I settled into my new home in Texas, even had a few dates, but I knew what was coming, what I needed to get through to get on to “next.” The hurricane was coming and I knew there was nothing I could do about it.
The working title of my biography about my mother was, “Hurricane Warning.” Her official diagnosis was “bipolar disorder with schizophrenic tendencies,” but the diagnosis paled in comparison to the reality. On a scale from 1-10, with 10 being the most severe, my mother was an 11. Think Class 5+ hurricane.
Comparing my mother’s illness to a hurricane is accurate. Decades before, we had all learned the signs the episode was coming, like watching a tropical storm form in the Atlantic. Then, you just had to wait. You either prepared the best you could to ride out the storm or you ran like hell.
I had run a few times but realized I could never run far enough.
You watch the weather channel until you lose power. The hurricane gains in strength and lumbers slowly towards landfall.
My mother’s illness was the exact same.
In Texas, I watched my hurricane lumber towards me.
Hell, I knew it was coming. I was off my meds, waiting for a doctor’s appointment to get more, had to start fighting with him to get the right ones, and all of my triggers were firing. So, I settled in to wait out the storm.
I couldn’t smoke in my house, my smoking spot out back got cold, so I set something up with a chair and table in my garage. It might not seem like the best storm shelter, but it would do. I knew I would make it, but I also knew it was going to be painful.
The worst winter in three decades in Texas where heat and power were lost? That didn’t help things, but not the way you might think. In tough situations, I’m at my best. I even contacted the local police department to offer my services. I knew how to drive on slick roads. They obviously did not.
My father called me and said my city made national news. Television coverage from an icy hill in Liberty Hill shows many, many drivers attempting to make it up the hill, and failing miserably to slide back down, smashing into parked and moving cars on the way.
People also started dying.
It gave me ideas. Bad ideas. I would sit in my garage at night and smoke cigarettes and cry. Daytime found me shaking and crying on my sofa. Pain was raking me like the storm surges.
Long ago, I had discarded all of the means for suicide. I won’t list them here. I was taught a new way during that frigid winter in Texas. People were dying by starting up their cars for warmth in their garages and then falling asleep to never awake.
The planning took hold of me to push away the pain at times. I would sit there in the dim lights, smoke my cigarettes, stare at my car, and see where I would have to duct tape the garage door. It just seemed so easy. Tape everything up, start up the car, put the right songs on, have a cigarette, and then drift to sleep.
Simple. Too simple to completely ignore and discard.
I write a lot about it in my book on depression, “A Walk In My Shoes.”
The eye of Hurricane Andrew passed a mile south of campus in Miami as a class 4/5 hurricane. The destructive power that was the air itself was intense. Neighborhoods and lives were destroyed.
The eye of my hurricane finally passed. Heat and water returned as the days warmed back up to Texas normal. I got back on the right meds. All of my triggers were still firing, but I had better ways to deal with it. I started my job search, started yoga, and made it a point to visit my friends once a week no matter how bad I just wanted to curl up on the sofa.
I finally found a job working for an incompetent nitwit, but the pay was okay, and it gave me a challenge to dive into. I needed to navigate around the worst of the incompetence, but that was where I was at my best.
Brandon Owen, the nitwit, incompetent owner of KLOwen, would eventually screw me, but I was expecting it. In the meantime, I began putting together the pieces for “next.” I got my swagger back. I finished the first draft of “Disconnected.” I started seeing a personal trainer and began learning more about mindfulness.
I also struggled. Liberty Hill was not home. I knew that when I moved there. But where was it?
I was pissed. Somewhere along the now over 50,000 miles I drove, through all 50 states, something was supposed to reach out to me, grab me, and scream, “YOU BELONG HERE.” Never happened.
In July or so of 2022, I finally was let go from KLOwen.
You still owe me money, Brandon! Prick.
So, for the third time in three years, I started selling everything off again. I still had no idea where to go, but I did know what I was working towards. Authenticity. Peace. Forgiveness. Live aloha.
[I know, I know: singling out Brandon Owen, the only doctor I don’t use the title with, is not living aloha. Aye, you can take the boy out of SW Philly but getting the SW Philly out of the boy takes an exorcism. I’m working on it.]
I was offered an interesting opportunity in Tijuana, Mexico. Cheap living, good food, easy access to meds and medical care, and an opportunity to hunker down and start putting the pieces of my life back together. I said yes.
I had realized something in Texas while working on my book. I was not trying to reinvent myself. I was not trying to relive my youth. I was trying to get back to the person I was, and liked, decades before. It meant a shifting of priorities, a shift in the way I looked at things, undoing the hard wiring that I had done to myself.
Whatever anybody thought, Mexico seemed like the best place to get started.
It also seemed like a hell of a lot of fun and an exciting opportunity to make really bad decisions that would keep things interesting.