up. But that is what I am right now, Incomplete and broken… Only time will fix me. Time and the determination to become the person I want to be and not the person I was. My apologies for this rant, but I told you that I would explain some things, and I did. Now I can move forward, I can start to post about the cool and fun places that we will be traveling and all of our preparation that leads up to it. My Metanoia has just begun, I can’t wait to see what it has in store for me.

Finding The Time

No pics today: Too much content and not enough time.

I had planned on a very elaborate and upbeat depiction of what happened over the weekend but plans change and “something” came up (something is very much like “them” or they”… always there but never welcomed). Anyway, my mother went to the hospital yesterday for blurry vision and a headache. We were all worried that she had a stroke which thankfully was not the case but the doctors could not find a root cause. The doctor ordered a CT of her head to see if there was anything going on with her pituitary gland (this is located directly behind the optic nerve and could be a possible reason). So, of course, everyone thought it was some kind of tumor and immediately started to worry… To make a long story short: The CT came back negative and they still don’t have a smoking gun. There was an MRI conducted after they admitted her which showed some kind of buildup of pressure or a small cyst in her sinus cavity behind her eyes. The neurologist came and went after bestowing upon us the terrific news that she did not believe that this had anything to do with her symptoms. but they kept her so that they could get some more insights from the optimolotrist and an ENT specialist. Bottom line: No answers and slow but stead progression as they dig through the possibilities. They did dose her with some pain killers which seems to eliminate the pain enough to allow her to reside in comatose state until it wears off. After the doctor left and they medicated her, everyone promptly left (cootoz to gramps for staying all night and all day! He is the best man I have even known). But now it’s just me and the snoring monster that takes over my mother after she falls asleep.

I decided, “What the heck!? If I’m going to be here for a while I might as well use this time to get some words of wisdom in on the good-ole-blog!” The time tested and infamous “BLOG!” that has millions of followers. The one that has insights so deep that it stops readers in their tracks and makes them contemplate their own self consciousness. The one where I let streams of pure unadulterated and artistic thoughts flow into rivers that powerfully erode and sculpt the geography of people’s mindsets and behaviors. Yes, the one where I am able to manifest the true meaning of life in simple but eloquent words that make men weep and women swoon… However, until I find such a marvel I settled for this online journal that no one knows exists and has a grand total of 15 views! All of which were by me; reading and re-reading so I can edit the spelling and grammatical errors of the garbage I lay to waste on this desert of white space. Sentences that are so poorly strung together that a 5th grader would be embarrassed to call them original thoughts. I digress. Back to the good stuff.

Last Friday I expressed my elated status of mental well-being due to how great my upcoming weekend was going to be. The buildup of a crappy week in conjunction with the lack of feeling “happiness” (a very relative term) led me to put a high level of expectation for the weekend. Sadly I hyped the weekend up so much that when things went awry, the pain of my splattered hopes created a terrible mood that I couldn’t escape. My hopes reached maximal and terminal velocity as they hurtled their way down to an unyielding demise and the “Splat” sound was much louder than anticipated.

I don’t plan on getting into the particulars because there is a much better, overarching theme that I would like to palaver about. However, to set the tone: Right out of the gate, Friday afternoon, she came home 2 hours later than I had expected. We had to rush to get to her parents and after playing games we came home and fell asleep. See, things didn’t go badly… but I could tell Saturday morning that we were already both in “a mood”. The kind of mood where your agitated but cant place why and you are grouchy because of it (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, there is a 93% chance that your not a human). This grouchiness continued to grow because we were supposed to relax and enjoy each other’s company for the day and we had planned a date night… Here it comes… BUT, “plans came up”.

So we each went our own way with plans to meet up shortly after lunch. But by mid day, Plans changed and our day was now shot. 6:00pm Saturday night and we started dinner. By this time I could tell she was not in a great mood and I had blamed her (in my head) for making plans and ruining our day. Needless to say, I was not in a very good mood either. So we were both apathetic towards each other, in a funk, and trying to be cordial while we forced ourselves to play a critical thinking game at 11:00pm until we were so tired that we just went to bed. Her last words before going to bed were, “Sorry for being so blah.” I would of preferred an “I love you” or a “good night” or even a “fuck you”… But I got an open ended comment that eluded to the fact that she was in a bad mood, she knew it, and instead of telling me why or talking about it we just pretended that the tension between us was invisible and at the last second before sleep she decided to apologize for it?!?!?!?!?

