going loonier than a tune!

freeze dress for Florida a photo by jayfherron on Flickr.

The date is here. I have not stacked or packed or much of anything,except my papers are in a neat stack,this I know.

It had not seemed to bother me at all,and I’m not sure if what I am feeling is ‘bothered’ or anxiety driven adrenalin. Friday I have to be near port,Sunday the ship leaves,but could leave Saturday too. I have been assured of my place in life…”you are not the important one” meaning if I don’t get there when beckoned I ain’t going.

All of this because I am boarding a freighter for six weeks. Months ago I saw it as a way to re-live something lost long way back in the Navy. Now that it is here I feel like James Brown practicing his strut before a concert…I am so wired I am walking around the house with that energy he had.

Honestly,interesting to me,I can’t remember anything present. I am trying to figure out what needs to be done next. I have only managed to wash a dish and a bowl. The reality of how huge this is what I am doing has me feeling like I am up off the ground about 10 or 12 feet and looking down at the progress of my day. I haven’t felt this weird since one or many of my sessions with Charlotte (my former therapist) where the time would spent together would be so intense that the day on through I felt slugged and like I was wading through mud.

I have not packed a thing.

The person driving me wants to pull his travel trailer…he said we could only go about 55 mph. I could not sleep,the idea kept scaring the shit out of me. I kept waking up and voicing out loud from my sleep…I can’t go 55 mph on the Interstate highway with a driver pulling a travel trailer,pure insane. As my practice of going to strange places I drove to the ship terminal that I am to go to and the cars were going faster than me,and I was going 80. the thought of 55 mph was working at me bad. Thankfully my driver is agreed with me guiding us all the way by back roads.

I have no clue of for what?? Where am I going to go? I have no idea.

Peace

in two for six

the ship a photo by jayfherron on Flickr.

This has been a difficult time.

I began writing this journal of my life as a male survivor (dumb word) of ‘military sexual trauma’ (MST) only because through the recommendation of the Veterans Hospital near my home led me to appeal for disability from the VA. Doing that I had to go file this claim in my home county at a DVA representatives office. There I told my story to an absolute stranger who was supposed to be an advocate and counselor for veterans, but he had absolutely no understanding outside of the normal and was unable to comprehend that rape is not a sexual contact. He was perplexed that “homosexuals needed a reason to rape each other” which is a statement that can be compared in ignorant values in more ways than one…hoe stupid can somebody be? Also,to cap it off…the man could not accept my attackers were white.

Advocacy? No,not from that point of view.

I’ve said this over and over,I spent three attempts to graduate from the ninth grade. I am not exactly an educated person. I saw the statements the DVA advocate made as a huge black hole military sexual trauma ‘survivors’ will enter if and when they were to follow the line towards seeking justice.

Over the four hundred some entry’s I have put out there I have told everything about myself (some things are mine alone) and about the process of getting my own justice. I have also remarked about the VA hospital here in my area much in a negative way and much of that correct,but then I never mentioned the good parts and the good people,and there are many. My dispute mainly came from the immediate drop of therapy for several MST veterans,the severe reaction I had was not healthy at all from a medical point of view,it made me angry. I began to see the VA as an enemy.

Now I have no connection with the VA for as long as I live. I can now only draw on my past experience,but want to move on from it.

I have tried to end this journal several times now. Each time it seems another veteran comes forward and asks for advice , or someone writes or calls and asks for advice. It is hard to walk away from that,and I have made many friendship among you and that is solid gold.

For the last five years I have been vocal aloud about something that was mostly my most hated secret,because there was no one to ever share it with. After the VA got involved and the DVA guy made his bigoted remarks my story has been repeated so much more than I ever thought could ever happen…a New York City NPR radio interview? No,one could never imagine that! Fly to Washington DC,and meet in the offices of a Senator and Congressman? I just have no idea how these things come together in the way that they do and how our lives have such amazing turns.

I need to move on! I need to go off to the ‘wilderness’ and think. I have to find some of the things that were lost.

In two weeks I embark on an experience that I hope to see as a return to being 18 years old and a seaman apprentice on an US Navy ship. The sea and the ports and being on such a giant floating ship…I was thrilled to be given that opportunity when I was a kid,it got was abruptly stopped by the jealousy of my older brother and my life was twisted around from there.

I have written about it all in these pages.

I am going to spend up to six weeks on the ship like the one in the photograph. Just find a chair and sit there and look up at the great majesty of the sky and out at the great power of the ocean. I know I am going to weep…many times. I know this because already I am feeling the power of what this is,a gift from God to give me this chance to see what it might have been like.

There is no contact from the ship with the exception of intermediate emails. I will not be able to write here for almost six weeks. So I am going to write a book while sitting in that chair.

This has been an incredible healing tool for me to use the Internet as a voice. I have had my heart humbled many times by the many of you that have entered my life….humbled in that your story’s have helped me!

Proverbs 25:25