Maybe I'm Crazy

         Maybe you think I’m crazy for nakedly sharing how I feel on a website. Closer to the truth, maybe I think I’m crazy. Maybe I am. But there are worse things than being bonkers. Being asleep at the wheel, for one thing. Which is what I was for over a year and a half after my dad died.
         Those were My Dark Ages. Twenty months of sleep walking through life. Six-hundred days of not knowing who the hell I was or what the fuck I was doing. The “Who”, the “What”, and the “Why” of my life were questions that I grappled with long before my dad passed away. I was actively engaged in a quest. After he died, I went into depression. And although I was doing most of the same things I was doing while he was alive, I stopped involving myself in finding any answers. I was just going through the motions. I didn’t believe that I would ever find what I was looking for. In fact, I no longer knew what I was looking for. And I stopped believing that I would ever find any relief in the answers if I found them. So why bother searching? All of a sudden, absolutely nothing made sense. Nothing mattered.  
         Pundits speak of "The Big Three" changes that create maximum stress and trauma in one's life. Death. Moving. Divorce. In the span of nine months, I experienced the first two outright, a taste of the last, and a bludgeoning of a few other losses. My father was dead. I moved out of my home. My girlfriend of over four years and I split. And the hits kept coming. My band, which was like a great little boys club, broke up. I loved the guys in my band. Still do. My twin brother, one of those band members, and I had a huge falling out. I had been estranged from most of my family for quite some time. But after my dad died. whatever emotional connection I had left to them basically disappeared. There seemed to be this vacuum that was sucking away everything that I cared about in my life. I unconsciously determined that the only way I could handle all of this was to stop feeling.
         All this pain inside of me had no place to go. But it had to go somewhere. It had to be released. So it started eating it’s way out of me. Like an tiger trapped in a cage made of raw meat. The animal had to be free. And if I had to be eaten alive in the process, so be it. And that’s exactly what started happening.
        I used to think that depression was when I felt so much pain that I got...depressed. But that’s not it. Depression happened when I stopped feeling, and then turned those feelings against myself. All that anger became self anger. All the hurt became ammunition in a merciless barrage of self-criticism and self-judgment. In order for my pain to eat itself out of me, it had to get positively aggressive. It had to turn itself against me. Which it did. As a result, I hated myself. I hated my life.
        I had people in my life who loved me, but I couldn’t feel it. I knew it, but I couldn’t feel it. Because I couldn’t find one drop of self love anywhere within me. It didn’t matter what they said or did, because I was still no fuckin’ good. These people could see that I was in pain, but they didn't know just how bad it was. I couldn’t possibly let them in on that. Because that’s about as unattractive as it gets. They see that, they are gone. Then I’m really alone. I didn’t see a way out.  
       Before I became too self destructive, I broke out of that self manifested hell and into a whole new world. And I’ll tell you more about that another time.
       What happened to me during My Dark Ages, both internally and externally, set me up for the transformation that I experienced this past summer. This worst period of my life actually helped me heal.
       Let me leave you with this. Real Change is possible. Outright Metamorphosis does happen. More often than we know. Even though I asked to change, prayed for it, for years, I never thought it would happen to me (does that sound too much like the beginning of a Penthouse Forum story?). But it did happen. I changed. Dramatically. From the inside. If you want it bad enough, keep asking for it, keep doing for it, you shift. Not necessarily when we want, and usually not through the door we expect. I'll be writing more about my story. I'd love to hear some of yours. Go to the Life Change page and tell about something that changed your life. Or post a comment.

© Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and Wrongs) Reserved

I encourage Comments. So let me hear you.

Dress Without Repress

        Have you ever wondered why you look great in certain outfits but in others you could haunt a house? Women probably have, but not many men give this question much thought. I have. And like everything else, it’s an inside job.
        If what you’re wearing reflects who you are on the inside, you look like a million bucks. Regardless of what you have on. You feel great wearing what’s you, and you exude a palpable ease and confidence.
        Put me in a pair of khakis. Really nice ones that fit great and that are ironed. Better yet, pleated. Add any pair of shoes that go with khakis and make them brown. Give me a collared shirt with an insignia over the left or right nipple. What do you have? A Nightmare. The kind that makes you wake up sweating and screaming for your teddy bear. Why? Because those clothes have absolutely nothing to do with what’s inside of me.
        Years ago, when I was young and foolish, I would let my girlfriends “dress me”. After the torture session, they would stand back and say “You look so nice!”.  I would stand there mortified, my head flush with blood, dreading being seen in public donning this clown outfit. Which is exactly what it felt like. Because in their quest to fashionably domesticate me, they were choosing only what they liked, with precious little regard for what I liked. They would mutate my style so drastically that it wasn’t remotely me anymore. And isn't love about letting someone be themselves, fashion sense (or senseless) and all, and loving them precisely for that?
        I’m not saying that women can’t help their men dress. It’s actually fun when they do. Sometimes even necessary. But it’s only a good trip when women work with their man, not against him. Guys, if you have to wear a monkey suit, then choose your monkey. Make it a suit you’re totally into. Make it, for example, a purple suit that’s professionally tailored. I have a suit like that. Love it. If the event is so conservative that a purple suit would get you arrested (there are events this stuffy, although I’ve thankfully never been to one), then go with something that’s still you within the parameters of the occasion. In every situation, there are options available that don't completely compromise who you are and what you want to wear.
        Male or female, it’s true that if you’re secure enough with who you are, you can wear anything and feel okay. But I’m not talking about feeling okay. Life is too short to settle for feeling “okay” when you can feel “Kick Ass”.
        So dress as yourself, whatever that means, always. If the event warrants a wig and spandex pants, like say a “Rock Star” Party, then by all means gentlemen, start your engines. Don’t let woman have all the fun. Always Dress to Kick Ass. For me, sometimes that means a long leather coat, jeans, and a t-shirt. Or maybe black vinyl pants and a shirt covered in tiny red mirrors. Another favorite are shorts and a flannel shirt (my current attire). Better yet, shorts and no shirt (my usual attire). It doesn’t matter. If it’s you, really you, it’s hot. Now excuse me while I get naked. That’s what feels like me at the moment. I’m taking a shower. Outside. No stall. No neighbors within three hundred feet. Looking out at the ocean. Now THAT kicks ass.

