K is for Koala

very important stuff

[kylerictor]

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/you-and-me-and-somehow-single/id1049353184

[kylerictor]

Grab the new RICTOR EP “Ghost Lover” on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ghost-lover-ep/id1051018316

[kylerictor]

Visit Original Link

Still it's only You who raises the dead in me. 

Graphite Man

[kylerictor]

Weekend trips to Maine with my wife. We live in a beautiful country.

[kylerictor]

Visit Original Link

I wrote this song about the dichotomy of fear and love I have for God. I'm so afraid of being seen and found out but I never want Him to be far or abandon me. I'm ashamed and needy and in love and I need Him to drag me, even if I'm kicking and screaming, closer to and within Him.

Deeper into The Woods

You on the quiet plains 

You wait

There among the lilies and I find myself courageous and afraid 

You stepping over pines

I hide

I want you to find me just as bad as I want you to pass me by

Take me

Make me

Go there

Deeper 

Into the woods

Chase me

Stay please

I'll run from you cause I am no good

Make me go there deeper into the woods

Into the woods

I'm two people in one skin

Somedays

I blow a kiss and grab a shiv to slit my wrist and wash you down the drain

[kylerictor]

When I Anger

If I am angry enough

I will step outside myself

To see a person

Trembling where I stood just a moment earlier

I'm larger than I remember

An imposing figure

That threatens to take my lunch money

If I get too close

I don't like this bully

Heaving over the stovetop

I try to keep my distance

But I'm drawn

Always

Inexplicably

Back

to and within him

We are one

Once again

The color returns to my knuckles

As I come to

Sobering up

Descending softly

I melt into my shoes and

My shoes

Onto the linoleum floor

The colors pool and

I sit indian style

Tracing my fingers along invisible lines

Swirling the flesh tones and denim hues

[kylerictor]

The Only Reason Not To

If the veil was lifted 

And our vision allowed

A view of the coming

Minutes and hours

If danger and pitfalls 

Failures and snares

Were known in advance

And we woke up aware

Would it change the depths of our heart's longing

Would it shift and dislocate our dreams from their sockets

Would we compromise our sense of belonging

Tuck away discontent in our value brand pockets

Could we forget the goodness and rush of a risk

The chance that she will not return our kiss

That life can choose to forsake us for others

What a wondrous lust of a dangerous lover

We make lists and build scales and flip coins and fold hands

Seek counsel and wing it, ignore it and plan

The God in it, the devil in it, the child and the man

And every deviation, derivative and ampersand

We never have an answer that we know without a doubt

Every shadow needs a light that's partially blocked out

Partially unknown, unseen, unfound

We all have a shadow that stands where we stand

When I wish it would leave I recall Peter Pan

Panicked and chasing it down with great speed

To sew it back on to the soles of his feet

I suppose without it we have nothing to lose

Without nothing to lose we have no fear

Without fear we have no courage 

And without courage we have no heroes 

I don't care to read a story without a hero

And I certainly don't wish to write one

But shadows have not left

Fear is still shouting our names from the depths

Mountains hold fog undisrupted by breath

Pages hold parchment unstained and bereft

We are the ones who must plunge that depth

We are the ones who must breathe that breath

We are the ones with ink filled quills

We are the authors of our story still

When the only reason not to be more than our bones

Is fear of what can not, will not and never will be known

Than there is no reason at all you can hold

There is no reason why we shouldn't go

[kylerictor]

Blood Line

I never understood allegiance to a blood line

No family crest

No coat of arms

No answers to 

No questions why

For when I dared walk back in time

I found the truth 

That I am who

I have become in life

No thanks to you

Or any fool 

Who boasts about his blood line

And it was not evil that turned your purpose moot

Nor murder, nor theft, nor child abuse

But shaming words like “should” and “ought” and “supposed to”

The boring shortcomings of a people unmoved

Unable, unwilling, undead and unused

Body bags without the bag

For what have you to hide

When we can all stand

Hand in hand

Behind the line

I will not love a legacy, storyline or name

I do not owe you anything

You don’t already take

I have no bleeding heart for you

I have nothing to say

I love who He has given me

And though it may sound strange

You are nothing more to me

Than smudges on a page

Of documents and travel logs and etchings of a grave

So, before you recoil in utter shock

Before you start to cry

Take comfort knowing you’ll see me again

Somewhere down the line

 As my sons and daughters grow

And leave their youth behind

I will not crush their blessed hope

And tell them they are mine

I will not make them prove their love and say one more goodbye

I will not make them tell me I am all their reasons why

I will not make them when I know their radiant minds

Can choose to call themselves my sons, my daughters and my pride

The crown upon my head and the apple of my eye

For love is what will bring them home

Love

And not a line

[kylerictor]

