His Name Is Greg

Do you know who Greg is? If you don’t, I’ll describe him to you. If you do, this description will be familiar. I’ll break down his description in two ways -- first physical (touch my body) and then emotional (touch my soul).

Greg is a little dog I lived with for a few months. Greg was EITHER a shivering and shaking motley OLD dog of about 12 years to whom we tip our hat for “hanging in there” for such a long time - good boy, Greg - OR Greg could, quite possibly, be a quaking and shivering spring chicken of a dog who’s geriatric aesthetic is attributed to the immense weight and burden THAT IS his frail and delicate psyche -- Oh Greg, calm down it’s the sound of a honey bee landing on a lily pad somewhere far off in the distance. You have nothing to fear…..Greg is a coward of a dog. He is frail, he is damaged, he is broken and he is quite literally afraid of everything that is not warm milk, a tepid bath, low fi music, a mothers breast, milk of the poppy or growing old with your soul mate………….but like…….if your soul mate never got heinously decrepit and gross. Anyway I bet even certain low fi music probably sends shivers down his ten inch, four year old spine….Nine years old? Idk, dammit Greg you're so enigmatic it drives the girls nuts.

The point is, Greg is a petrified dog who lives in perpetual fear. His FEAR and consequent agony are so abundantly unnecessary that I find myself wishing that I could forcibly extricate him from this fear ensconced mental state just to show him, for a moment, how insignificant his mind blowing fear of “too many people watching television at the same time,” truly is. I wish I were joking. During my time in Florida, one person - of our group of four - would have to “check in” on Greg periodically throughout the three hour Dune Premiere because Greg wasn’t…..you guessed it…..getting enough eye contact during the beauty and splendor of Timothy Chalamet’s perfectly quaffed mid part...I like girls, I like girls, I like girls.

What is very unfortunate is that I find a young (or is it old) “Kylo Greg” living inside of me more often than I’d like to admit. My fear can be scary to both myself and others. There are times where my fear becomes so overwhelming that the only respite can be found, shall we say……externally (that seems like a nice and uncompromising way of avoiding scary words mom and grandma don’t want to hear). So what do I do about it? I DANCE!!!!!! All of life’s pain, sorrow, dilemma, catastrophe and headache can be remedied with DANCE! If only it were that easy. I do love to dance my sweet prince’s britches off but sadly that is not the remedy – at least not all of the time. The truth is I am still trying to figure that out. I am learning about ways to allow the opaque blackness and violent torrents to exist within me while I do my best to exist all the same. Thankfully - and this I know to be true - the fear dissipates. Just like I know the fear will return. This is the human condition. Why do we view fear, depression, anger, sadness any different from happiness, joy, peace, harmony and hope? They are all unique pieces of the emotional spectrum.

I had a conversation with my therapist several months ago. This is usually the part where someone usually says “Oh you go to therapy? What’s wrong?” To which I respond: Therapists are just dentists for your brain teeth. You may not have a cavity currently, but if you don’t brush and floss and see a dentist, those clean teeth could potentially turn into schizophrenia…Sorry, we meant to say cavity…I mean “I,” meant to say cavity….

Anyway the first couple of sessions helped me to identify what the root cause of all of this was. Why am I afraid of small spaces? Why do I fear loneliness so deeply? Why do I get violently nauseous when someone tells me that they love me? Why am I afraid I’m losing my mind? Am I dissociating from reality? Do I hurt people? Do I belong here? What is my purpose? Why can’t I stop doing this to myself? Why do I think so much? Why can’t I control this thought? This thought is scaring me. This thought has power over me. I am helpless. I can’t move….this thought is hurting me. And then my therapist told me something groundbreaking. He told me that the secret to alleviating this pain could be found in dance!! Got ya.

In all seriousness, my therapist John told me something so enormously simple that changed my life. You have a “fear” problem. At the core of these seemingly inconceivable obsessions, harmful activity and psychologically confounding chaos is fear. “So how do I get rid of it,” I asked, desperately seeking solace. “You get comfortable with it,” said my therapist, John. “Well how do I do that,” I asked John. He went on to explain the concept of “Reframing.” Rather than believing these sensations to be abnormal or catastrophic he encouraged me to normalize it and reframe it as a normal human emotion….Fear. So the goal then became, “Go forth and stare fear in the face,” little by little, step by step. I didn’t have to slay the dragon, but rather, cozy up next to the dragon, offer it half a 10mg edible (because a full one might make him a little anxious at first), maybe turn on an episode of Scrubs and just relax. Yes the dragon is big and scary and could FUCK ME UP if it wanted to….but for the purpose of this metaphor, the dragon doesn’t have claws or teeth and also eats pescatarian.

So being a perfectionist (which also stems from fear) I asked John, “How do I expedite this process as fast as humanly possible? I want to be exchanging vows and sucking face with the dragon, not just watching a sitcom with it.” He said “Go do things that make you afraid.”

