On Chaos 

I don't know if I will even publish this, but I have the need to write it down.   I have never told this story to most.  Even those that were there do not necessarily know all of it.  Anyway, 5 years has passed. 

I was reading through my E-mails on my "new" account.  I looked up and it is three years old.

It does not seem like 3 years have passed, but a the same time, it seems like a lot happened.

My old friend chaos, was here fucking things up. 

I am no stranger to chaos.  

Jordan Peterson put it out the best that life is really a yin and a yang between order and chaos.   We have to have both in order to learn from them.  There can be no order without chaos and no chaos without order.  

That rings true with me.  I have gone through chaos in the last three years that I feel is finally starting to turn a corner (maybe?)  I am also finding myself comparing it to previous Chaos in my life.  More specifically how I handled it then to now.  

There can be no survivors without Chaos.  Some of us refuse to be victims and would rather be the survivors.   I feel like I have survived the last three years of chaos better then I had the Chaos that took place 7 years ago.   

 2016 was a shit show.  I Changed jobs in the Agency, then decided that I was cocky enough to get into local politics because I was pissed off that I had been passed over for promotion at the agency.  All at once I moved from a grunt who knew about guns and gangs to being a full time training officer and the goddamned union president AT ONCE.  Then the divorce came and totally socked me, changing my role from typical King Kong cop dad into "single Father of three teenage girls" with a mom who bailed out on them only to show her influence on the weekends.   Men are often portrayed as the people who sail through divorce like it does not matter.  Based on my experience and those who have reached out to me for guidance in my own life, I would say that a bigger lie has never been told.  

So  that is when it started.  And by 2019, It almost truly killed me.  I realized now I was managing chaos.  

I was not managing it well per-se.  I was doing my share of "hoeing" as I called it, stressing over women, some good, some awful.  I was trying to turn things around in the worst way, trying to get some semblance of a life back.  The day I turned 38, I got a wake up call at 4 AM that my old friend showed back up, one of my co-workers killed himself.  

"Happy birthday, It's me, Mr. Suicide, I am back.  I will just have seat and kick back for a while.  Light a cigarette and kick my feet up."

I thought about my Dad.  The first time The old Friend Mr. Suicide showed up in my life was when Dad killed himself when I was 23.  It caused me to drop out of college.  He never saw anything I achieved.  It was the first time I asked for help and got some professional guidance and learned about grief.   

A woman that I threw my broken love at was seriously hurt, at work.   I trained her from the start to make it in a violent business and then fell for her ( a mistake I made never to repeat again).  I got the call that she went down, violently and I blamed myself.  She would never be right again.  Still is not to my knowledge.  I watched the video over and over again, kind of tourtured myself with it.  

I lost friends, I broke hearts.  I was swimming in chaos and there was no way out.  

I got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and literally didn't care at all about it.  I probably had it for years before.  My attitude turned into "So, this is what will kill me.  Better get in line motherfucker.  There are a few who want to get their shot before you."

Now my life and his seemed to be in the same lane.  Dad had the Damn Diabetes too, like his father before him,.  My beloved Aunt Kathy died from complications related to it in her 50's.  My Aunt was taken by My old Friend Mr. Suicide too.   

Was it too much of a stretch to think that I was next?  

If it isn't gonna be the Suicide, would it just as easy be the hamburgers and sugar?  

Fuck it.  The most dangerous thing a man can say to himself is that...

 I started to smoke again.  Progress on the health side of the equation went away.  I had given something up every year for my Birthday, smoking being when I was thirty, Then drive throughs, French fries, doughnuts,  then a couple of fast food chains altogether.  They all came back into my life.  Fuck it, it didn't matter anyway... I still got the damn Diabetes.  I still got the damn Divorce.  I still got the damn Chaos.  

It was as close as I had ever come to the brink.  

My girls, my Mom and my Sister were the only things keeping me holding on.  

I was developing  paranoia, everywhere I looked, from the Ex wife, to the Job, to the credit card debt, to the business partners, to the rocky relationship with the girl you didn't train right, to the entire damn world, was just out to fuck me up.  I slipped up on the performance of being a politician. The two guys I had thrown in on in the business watched me back away, they held it together.  I truly only worked on being a father and trying to figure out how things had turned so sideways on me.   

In these darkest days, everybody had their knives out.  

All I could see.  Even if it was not there.  Everybody was taking their shot at me.  

I realize now, it was the goddamned chaos. 

Chaos Here to fuck you up motherfucker.  

Better get in line.  Lot of shit is lined up trying to fuck me up.  

Mr. Suicide sat in the corner and watched.  

"You know how this ends..." 

"Fuck you."  

"You cant do it like your Dad did.  Cant put your poor mother through another one.  Cant have your girls knowing you checked out and having to live with it like you did."

"I know."

We both lit a cigarette. One more thing in line to take me out.  Chaos.

"Could make it look like an accident. Do it in the car you owe too much on.  Life insurance pays for all this.  You are good to go."