The Wrong Voices

I wake up. Walk my wife to the front door and groggily kiss her goodbye. She's been up for an hour getting ready for work while I sleep. She backs out of the driveway and disappears into the sunrise. I shut the door, turn the deadbolt and measure out 1 cup of dry Kroger brand oatmeal. I measure one cup of almond milk and pour it over the dry oats. I place the bowl in the microwave and set the timer for 2 minutes. I measure out 1/2 cup of strawberries, 1/2 cup of blueberries and 3 teaspoons of light brown sugar. I take the bowl out of the microwave and combine the ingredients before letting it sit. While it thickens I sit down at the kitchen table and write down the caloric value of each item. Add 35 calories for a cup of coffee with 1 splenda and a table spoon of French Vanilla creamer and I'm at a total of approximately 400 calories. It is when I'm writing these numbers down in my tattered moleskin that the wrong voices start chiming in. They tell me I'm weak. They tell me I have no will power and I've been relegated to calorie counting like some fad following weight watcher. God, they could make a tragic comedy about this exact moment. I see it now, show opens on spineless troglodyte quivering with desperation as he hovers over his portioned morsel, defeated before even the first meal of the day commences. I stop writing and shut my eyes. I pray silently. God, tell me the truth about myself. Conquer the wrong voices. 

I eat my breakfast and consider one day opening a diner that specializes in oatmeal. I get changed as if I'm leaving the house and walk into the next room. I turn on the monitors and plug in hanging christmas lights and lamps while gear wakes up and begins the chorus of soft humming fans and buzzing voltage. I start writing or mixing or tracking or doing research or watching tutorial videos. Whatever is on the docket for the day. For the sake of painting a setting let's say on this morning I am mixing. I may start by reading an interview of one of my favorite mixing engineers or listening to a song that recently struck me. Perhaps warming up my turntable if I have it on vinyl. The wrong voices speak to me here. They tell me that while every artist is different and arguments toward the validity of all art being significant may be supported, there are undoubtedly good and bad artists out there. Most times the bad artists are completely unaware they have failed to make the cut. It is not something different or unique or simple that these people make. It simply does not exist, period. It is beneath consideration or analyzation. It is a child's finger painting without the nostalgia or endearment. It isn't art. It's what all refuse to believe it is. A hobby. A past time for a bored, delusional mind. You, Kyle, are that artist. You make nothing. You've lied to yourself for years and it's been so long that to consider these years of effort a waste is too much for your weak heart to bear. So, you lie to yourself. You tell yourself you're not a quitter and there is honor in pushing on when all signs point the other way. You're a trail blazer. Nobody understands you. Your story hasn't been told yet. We don't blame you for feeling that way. We'd lie to ourselves as well if we were in your shoes. Lie away. Do whatever you have to do to maintain your delusion, but know this before you hang your hat on those efforts...

You are making NOTHING of CONSEQUENCE

I lift the needle from the groove and shut my eyes. I pray silently. God, tell me the truth about myself. Conquer the wrong voices.  

I dig into my work. I enjoy working. On my best days I would describe my work as successfully focused. When my mind is consumed with a singular thought it leaves no room for the wrong voices and in these brief moments I feel confident. Confident of myself, God's sovereignty. I become clear headed enough to recognize my own myopia and that it is this nearsightedness, most times, that provides the wrong voices their megaphone. 

I break for lunch. I count, document and add my calories. Watch an episode of House of Cards or Adventure Time depending on the meal length or my apathy or the magnitude of my discouragement. Television mostly drowns out the wrong voices. I choose House of Cards. The credits roll and I feel guilty for having taken an hour long lunch break. The wrong voices tell me I'm lazy and I deserve poverty and ridicule and nothingness. I don't bother to close my eyes and pray this time. I just stand up and walk into the next room. I return to my work. A little more fried, a little less focused. 

I hear the key slip into the front door and turn the dead bolt. Kelsey is home. I get up from the desk and we hug the "it's been a long day without you here" hug. We talk about our days and what we should cook for dinner and when we'll go work out. I tell her I think I'm a hack and the wrong voices have been badgering me again. She starts to reassure me that those voices are indeed wrong and never speak the truth, but her words fade into static as the wrong voices commandeer the radio in my head. They tell me that Kelsey doesn't understand how untalented and hopeless and weak I am because she loves me. She can't look at me accurately, she only sees the good. She can't see that I'm lost. That I'm nothing. I close my eyes and turn the dial back to Kelsey. I hear only the few concluding statements, "Everything will be alright. I hate to see you like this. I love you." I silently thank God for giving me such a patient and gentle partner. 

I walk back into the studio. God, I'm sick of this place. I try to work but move only through muscle memory. I'm finished. Time to pack it up. The wrong voices tell me I'm lazy again and that if I were a real artist I would never find it difficult to keep working. I close my eyes and whisper obscenities. 

The rest of the evening is a blurred and hazy fog of soft conversation and heat from a stove top. