The Futon

I’ve kept it hidden in my spare bedroom, the one room in the house that I haven’t finished unpacking or setting up. It lays there, black and menacing, covered with guitars and boxes and other spare parts that I haven’t figured out what to do with yet. It’s a black, Ikea futon that folds in half to make a couch. Nothing fancy at all… we bought a year ago so my exes daughter could have a place to sleep in the office of the rental we had. After the breakup, I traded my punching bag setup to her in exchange for a place to sleep as I had nothing.

I slept on that thing for two out of the four months of my “homeless” stage. It’s awful. My legs stick off the end of it and there is a metal pole that runs down the middle so you have to straddle it on other side. If you sleep on it wrong, your hands and your feet will go numb.

Before I moved to Texas, this was one of the last things I had in the back of my truck. My dad asked me one more time if I wanted to take the futon with me. I paused, drug my feet, then decided “what the hell, I’ll bring it so I can always remember where I came from.” Now, I feel a mix of emotions with it… I am both grateful for overcoming this and the life I have now, but at the same time I see this black, menacing figure lurking in the corner of the room as a constant reminder that I wasn’t good enough. It’s my choice to determine the narrative…

Beds are deeply personal things… It where dreams are made… sometimes babies… it’s a place of refuge, comfort, intimacy, rest… a big reset button. Sometimes it’s a place of safety, where you can truly drop your guard down. You should go to bed every night and feel safe, and if you don’t, well then that’s a BIG fucking problem.

I make my bed every morning, still… it’s ritualistic.

I lay on this futon, again, the other night, soaking in the memories. It hurts more now than it did back in March. It makes me wonder how the hell I was able to sleep on this piece of shit for so long… makes me feel guilty that I subjected a kid to sleeping on this just so I had an office to work. The reason why it hurts more, I believe, is that I wasn’t numbed with desperation and despair. The same way homeless people can sleep on the concrete next to a busy street… when you’re desperate, pain just hits different. It makes me feel so sad for them, as they don’t have a warm, soft, safe place to reset their minds and bodies… to provide the basic framework for them to heal and get on the right path.

And so I sit, and lay on this futon, and think about the past year of my life… I think about this journey… and I think about how I feel towards it. Truthfully? I feel numb to it all… and I don’t know if that’s because I’ve reached a place of transcendence where I have come to accept certain things or if this is a coping mechanism I’ve developed. Maybe it’s a little bit of both.

I was reading “Whole Again” by Jackson MacKenzie, which helps one understand their type and how to heal from toxic or emotionally abusive situations. It’s one of the many books I’ve read over the course of this journey, as I try to figure out what’s “wrong” with me and how I can be a better partner for the next person. I’ve had to come to some honest realizations that I myself am a codependent, constantly afraid that I’ll ruin my relationships by acknowledging reality. The last two years, starting with my trauma from my employer to present day, have compounded this complex case of PTSD where even the slightest criticism makes my stomach oily. I still occasionally get nightmares and bouts where my head spins and I want to shrink back into nothingness. Such a shame for someone who used to be so bold and stood so tall. I’m learning to stand that way again… I’m almost there. My reaction to it is to be hypervigilant, overly analytical, and make my life’s work this crusade on healing myself and others (*cough.. this blog… *cough). To think my way out of the problem I’m in.

“Look at your own coin,” Megan, my girlfriend, pleads to me. The black Axios coin I give to people, that says “I am worthy” is the same coin I carry around myself. But I carry it so I can give it to someone who needs it. Maybe it belonged to me all along.

But maybe, just maybe, I’m not the one who should be doing all the work.

Maybe… just maybe… there was nothing wrong with me to begin with, save for some codependency issues (which who all doesn’t have SOME issue?). Maybe, as I stare at this futon as a cold reminder that I wasn’t enough, that in reality I really was enough… and I still am enough, and always will be enough. Maybe I am perfect, just the way I am and I’ve been so focused on what’s wrong with me rather than what’s right. That I:

• Am kind to all kinds. That I don’t care if you’re black, white, brown, atheist, religious, democrat, or republican… just so long as you aren’t a piece of shit.

• Am giving/generous of my time, money, focus, emotions, etc.

• Go out of my way to help people, including volunteering a lot of my time (and money) for good causes.

• Am supportive my partners needs and dreams. I’ll make you coffee in the morning, help you with your homework, cook you dinner, clean your house, or do whatever you need in that moment to feel supportive… without expectations, quid pro quo bullshit, or the need to keep a tally on it.

• Am adventurous in both actions and ideas. That I’m just as down to go deep sea fishing as I am to explore deep philosophies on a couch with some friends.

• Am creative in both work and my personal life. I can write you a poem, draw a picture of you, or figure out a solution to a complex problem.

• Am well read and well spoken. That I can talk to anybody about just about anything.

• Am curious, where I am constantly learning about the world around me.

• Am determined and resourceful as FUCK.

I think after a break up or after a conflict we focus on what we can change; it gives us a sense of control. But maybe it’s not us who needs to change and that’s difficult to understand in a world so bent on control. I don’t need to change, and I can’t change them. Accepting this is what brings peace. Sometimes you have to accept that you are perfect, just the way you are, and sometimes you need to understand that you are the problem. Wisdom is knowing the difference.

I am tired of constantly analyzing myself to be better for someone else, when I should be better for me. I’m tired of paying for the sins of peoples fucked up, abusive, immoral past partners. It’s not fair to me, especially when I do not do the same to others.

I promised myself that I’d never be controlled again. That I would never let someone, spouse or otherwise, have so much control over me that I couldn’t up and walk away. I wouldn’t put myself in a financial or emotional situation in which I felt trapped and unable to speak my mind without having them hold me hostage. “I can’t leave because I’m financially dependent on them,” “I can’t express my needs as they will be turned back on me,” “I can’t rock the boat because I don’t want to lose my home that I put time and effort into creating.” I’ll never put myself in a situation where I have to live on a futon ever again.

I’m changing the narrative on the futon. Often times people think happiness is achieved in a relationship, with kids, with stuff to surround themselves with or degrees and achievements. True happiness comes from something deeper… unshakable… something that can’t be taken away. That happiness comes from a place within… it isn’t given by the external world (partners, stuff, jobs, friends, etc. aka the stuff that can be taken away) but from something internal of which you all have to figure that out on your own. You’ll never understand what true happiness is unless you can be it alone, sitting on a shitty futon, with nothing to your name.

UPDATE: I have since donated the Futon to the local Women’s Shelter… it felt like the fitting thing to do.