For me, this was when I jumped off the metaphorical high-dive into the cement pool. As I lay in bed my anger and annoyance rose at her ability to sleep so easily. The little voice in my head came out to play with his megaphone as he whispered doubt and suspicion into my subconscious always twisting reality by digging into my insecurities. And with every inch of my mental capacity I tried to sew together the story of why things went so poorly over the last two days.

Obviously and most logically it had to do with me, right? So what did I do? Or not do? Why would Amanda make plans on Saturday when she knew that I had been looking forward to the weekend so intently? Moreover, why would she act so “BLAH” once we finally did get time together? No smiles, no flirtation, nothing… As the night went on, complete chaos ensued in my head as I tried to understand what parallel universe I just stepped into. I sat and pondered these things for a long time until about 3am when sleep finally took me. My last thought was, “Tomorrow will be a better day!”

It was, I woke up early and made breakfast in bed. I do it often, I love to cook breakfast and she loves when I do… I was going to see that twinkle in her eye at all costs! I would have made her a buffet of gourmet cuisine with flowers and doves but luckily for me she really likes waffles. We had a really great morning and followed it with a long hike in the valley. I had some really shitty shoes which I am paying for now due to my sore ankles and claves. We stopped after half way and had lunch at one of the park picnic tables. We were not so romantic as you would like to read about in the famous tales but we were enjoying ourselves and Roxy (my dog) was having a great time. 7 miles later, a short car ride, some stretching and two hot showers later we were back on the couch about to cuddle up and watch some TV. I was trying to be flirty but she wasn’t having it. So immediately the alarms started going off again as I remembered the events of the last couple days. Everything that I had shoved away and ignored for the last 2 days came right back up and in full force. for a while I tried to talk myself out of this mood and negative self talk but there was no holding back this time. it had been almost 3 days of disappointment and I wasn’t going to be able to shove this much away. and I knew there would be no way to hide it (at least not without having a few good drinks and something to distract me) So I knew that I was going to be in a very bad mood and not be pleasant to be around for the rest of the night… But Something really odd happened that I have never been able to do before.

I talked about it.

Pause for a second here: I need you to realize how powerful those four words are. Within them you will find every emotion that I spent my entire life trying to smother (fear, anxiety, weakness, emotional frailty, openness to get hurt, trust). I spent my entire adult life pushing these emotions down and ignoring them. Making myself so busy that I never had time to even care about them. Why you ask? Well Dr. Phil, I’m not a shrink but if I were to take an educated guess while trying to be as objective as possible. I was so determined on proving myself, being independent, and not needing to rely on anyone that emotional satisfaction was a secondary thought (if it was a thought at all). I buried myself on my journey towards greatness so deeply that I gave myself tunnel vision. I could of cared less about the “here and now” all I cared about was the “end goal” and if you were not helping me get there, you were unneeded baggage that I could push away and live without. Simply put, I have never had someone in my life that I trusted enough to depend on. I feel like an asshole saying this and I’m sure that there are a few people out there that would be upset if they knew I felt this way, but it is the truth. There is actually quite a bit about be that no one in the world knows. And until recently I have been able to very easily conduct my orchestra without a single note being played off key. For those of you that are a little slow, I’m using an orchestra as an example of a complex system that comes together under the lead of one person. In this particular case, that person is me and my musicians are on point. But if they did fuck up, I could easily replace them with other musicians that would be just as good. Best part about all of this is that I would be much happier listening to 90s grunge music because I hate the fucking Orchestra. But I keep waving that little white stick around like its a magical wand that will cast a spell strong enough to make me believe what I’m doing makes me happy.

I got away with it for a long time. See, I’m a very good showman, I am engaging and personable, I pour a lot of effort into maintaining the façade that is “Nick Merriman” and historically, I don’t let anyone really knows who I am. I keep the show of confidence, composure, determination, and normalcy ON at all times. I am the definition of reality TV. Funny story: I truthfully felt like and even called myself a “robot” (mainly because it sounded friendlier than sociopath). My version of robot had programming that was created without the weaknesses that human emotions provides. It came in quite handy for most things; I had taught my mind to think and act without using emotion and treated all aspects of my life like it was a balance equation that summed up to the grand total of success. Overtime, however, I felt concerned for my lack of empathy and closeness. I had trained my body well over the years and found it to be very difficult to turn my emotions switch “ON” since it had been “OFF” for so long.

This very long narrative all comes down to a single point: All of the above was true until now… I found an error in my program. A crack so small that I didn’t know it existed. The most amazing thing happened. Amanda found her way in past all my barriers and firewalls. She saw right through my façade and saw the “real me”. The best part about all of this is that even after seeing the real me, she still looked at me with the same loving hazel eyes. Instead of fear she showed interest. This allowed me to make the decision I did… I turned my emotion switch ON and

I talked about it.

As she always does, Miss Amanda Perrin surprised me. She wowed me with her ability to reach into the deepest places of my soul and magically make me feel comfortable enough to talk through what was going on in my head and heart. With only minimal fear or anxiety to boot! That statement is hilarious to me because for a long time I have been in the business of making Amanda feel anxiety and unease. Pressing her buttons and watching her squirm as she turned red. Now the tables have turned and I’m starting to realize who the strong one is (hint: it’s not me).

I told her that for the past couple months (since I quit my job and moved back to Ohio) I am always finding myself to be defensive and mistrustful of the people in my life friends, foes, and family included. I told her that I don’t tell people about this in real life but I do think about it constantly and when I find something that I believe doesn’t add up, I obsess about it in my head. I have “those conversations”. The internal conversations that happen while driving down the expressway and pretending to confront the people that you wish you had the balls or wit to confront when you wanted to. These imaginary conversations can be beneficial if you plan on having a productive conversation in real life as a follow up. However, if your intent is to only talk within the confines of your already damaged and biased mind… This exercise of confronting people in your mind turns into a self-destructive way of making the situation worse without anything physically changing at all. The problem is that the answers that your imaginary “foe” give your during these conversations are manifested in YOUR head. They tend to be heavily biased towards attacking your pre-existing insecurities. Believe me: NO ONE I MEAN NO ONE can get under your skin, push your buttons, and tear through your defenses better than your own mind.

Presto: You just did a magic trick! How amazing!!! You made something out of nothing and then made this mysterious “something” even worse by obsessing about it. Congrats!

It is not magic though, it is science. One of the laws of physics… The more mass this thought has, the stronger it’s gravitational pull will be. The stronger the pull, the more difficult the burden of carrying it.

Before I go much further: I don’t think I’m going crazy or suffering from paranoia. I had did think that for a hot second. But no, I think that would be easier to cope with if I were a victim of happenstance. I think there is a much better explanation. Again the impressive Amanda Perrin helped me to come to terms with this. It is guilt.

That’s right, guilt… Now, I wouldn’t be much of a story teller if I didn’t follow through with my promises to inform you on the dirty little details that I alluded to in earlier posts. How did I lose my self? What happened at work? Why are you divorced? and who is this Amanda that you keep talking about? The time has come the walrus said, to talk of many things… And I think it is time that I fill you in on some things…

I also wouldn’t be much of a story teller if I gave all of my goods up in one post. So, alas, you must wait. My next post will be dedicate to explaining, from my point of view, how I got where I am. And man, that is gonna be some interesting reading.

Before I sign out for tonight I do want to finish up about my conversation with Amanda.

She bestowed upon me some insights that I was unaware of until now. 1) These feelings are normal and it will be difficult but not impossible to become okay with not just having them, but dealing with them. I think it is especially difficult to someone that has spent their entire life ignoring these things called “feelings” . 2) She also has these feelings from time-to-time but she has a coping mechanism that helps her to deal with the problem on the spot. 3) The coping mechanism is ingenious in its simplicity and I think I will also dedicate a post to just what the tool is and how to use it. But until then, I have posted a visual aid below for your benefit of learning and remembering:

That’s What I’m Talking About!

Not a long one today. But I wanted to give a little follow up on the outcome from yesterday. I made my plan, I executed my plan, and I feel Great! I got so much accomplished! I’m excited about what will come next! I’m back on cloud 9 and I plan on keeping the positive attitude

I have a good weekend planned. Dinner with Amanda’s parents tonight, Saturday I plan on having a lazy day and a date night in. We are going to make dinner, and play games. But Sunday will be the best! Planning a nice 10 mile hike with a picnic. I’m sure that I’ll update you on how all of it plays out.

When you have good thoughts, a positive attitude, and you are feeling good YOU CAN DO ANYTHING. Law of attraction is in place and more good things are coming my way.

We Must Crawl Before We Walk

The path is not an easy one

WOW, what a day for my second blog! Of course no one is reading this so my pseudo fan base of 1 (me) is very glad that I am back. And boy do I have a lesson to teach you today.

When building something, especially when that something is intangible and as delicate as your internal happiness, self esteem, or your ability to feel comfortable with feeling uncomfortable… There are bound to be a few bumps in the road.

Today, I was metaphorically walking down my path to recovery. Hell, I was practically jogging when my foot fell upon some metaphorical loose gravel. Not only did I stumble, not only did I flail my arms like a whacky-wavy-flailing-arm-inflatable-tube-man, but I fell to the ground and skinned my knee and threw a hissy-fit like a toddler that didn’t get his way, and then pout.

Let me explain:

This morning, I woke up on cloud-9. I don’t know why, but all the planets were aligned and I felt good. My girlfriend Amanda was taking me to pick up my jeep from the dealership after it had been worked on. The jeep had a lot to do with my great mood because I thought that I had out-smarted the system and got a really good deal on a fix that was originally supposed to cost $3,700 (which, BTW after getting a divorce, quitting my job, moving my entire life’s possessions 500 miles to Ohio so that I could move in with my bestfriend / long distance girlfriend… $3,700 suddenly becomes a cubic-fuck-ton of money). Side note: I promise you explain all of that (divorce, joblessness, unemployment, and bestfriend/girlfriend) in great and hysterical to everyone but be detail in later blogs. I digress… Back to the cost of the repair. I cheated the system, did my research, told them what I wanted fixed and the cost was only $870. Hell yeah! I’ll show you! I’m no idiot! Little did I know…

I’m in this Too-Good-To-Be-True mood at 6:30 in the morning, being completely obnoxious. I was singing, dancing, laughing, and my favorite part: making Amanda smile and look at me in that “your a complete idiot” kind of a way that girlfriends do to boyfriends when they are acting silly. You ALL know exactly what I mean so don’t act all macho and pretend you don’t. So, as I’m bringing coffee to the princess in her chair where she does her hair and makeup (out of the kindness of my heart and because she does nice things for me all the time), I slip on her outrageously smooth hardwood floor and tweak my back. I’m 6’6” and fairly athletic so my back and knees have always been some what of a challenge for me. At the time it didn’t hurt all that badly and I was in such a good mood that it didn’t matter to me. I took an Advil and moved on.

We get in the car and head to the dealer, I’m still acting like an idiot and enjoying that twinkle that I bring to her eyes as I chair danced and sang my way to the dealership. The dealer wasn’t open for another 15 mins when she dropped me off so I went into the lobby and waited. As soon as I sit, I feel my back start to tense up and I already knew what was in store for me. See, when I feel my back start to tense up, I immediately know that it’s going to hurt like a son-of-a-bitch. But I hate complaining and I hate showing weakness even more so I pretend that it doesn’t exist. 7:30 hits, I pay for my car, and hop in… WINNER WINNER! The check engine light is off and I’m as pleased with myself as a teenage boy that just got to kiss the hot girl in a game of “spin the bottle”!

Alas, my elated state of mind was short lived. I make it no more than 1 mile down the road and the light comes back on! WTF, I call them and they say, “we told you that you needed to spend the extra money to fix it. We can get you back in next Monday, but it will be an additional $2,500 to get it fixed”. And this is where I started to fall from the could.

Now, a little background about me, I don’t handle assholes very well and I especially don’t handle people that try to screw me over. So I read this guy the riot act about, why would you not tell me that it was fixed, and why would you lie about test driving it, and what kind of a place would just let someone drive their car off their lot without telling them that it was fixed?!?! It, of course, did me no good. And now my mood is ruined. I decide that I’m not taking it back to them and I’ll get a second opinion.

But first, I head to my mom’s. I have my mail forwarded to her house, and it will be nice to sit and talk to her for a few. She was sleeping when I got there so I decide to go through my mail while I’m waiting for her to wake up… This was my second mistake. I find out that in January when I decided to go to the dentist and the doctor because my insurance was going to run out at the end of the month. So, needless to say, I see 3 bills that accumulate up to about $500 because my insurance declined all of them… “GREAT” I say to myself, something else that I have to deal with and fight through. I hate insurance companies and I always have since I was in an accident when I was younger and not only did they not cover me, they turned around and sued me for the damages from the other person in the accident (That’s a great story for another time also, I was sued buy a guy and his wife because he no longer could have sex with her after our 15 MPH accident). Now my mood is going from bad to worse. and by the time my mom was up, I was in such a bad mood that I didn’t even get to enjoy my time with her and I know she didn’t enjoy me being there. Remember what I said about my fragile relationships? Well moods like this don’t help them. But, I wasn’t thinking about that… NOPE! I was selfishly only thinking about myself and all of my problems. So I did the most logical thing, and instead of enjoying my time with my mom, I continued to grumpily go through the rest of my mail, and of course… the bad news wasn’t done piling up.