© 2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and Wrongs) Reserved

I encourage Comments. So let me hear you.

Getting Into...Not Falling

        In my past intimate relationships, I always resisted falling too hard. That’s probably a common male phenomenon. Many men look at love as something that happens to them, not something they happen to. I don’t feel that way anymore, but I used to. When a guy believes that something is “happening” to him, there is usually an automatic, primitive response: Fear. Men believe that they are always supposed to be in control. It’s a fucked up mind set, but it is present, to some degree, within the deep recesses of the male mind. It’s evolutionary. It’s primitive. It’s survival based.  And it’s constantly reinforced by society, by culture, by other men, and even sometimes by women. This paradigm has functioned, or disfunctioned, for thousands of years. But it’s an outdated model.     
       When I did fall in love, it felt just like that: falling. I fell yesterday. Off of my bike. It sucked. The best thing I can hope for after a fall is to get my ass up and say “I’m, okay. I’m not dead.” I pull myself up from the pavement, brush off whatever is stuck to me, lick my wounds, and hop back on the bike. There’s usually some short lived euphoria and gratitude that I’m still alive. But that’s it. “I survived” is the best I can do. Ya-Hoo. Why the hell would any man look forward to that?
       What I need is a new phrase. “Falling” In Love just doesn’t work for me. If I can metaphorically compare the greatest experience on earth with taking a spill off of my eighteen speed, then the analogy is tragically flawed.
       How about “Getting Into Love”? That’s much better. Like “getting into”
 a Ferrari. Or “getting into” a great song. Tell me that doesn’t sound better than “falling” off of a ladder.  When I “get into” something, as opposed to “fall” into something, everything is different. First of all, “Getting Into” implies that I have a choice, even if it’s not a completely conscious one. And I believe that as adults, we do choose, consciously and unconsciously, who we love. “Getting Into” is something to relish, to look forward to, to savor, to enjoy. “Falling” is something I try to avoid. And when it starts happening anyway, I usually hurt myself even more by trying to stop it. “Getting Into” is a wonderful, beautiful, spiritual process. When I “Get Into” a piece of music, or a movie, or any work of art (which a woman definitely is), I’m completely enthralled. I show up, as myself, one-hundred percent. That’s a much better experience than wiping out on my bike.
       Guys love to “get into”...well...you name it. A band, a car, a new piece of loud machinery, a sport, their lover. A guy who’s “into” something is happy, energized, passionate, attentive, open to the experience, present, content, and himself. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to be when you’re in love with somebody? Isn’t that what men want to be? Isn’t that what women want their man to be with them?   
       Maybe “falling in love” doesn’t work for woman anymore either. Either way, I’ll stick with “Getting Into Love”. It’s a far more user friendly description of what is essentially a spiritual experience. It's more from the heart, and more in tune with my male psyche. And it doesn’t suggest that I’m taking an unplanned, unwanted free fall into a pool with no water.  
       “Getting Into Love” is similar to anything a guy gets into, but far more intense. Like the best thing you’ve ever dreamed of, amped up even further. Past ten. Past eleven. Think about guitars, cars, drums, motorcycles, football, power tools, boats, and countless other things guys get into. They stay into them for life. And these are only things. The woman a man truly loves is infinitely more beautiful, alluring, fascinating, passionate, sexy, fun, challenging, wonderful, awe-inspiring, sensitive, responsive, and life-affirming than anything else a guy could possibly imagine. With the possible exception of a metallic purple and copper 1967 Corvette convertible with a 427 and a window shattering, 500 watt stereo system. No wait, scratch that. That's just my primitive brain talking. My heart knows the truth. A woman I’m completely in love with is infinitely better than anything I ever dreamed of. Even the ‘Vette.

© 2008 Clint Piatelli. All Rights (and Wrongs) Reserved

I encourage Comments. So let me hear you.