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[inhishandsbook-blog]

Enough

While at a cafe, directly under my apartment building across the street form the original Barney’s in New York City on  16th street and 7th avenue, where my father would take me to buy clothes as a young boy. I realized the symbolism of the location to my personal history. It was repeating itself in new but familiar  locations.  Enough with the books, enough with the practices they were becoming exercises in my routine. I had no real deadline, no one telling me OK now you have to take the test now. I knew this, I am a bright person, well educated, accomplished, and most certainly well read on the topic.

I just needed to find the sky captain to take my old bags and check them on a flight they would get lost on so I could find a new way.

What was I doing? All of this stuff I put my self through was not being put to use, it was misplaced knowledge of somewhat connected activities. I was not applying it to my plight in life. I was in pursuit of finding the happy me but I needed to create  the happy me. If it was to be, it was up to me, me, the single entity that needed to get it. What was distracting, preventing me from making it happen?  There I was, on the beach again  left with the common denominator, me!  

[inhishandsbook-blog]

No matter where you go,there you are.

My thoughts of finding what I had lost and hiding from myself had been in the making for many years.  My self-search was occupied with therapy sessions, Prozac, holistic healing therapies, yoga, meditation, volumes of self help and spiritual readings and various other awakening tactics. You see, on the train to enlightenment it appeared, I was on the local. 

It was a long time coming but a new reality smacked me in my face on a summer day at the beach while starring out at the ocean. I realized wherever I went, there I was.  I don’t mean it in the literal physical sense but in the spiritual healing sense. 

Short cut, you bring your baggage with you. All that I achieved, all the work I had done was still not quite enough. What was it, how do I re-program myself.  I needed to change, the constant feeling of living life on the periphery and numb was no longer cutting it. I moved from place to place, situation to situation, partner to partner, but yet I had not yet changed my approach to life.

[inhishandsbook-blog]

How Did I Get Here

Numbing myself along with my true desires was in the making since I was a young boy.

I was born into a dysfunctional family, no surprise as many of us have. My story, circumstances or contributing factors to my behavior are many.  I was raised or better stated, am, an offspring along with seven sisters and two brothers, to a dominating, erratic and emotionally abusive father, and a victimized and manically depressed mother.

That’s right you counted correctly, ten including me.

Yes, we were Catholic, not practicing Catholics but Catholic enough especially when it came to not wearing condoms. When asked about my parents I usually say they were narcissist. Much that occurred revolved around my father’s needs and my mother’s moods and neurosis.

Oh I forgot, a secondary factor, overbearing Italian and one last ingredient, Dad, was a made man in one of New York’s mafia families. Yup, all true and part of my psychological ingredients. I could go on for pages. Actually I did in my first novel In His Hands, a fictionalized version of my growing up in a mafia family.

My circumstances rendered me to be obedient, focused and repressed. But the events of my past needed to be removed from my future or I would be crippled. 

[inhishandsbook-blog]

It is time

I have always persevered against all odds throughout my life, Growing up in an volatile abusive household- and making my own way out. Being sexually molested and-staying the course to not be victimized. Being gay in a corporate world and becoming a C Suite executive. 

As far as I was concerned, I was a step ahead. I knew I had developed business ideas for others and made things happen on the corporate dime, so now it was time for me to find the who and what of things I could drive. 

I wasn't delusional, I knew it was a matter of time before my severance would run out. I vowed and held onto that old saying. You know the one, "Do what you love and the money will follow."

It was time for me to find what I loved and tell my story.

[inhishandsbook-blog]

Tear it Up

I was like a kid on that snow day, but rather than shaking snow off my boots, I was eager to shake the corporate skin off of me. I had to fulfill a long standing burning desire to rid myself of all that reminded me of the 9-5 me I was. 

 I headed for my clothes closet, and threw all of my business attire to the floor.  Standing in a heap of shirts, ties and suits, I began to destroy them. Some I did with my bare hands, others with a good steak knife. Don't get alarmed, I didn't become psychotic, and I was sensible, donating most of them. But the act was so exhilarating and the joy of releasing my desire overwhelming.  There I stood, in boxer shorts and a t-shirt, sweating from the victory over a three piece suit. 

When asked, how leaving felt, by those who questioned my steps I compared it to a snake shedding it's skin; you are alone, the process is slow but the brilliance of a new skin and growth was worth it. 

Of course there were many who questioned or judged, why I would walk away from the money and the esteem that I acquired on the rise up the corporate ladder.  Most who asked were “friends”  who I basically ignored; as  I was more focused on my journey and could care less about their judgments.

[inhishandsbook-blog]

The Morning After

The morning after a snow storm is the best way I can describe my emotional state after leaving my corporate job. My thoughts of what was to become of me  were as clean as a new canvas. Nothing disturbed, a new path to create, tracks to be discovered and a sense of relief that the storm was over.