I open the next, very official looking, letter from the NJ Unemployment labor department. This letter states that the company that I left is declining my unemployment. AKA, the 8 weeks of unemployment I had been counting on is now no longer available to me. AWESOME! My will to hold on to my sanity was slowly detreating. But, all is not lost, because I now have a meeting scheduled with a NJ unemployment agent and I’m sure that after they hear about what happened, they will be on my side because it wasn’t exactly the greatest situation. (again, bear with me, I can only tell you so many things at a time).

So I trudge on, feeling pretty crummy. I stop at my Grandparents place, My grandmother isn’t doing all that great but she is always someone that I enjoy talking to. and my grandfather even helped me out because he knows a guy that works on cars. We went to see him and I plan to drop my Jeep off with him tomorrow morning to get that 2nd opinion.

Now, off to the gym because that always perks me up! But I cant stop the little voice in my head from pulling a full nose dive, tail spin towards the earth about the unemployment situation I’m in. I had depended on that money and without it, I’m in big trouble. So I’m sitting on the mat trying to stretch when I decide to message my old boss and HR manager. I spent the better part of an hour, on the floor, constructing my nasty-gram to them about “how could they do this to me after everything I did for them” and as I typed my little letter of hate, something happened.

I had a realization, an euphony… Another voice popped inside my head, the remanence of that cocky and confident 19 year old that I once was says, “You are Nick Mother-Fucking Merriman, why are you being such a little bitch? You have made it through so much more and much harder times than this. Get your ass up! Quit acting like an entitled brat and do something about it because no one else is going to!” At that moment my mood changed. Suddenly life wasn’t all that bad and all of the things that happened today were just tests to make sure that I still have the grit it takes to be who I want to be.

My workout ended up being really good, I went to the grocery store after to get some things I needed to make dinner, I came home and started writing down a game plan for how I plan to handle everything that happened.

See, what I realized is that things are going to happen. Sometimes many obstacles will hit at the same time. But nothing, absolutely nothing is insurmountable! and surely not this. Tomorrow I’m going to call each of the places and figure out what I need to do. because they are things that are out of my control and they are not going away, so the best way to get past them is to handle them and move on.

The reason I’m saying this, the moral of the story if you will, is because I want others to know that the path to building yourself up is not going to be a linear one. You will have ups and downs. Just like the metaphorical child you are in your transition, your metanoia, to becoming a better and different person, when the downs hit they will seem so much harder than they really are. If you are not careful and you let yourself get bogged down by the bumps in the road you will find yourself in a hole that keeps getting deeper.

The solution here is to take the bull by the horns and create a plan on how to overcome what comes your way. This is important for 2 reasons: 1) You will put the problems in the past and be able to move forward with a clear and open mind. 2) The pure act of checking things off of your list, no matter how small will make you fell better. Executing something that is productive will make you fell better just because you had a plan and you finished it. Trust me here when I tell you that the small wins are the ones that are going to keep you going.

All good things must come to an end and so shall this entry.

In the words of Chumbawamba “I get knocked down, but I get up again! Your never gonna keep me down”

Not All Who Wander Are Lost…

But all that are lost, wander…

Blogging, what a concept. My name is Nicholas, I go by Nick. I am a 32-year-old male (which technically and sadly puts me in the millennial’s group) and I am sitting in front of my computer about to do the most awkward thing I can imagine… Spill my guts about everything and nothing to everyone and no one. The worst part about starting is that I find myself to be at a standstill for the simple reason that I don’t know where to begin. I have lost who I am and I don’t remember where or when it happened. Hence this ambition I have to document “IT” on paper (or the internet in this case) in hopes that I may find myself within the words that my brain and fingers produce. If one sits and thinks deeply enough about the perplexing and oxymoronic situation that I find myself in; how can one write about the beginning or end if said person does not know when he or she stopped or started?” …Curiouser and Curiouser…

For the past 13 years, I have been slipping down a steep slope that I believe has become the “norm” for many Americans. I became so obsessed with defining my self-worth by how well I was doing at work and how badly I was needed to “fix the problem” that I was no longer the young, quick witted, eager, funny, and charming Nick Merriman that everyone knew and loved. OHH NOO…Not at all! I had become the older, out of shape, tired, cynical, red faced, balding, overburdened, and too-busy-for-you Nick Merriman that no one wanted to be around…

Luckily for me I was afforded a small window of lucidity, just a glimpse amongst the chaotic and unyielding events I called “A typical day”. My glimpse was of what life could be like if I found that young man of 19 years old and I instilled upon him a value that I never knew was important until now. Internal Happiness.