So I asked myself what I was most afraid of in life. The list was the size of the dead sea scrolls. Chief among them were the following: Sharks, talking to gorgeous women while sober, being alone and losing control of my mind. So on August 1st 2021, I locked myself in the trunk of a car, not knowing when someone would find me, in an effort to lose my mind….exposure therapy, right John?!?!?! I’m joking. But what I did do was discontinue my apartment lease to start a life on the road, tackling fears.

From September - October 21’ I decided the first fear to tackle was the fear of the creatures that lie beneath. SHARKS. With their gnashing rows of teeth and dead, lifeless eyes, these apex predators have petrified me to no end since I was a child. I feared sharks even in fresh bodies of water. I thought to myself “maybe a wandering pelican scooped up a mouthful of shark eggs and transplanted them to Lake Blue Marsh, Pennsylvania where I currently lay, supine, after eating shit attempting my first backflip on a wakeboard.” My brain convinced me of these things. It’s any moment before you’re dragged to the bottom of this lake and feasted upon like Terry Crews after a long day of fasting…he does the warrior diet. Conceptually, let’s be fair, we are in their home, destroying their clean living rooms with plastics, piss and shit (you’ve done it). We’re waltzing into their refrigerators, stealing their food for simple enjoyment. Our children are shrieking at the top of their lungs outside of their bedrooms as they try to sleep. We are a menace to them and we deserve the 16 attacks, annually. I’ve digressed. The point is, the fear was prevalent. So, during these two months, I packed up my brand new 2021 Jeep Gladiator, Mojave edition with lifted tires and LED headlights, plugged in my brand new Iphone 12 with unlimited data and 4k camera, turned on my classic rock playlist on my Spotify (premium account) and drove down the coast to South Florida to learn how to surf. Now, data indicates that the majority of shark attacks on human beings take place atop a surfboard. This is because sharks believe you to be prey. Total mix up. Whoops. Sorry pal, thought you were someone else. This only added to the fear. This was a fact that I discovered day one of surfing, and evidently, there are far more shark attacks per year than my original research….especially in Florida. I was an hour away from the shark attack capital of the world. “Excellent. There’s a capital and I’m near it,” I thought.

Day one consisted of paddling out, scanning the crystal clear Floridian waters for threats, and paddling back in. 45 seconds of activity, TOPS. “I should try something else. The fear is overwhelming,” I thought. I was literally losing hours of sleep at night thinking about how to conquer it. Watching videos of kind lady marine biologists talking about how they are, “Really fascinating to watch underwater.” That really helped a lot. Can you taste my sarcasm?

Countless days passed by of seemingly no progress. I must have looked like an absolute coward laying flat on my body for minute long intervals, head on a swivel, anticipating a Megalodon's pursuit of my sweet bulbous booty flesh. I felt defeated. Until one day, I spoke with my brother, who is a therapist in training (we’re all fucked up in this family). He told me that I would never make progress if I just continued to look and obsess over the fear itself. I wasn’t learning to live with or get comfortable with the fear like John suggested. I was still fighting it. Ever been on a bad acid trip? Don’t fight. Let it ride. Lo que sea sea. So one morning I went out with the intention to surf, and smell the salty brine and fix my gaze on the pelicans flying overhead transporting eggs to fresh water lakes in Pennsylvania. And ya know what happened? Very little. I made very little progress. I had a few moments of tranquility followed by acute fear. But what happened was paramount. I had taken a step in the right direction. I took that tiny little morsel-sized bite, let the flavor of progress coat my tongue and got hooked. Bit by bit I started surfing more and fearing less. Over the course of the two months I felt genuine transformation occur. I now have a hobby that is quite literally propelling me in life with trips to Indonesia and Hawaii on the horizon. And the truly remarkable thing is how this process of relegating fear translated into other areas of my life. I started daring to walk up to women I didn’t know, sober, to strike up a conversation - a fear far greater than being dragged to the depths of the abyss by a flesh eating water dinosaur - Was I afraid? Yes. But I got used to the very normal emotion that is fear. It’s just an emotion. I even went on a few dates. One with a very kind Japanese woman who turned out to be 46. I attribute it to the sunglasses that encompassed her entire visage and the fact that Japanese people just don’t age like THE WHITES. Eat more fish, people.

The point I’m trying to make is that, much like the scary unknown of the ocean, emotions can feel unapproachable or even esoteric at times. My goal in life is to plumb the depths of my soul in an effort to force myself out of my comfort zone. I look forward to elucidating what has helped me and hurt me throughout the process. I don’t for a moment believe it will ever be complete, but feel compelled to share.

So what the fuck are you doing here, why are you doing it, what are you afraid of, how do you tackle it, what gets you fired up in life and when are you going to show me some of that shit? Tell me, share with me. I want to know.

Thank you for reading.I love you and I can’t wait to experience this life with you.

Sincerely,

Your Friend