choking on my pride...

It should come as no surprise to anyone reading this that swallowing my pride is a genetically ingrained difficulty that I sometimes have varied success with.  Lately its more like varied failure.

Between not having health, not riding bikes, not having a job, or any fucking idea when or what I will be doing next, not having rich parents to pay for my language school, not having language school to get a proper visa, not smiling as a result of all of the above, and having to bear my ass for more than one peer group I have swallowed enough pride to be full for a while.  Its been only short glimpses of normal Scott and a whole lot of shitty negative depressed Scott lately.

I actually tried to make a list of the things I have going for me here right now so that I could change  my perspective a little.  It was not a very fruitful exercise.  But one of the things I do feel I have here right now is community.  I have friends.  Really good friends.  friends who despite the language barriers are there to listen and to add a little uplifting insight or another solution, or just to go sit in a quiet museum as the rain starts to roll in again.  I have friends to hold my hand when I feel a breakdown coming on, and I have friends who have opened their homes to me in my time of need.  I have friend who are certified to push acupuncture needles way into my ass, hook them up to car batteries and zap my nerves back to health.  And all of this is great... but its starting to feel like a band-aid on a cut artery.

Not having work, not making anything with my hands, not riding my bikes or ANYTHING physical for that matter (doctors orders) not seeing the sun, not playing outside, and not being able to see a time when those things will resolve themselves is getting to be a heavy cross to carry around.  A trip to the beach, a found bicycle, a movie to escape for a bit, a couple joints, a drink when the sun goes down, a fucking bath for Christ's sake, a walk, some art, space to write, and all the time in the world to chisel away at that list of things I cant do in the summer months due to a lack of time, is no match for the crippling depression of being fired from work, waiting to find out what is next, and feeling like the language and cultural barriers are too great for whatever is next to happen here in Italy.  Will I get to meet Livia's Baby?  Will I get to see Tony Dragoni running around the beaches of Marche next summer?  Will I get to do another mountain bike ride with Santo Claudio?  Will I have to settle on skype and email and FaceBook with the friends I have made here as my only form of communication like I have to with the friends back in the States?  Am I losing my community again?

The idea of community is one that strikes a strong chord with me.  Last year I read a book that was given to me by a friend who has come along way mentally and emotionally since I met him back in 1997 that characterized me (based on qualifying questions) as a "communal tool user, independent thinker, and emotive nostalgic communicator" a definition I have to agree with and one that spells disaster for my current situation.  I have community here.  Its helping me as much as it can, and yet I am haunted by my past, and retreating into an oppositional frame of reference that is screaming at me to RUN!

Run before you ruin these friendships with your bitching, before you get busted for being here illegally, before you alienate those who really do love you, before you fuck things up like you always do.

This is how my overactive mind wakes me up in the morning.  And I don't know what to do to fix it.  Cause that's what I do - I fix things.  I fix bikes, I make it look easy, I explain it so you can do it too next time, so you feel more self sufficient, so you don't have to be dependant on others to do what you love to do.  And yet here I am, dependant on others, with no foreseeable path to fixing what is broken. 

Except the WAIT.  Waiting for email responses, waiting for the doctors ok to ride a bike, waiting for job offers to come through, waiting to be told to fuck off, waiting for the rain to stop in this cafe, waiting for sleep to be less fitful, waiting for permission to live, waiting for an answer... or at least a question I know the answer to.  Waiting for that lump in my throat that is certainly my stubborn pride to go down.

waiting...
waiting...
waiting....

S.