I would walk up to him, that smug son-of-a-bitch, and tell him, “life is about the memories you create. Don’t let your them be filled with anything other than events that will put a smile on your face when you look back.” Of course, my younger self would have very eagerly told me to get my fat, bald ass out of his way because he was “Going Places!” and nothing could stop him! Humphfff… Going places indeed! Insert eye roll for dramatic effect.

My slogan back then was:

“I’ma be what I set out to be
Without a doubt
Undoubtedly
And all those who look down on me
I’m tearing down your balcony”
– Marshal Mathers

However, everything happens for a reason. VALUES cannot be given, they must be earned. You cannot walk up to someone and tell them to hold a value that they do not yet understand. A value is something that you hold deeper than the legal and social laws that we govern ourselves by. A value is fought for, cried over, and believed in so strongly that it is what makes up the core of our being. A value is something that is NOT easily changed without the help of a major life event; and when one is changed, it will alter the way you perceive life and all things in it. And when you find yourself shaken to the knees and forced to start over because your life has been turned upside down. You become an infant, vulnerable, weak, and completely unsure of what to do or where to start. I know because this all has happened and is still happening to me. Which, luckily for me set into play a series of events that I have deemed to my own personal “Metanoia”. Hence the name of this online journal that we now call a blog for all to view.

Many of you do not know what metanoia is, which is perfectly fine with me because I am going to give you the definition of and explain what it means to me. The literal definition of Metanoia is: A change in one’s way of life resulting from penitence or spiritual conversion. Perhaps my favorite interpretation is this:

This definition is the one that I hold to be most true because I am on that journey. And until I saw the word “Metanoia” for the first time, painted on the back alley wall of a building in a po-dunk town in Tennessee, I was unable to explain the feelings that I had inside me. I was, and still am, very scared, confused, excited, nervous, anxious, happy, and angry because I felt like after 32 years I finally realized something as simple and basic as 2+2=4 . I opened my eyes and finally asked the questions, “Why am I working 80 hours a week? Who is it for? What purpose was I serving? and WHY AM I NOT HAPPY?”. The last one was a rhetorical question because I knew why I just didn’t know how to change it. Let me be clear, I still don’t know how to fix it completely I am as broken as a slinky that was pulled on too hard, and now I’m tumbling down the stairs. But the first step to recovery is to admit that you are broken. And so my journey to recovery begins. One step in the right direction.

After realizing that something was wrong I decided that I needed to take action. I did the most difficult thing I have ever had to do and I cut out everything about my personal and professional life that I knew was toxic, EVERYTHING. Currently, as we speak, all of the pieces of my old life are still falling to the ground. Fragmented shadows of who I was. However, this time I’m going to be very particular about the pieces I pick up. And I’m going to burn the rest of the pieces without looking back. After that moment when I realized that my life could be better and that I didn’t have to continue living the way I was. After that first step, I could see “IT”… whatever “IT” is.

It was recommended to me to blog about how I feel and what I’m going through. Something that would be good for me and maybe even help others in the process. However, that was over a month ago and I brushed the suggestion off. I thought I would handle my stress and anxiety on my own until realized that I needed to do something to get my head straight. My “way” of handling all of my issues was to swallow them deep down inside me and pretend they didn’t exist. SPOILER ALERT, bottling up all of these emotions will not only drive me completely crazy but it will ruin what little relationships I have left with my friends, family, and loved ones. But we will talk about that later.

So here I am, this is my first blog. As I go through this journey I’ll do my best to document not only how I am feeling but what I am doing to improve my mental and physical health as I discover myself again. I have plans in motion that I will share with you as this blog progresses but most importantly, I plan on covering a lot of ground on finding the answers to the following questions: “How did I get where I am?” and “What am I going to change in the future to prevent this?” I’m lost and broken now, but I see the white hare in the distance and I’m hot on his trail. (big Alice in Wonderland Fan if you couldn’t tell).

“Life is about the memories you create.” (coined by your’s truly) and I plan to start making some really good memories. So sit back and buckle up because I have a lot of time and a pretty good story to tell.