"I know how that ends, Dad tried that one first, remember?" I had gotten the call that Dad had been in a car wreck.  Smashed into the back of a semi truck.  He was in the emrgency room.  When I got there I was just concerned that he was alright.  I found out three days later that he had admitted that the accident had been a suicide attempt to the Doctors at the ER.  He Shot himself about a month later, His DUI Summons in Maumee Municipal court was found in his effects. 

Mr. Suicide smiled, "How could I Forget?"

The conversations kept happening.  One day I got home from work and just felt like nothing could pull me out of this.  

I made my way to the car.  

Oldest Daughter asked if I was OK as I walked out the door.  They all sat in the living room.  Three teenagers.... Chaos all around them. Chaos they didn't ask for.  

I got in the car and he was sitting in the passenger seat. "Where we gonna go?" he asked.

I didn't answer as I backed out of the driveway... 

Time passed.  It slowed down.  I don't know where I was going.  I couldn't tell you where.  I needed to find a train, an embankment, drive off a bridge, make it an accident. No one could know.  Just another fatality on Americas highways.  

"Well?  Right there is a Semi Truck.." he said

"I am not gonna run the risk of hurting a guy just trying to do his job." 

"Well... That is very considerate."

"Fuck you."

"Well YOU are the one that keeps me here you know. "

"Yeah.."

"What difference does it make?  Really? May as well hit a minivan full of kids. In the end-"

"Hey fuck off!  Shut the FUCK UP!  I am not gonna hurt kids!  I am not gonna hurt anybody!  Just... Myself.... "

"You of all people know that you cant lie to me.  We hang out too much for you to bullshit ME.  You put me here and now you WANNA BULLSHIT ME!?  I have been here this whole goddamned time.  You know DAMN WELL who you will hurt with this!  YOU of all people know who will be hurting at the end."

"No one cares."

The car seemed to be driving itself at this point.  I was somewhere in cornfields.  No idea where exactly. 

"Then find a goddamned train. Run it into a ditch at 90 miles an hour.  Blow your goddamned head off!  What is the difference?" 

"There isn't any."

"WEEELLLLLL !!!!  YOUR CORRECT!  You KNOW THAT!"

I turned the car back in the direction of town.  "That's why I will make it look like an accident..." 

"LAME!  That is not how this shit works and you know it!  Your DAD PLAYED THAT GAME REMEMBER?!  How did it work out?  Huh?  Your fucking kidding yourself!  Because that is how it's gonna go down bitch!  Like Father like son!  You will fuck that up!  Skip all of the trials, skip all of the new charges! Skip all the Job loss and the custody battles that will come once they find out your little "accident" was with me in the car!  Just go to the gun and shoot your goddamned self!  Check into a hotel Like he did! Do it in front of your cat like Johnson did!  Do it in the Bedroom Like your poor mom's sister did!  Jump in front of a Train like Matney Did!" 

"I...… I don't want to put my people through that...."

"NO ONE CARES! REMEMBER BITCH!?  You just fucking said that shit."

"Maybe some people might"

I picked up the phone and called the girl I didn't train right.  I was embarrassed.  I said I needed help.  

I wound up in a hospital for a few days.  Ironically the same one that my father had stayed in in the weeks before his death.  Work covered for me.   My Boss Covered for me.  Two people who I respected came and saw me even though I didn't want them too.  The Girls were scared.  I reassured them.  I kept slogging through.  One foot in front of the other. 

I fought through the Chaos.  I beat it and Mr. Suicide went away for the time being.  He has not been around since.  

I had a good year in 2019.  Met the right person who loves me deeply.  Made progress.  Made ORDER out of the Chaos.  Learned things.  Worked every day to be a better person.  Helped others.  Was Shown by Lori that I had some actual value in the world.  I will ALWAYS love her for that.    

Then 2020 came and Chaos returned. 

We all had some chaos so far this decade haven't we?

I lost mom.. I miss her randomly and with no reason behind it.  

I got the family home that Mom left me, I am  here with some of my kids and Lori now.  LOTS of Chaos.  At one point I figured that I would loose it.  I was ready for actually being homeless.  But I slogged through. 

Still have the Chaos.  

But I got more Order in my life.  Now I just find myself saying, "Well I am sorry about all the Chaos, but we will get though it." to the ones I love around me.  I keep pushing through.  I have been no stranger to the Chaos.  

But Mr. Suicide has not payed me a visit for a few years now.  

I am not sure what the overall point is to this...  

Maybe it is more for me then for anyone reading it.  

But I just slogged through some more Chaos over the last few years and maybe that is the point?  

Chaos is in line to kill me at any moment.  But Mr. Suicide is not in the deep reaches of my mind.  He doesn't hang out anymore.

Maybe we get better at Chaos the longer we are in this world?  Maybe Chaos brings us peace?  Courage?  

I just had to write it down.....  

"