It's all in me and it's all on me... "Finally," (in the rock voice).

To so unceremoniously infer that my mental welfare was a distant second to the whereabouts of the dog let me know where I stand. Combine that with more than a couple of elevated cleaning/purging sprees to counter the hoarding that surrounded me like a virus, and it was obvious to see where I stood in my mothers’ eyes: as a problem.

Her material stuff mattered more than my mental sanity. Her Canine meant more to her than her Chris.

This is not to knock my mother in the least. I’m obviously biased, but in less than hyperbolic terms I have long referred to her as the world’s best mother, having been there every step of the way for me for a solid 30 and one half years. She had been my rock, a beacon in the darkness, and a hero, yet the toll of my cumulative toll of my diagnosis on the family and apparently her peace of mind had become too much to bear.

Because many of her possessions had been moved, rearranged, and some of the junk simply tossed to preserve my sanity, her peace of mind was impacted. From the Beta, incident forward I was on thin ice, knowing my days at the house were numbered.

Fast forward a couple of months, and with the pressure to leave mounting, I finally said fuck it. The under the breath, indirect comments pointing the door, left me with no other reasonable, sanity-maintaining alternative than to hit the homeless shelter.

During that time, I began working at Whole Foods. It is a wonderful company and everything is run like a well-oiled machine from top to bottom. In terms of my desire for cleanliness, order, and efficiency, it has met and exceeded my expectations. The customers are happy to shop there, and my co-workers may as well compose a model UN. The produce apartment alone, for example,  is comprised of Latinos hailing from any number of companies. Mad cool, and it gives me the always appreciated opportunity to bring out the Spanish, having ‘em think I’m from the Dominican or something is always fun to me.

With cash in my pocket, and EBT that hits on the seventh of every month, despite the what could be seen as bleak circumstance, the depression which gripped me mercilessly throughout my 20’s has yielded to an ever-present optimism, and as corny as it may sound a gratefulness to be alive having endured it all and come out stronger and richer (eh, well in spirit, at least through it all).

Atlanta was a truly transformative time, and though it was fraught with curveball after change-up, after beanball, it brought me back to life. It was an assist from a friend who saw his comrade hurting, and though things didn’t work out as originally planned, they worked out all for the good, as they always do, even when it may not seem so.

Now I find myself four months shy of 31, and feel incredibly blessed at this particular juncture to have everything falling on me, without the necessity to deal with anyone else’s non-sense. Though I wouldn’t go so far to call myself a loner, when left alone to isolate then integrate when it makes sense to do is when I’m at my best.

Due to an exceptional flood of scholarship monies saved up throughout college (roughly 20K) and an additional 50K via an inheritance, I was essentially retired from 2004 to the summer of 2007. Money was not an issue, and not having yet found a place or reason to work with that much dough in the bank, I was living life somewhat recklessly from a financial standpoint, but it was part of a long healing process, rebounding from the heartbreak of losing my college sweetheart, Brenda.

Though my sancha (Mexican slang for sidechick/mistress) was also my heart, looking to her to heal the pain of a love lost, was an idea whose foolishness was reflective of the desperate circumstance in which I perceived myself to be floundering in.

Next up on the save-a-drowning-Negro list was graduate school. That was a no go, and to be honest, college was just something I did because it was always expected of me. Though I achieved, there was never any conception, let alone desire to continue my studies along any set career path.

The cult of productivity, which demands that we do something, more than anything pressured me to go back to school, but given everything I was dealing with outside of the classroom, a year’s worth of credit and a lifetime worth of lessons were earned.

As it regards both my love life and school life, it is best as the Notorious BIG cautioned, to “only make moves when your heart’s in it.”

When you half-step, pump-fake, or bullshit, you end up playing yourself in the end. And forget about taking short cuts as they undoubtedly end up cutting you short. Life is a continual process of paying dues and sacrificing to reach your next goal be it immediate, eventual, or ultimate.

For the sake of reflection and projection of the instability that gripped me since my post collegiate life until very recently, where insanity has given way to a long ago lost focus, I composed a timeline for myself, which I will share here for posterity’s sake if nothing else in my next post.