Rough Drafts

This morning, I thought I’d make it easy on myself and start working from one of the nine (NINE!) unfinished drafts sitting in my folder.

Nope.

There are very good reasons they are still in there.

ROUGH.

And I’m not talking, “This could probably use some editing before it goes live” rough (although that’s certainly required); these are emotionally rough.

Fear, anger, humiliation, grief, and dare I say… hatred?

These things never see the light of day.

A GoodBoy^TM doesn’t think about, doesn’t write about, and certainly doesn’t PUBLICLY POST such things. We’re barely allowed to feel fearangerhumiliationgriefhatred, let alone process and post about it. Don’t believe me? Ask a GoodBoy^TM

He’ll tell you. We stick together. We keep them deep inside. DEEEEEEEEEEP. Because if we didn’t, then we wouldn’t be GoodBoys^TM anymore, and for at least 50 years of my life, that was my one and only goal.

Sound extreme? My only goal?

Yup.

Well, that and the complete and total avoidance of physical, emotional, and spiritual pain. But if you think about it, that’s ultimately rooted in “being good” as well. Good people don’t hurt. That’s for someone else. That’s for… Them. Whoever they are.

I found out who They are… because I am now one of Them.

And I’m ROUGH.

Here I am, divorced and sitting at a kitchen table drinking from a mug that says “WOKE UP GAY AGAIN”.

Believe me, I would lose my GoodBoy^TM card for either one of those transgressions.

Or so I thought.

Because what I’m finding as I live into my True Self (my “badness”, if you will), is that I have significantly more Good in myself than I ever did before. I was so busy trying to be the best version of what everyone else expected of me (and hating myself for most of it), that I had very little time or energy left really to be… Good. And if I couldn’t even truly see myself as good, how could I possibly be of any good to anyone else?

Oh sure, I did LOTS of “good” things for people – for my friends, my family, my coworkers, my church, my God – but they were basically mechanisms for burnishing my own reputation as a GoodBoy^TM. I was a wind up doll of good deeds.

The first time I saw a therapist (I didn’t tell anyone – a GoodBoy^TM shouldn’t need a therapist), he asked me, “What makes Ben happy?” And I swear I answered, with absolutely no tongue in cheek, “Whatever makes the people around me happy”.

Holy Shit.

50 years.

Then I tried to kill myself and failed.

It was time to kill the GoodBoy^TM instead.

And that’s what I’ve been doing.

Some people (many people) don’t like it. I’m not who I used to be. I’m not the trained monkey most had come to expect. But…

PAY ATTENTION. This Me really is better. And so much closer to anything you’d really consider “good” than what I used to do and be.

GoodBoy^TM is gone.

BetterMan^TM is here to stay.

You’ll like him.

I do.