This New Life of Mind

Have you ever woken up and realized the life you are living is not the one you want? I guess you could say that is where I was a few months ago. I had a 9 to 5 job that payed pretty well. I had student loan bills and credit card payments but little else to motivate my day. The problem was I was living to work not working to live.

How did I get myself to this place? I guess you could say I stopped dreaming. I allowed fear to win. It was a battle I had been having for years and finally I was too tired to keep fighting. I was an actor who stopped acting. I was afraid someone would figure out I wasn't any good. It was 1994. I had spent much of my life following my intuition but suddenly fear cut off my intuitive voice and I was starting to lose my sense of direction.

Not long after my 9 to 5 life began, I fell in love with a man, Johnny, my first real love. He was HIV+ and I was HIV- but when we first met at a friend's birthday party a voice in my head said YOU MUST get to know this man. The voice was back! Two days after meeting, he told me he had AIDS and was very cautious about who he allowed in his life. I told him I didn't care. I knew I needed to know this man and I said I would be there at the very end if he wanted me there. I don't know why I said that. I meant it but I had no idea what that really, really meant.

I spent two years trying to get him to say "I love you." The funny thing is he did love me but I was too blind to see what he was afraid to say. I thought I needed to hear the words. As much as I wanted it, we never had sex because he refused to risk infecting me and I was too naive to realize my love was not enough to save him. So, there was no sex but, what we had was dancing. When Johnny and I danced, no one else existed. Every dance was a journey to our own sensual world where there was no disease, no fear, no pain. We danced at every gay club we could find in Los Angeles.

By 1996, his disease started to take his brain hostage.  At 26 years old, Johnny moved back home to his mother's house. Lesions, developing on his brain, first blurred the vision from his beautiful blue eyes, then caused a stroke making function on the right side of his body difficult. The doctor confined him to bed. A nurse came daily. I worked at the 9 to 5 then traveled an hour everyday to his mother's  house to be with my dance partner, even though our dancing days were over.

The strange thing is this was the most precious time we shared together. I no longer cared about hearing the words "I love you." We laughed, talked and I brushed his golden blond hair. Slowly we found our relationship's new normal.  When he asked me to help him take a bath in the tub, I knew our relationship had reached a new level. After years of wanting to see this man naked, the moment arrived and we could not help but laugh at life's little ironies. Somehow we had morphed into an old married couple finishing each others sentences and here I was carrying the man I loved from his hospital bed to the bathtub down the hall.
Slowly, as all things were with this disease, Johnny lost the ability the brain has to connect the words he wanted to say with the words that came out of his mouth until he lost his ability to form words all together. Yet somehow we found a way to understand each other.

The friends we danced the night away with seemed to drift away. I slowly realized what sticking around when someone is in the final stage of his life really really meant. I would not have traded that time with him for anything in the world. On June 29, 1996 Johnny took his last breath, literally before my eyes. His mother, sister and I were at his side and he went to his final rest as beautiful as the first day I met him.

A few days later at the funeral, I was introduced to a cousin of Johnny's who I had never met. He wanted me to know that Johnny had told him how much he loved me and how much I mattered to him. At his funeral I heard the words I thought were so important to hear when he was alive.  It was as if Johnny had arranged for me to get this message.

My life, without Johnny, went numb. The grief process turned into a bitterness and mistrust of the intuitive voice that guided me to this point. Months turned into years and while I have dated on occasion, no one special materialized.

Now, here I am and that voice in my head is making contact again. Something inside of me has snapped open and I have been forced to see, as clear as day, how I have allowed fear to overwhelm so much of my life. I had a career I loved and felt inspired to pursue but stopped because I was afraid I was not good enough to make it. I found a love that I felt guided to but wasted so much time fearing he didn't love me before I allowed myself to simply love him and enjoy the journey.

I asked the Universe for a little guidance. My answer led me to quit that 9to5 and resume my journey as an actor.

This blog for me is my way of pressing re-set. I have no idea where my journey is going to take me. However, I have come to realize that my life has given me everything I asked for even when I didn't realize I was asking for it. In other words, everything I believe I can have I get to the degree I believe I can have it. (Does that make any sense?)

So, I am moving forward in search of a more interesting life.  My challenge is literally to wash away the fear-filled thoughts lingering about and replace them with only the thoughts that will lead me to the wealth, success, love, and happiness I want in every area of this new life of mine.

Wherever I end up, I plan to enjoy the journey.

Let the journey begin.

(Below is a link to a youtube clip of Susan Boyle, a British Dreamer who chose to go for her dreams and won over the world! Check it out and allow yourself to feel inspired!!!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OcQ9A-5noM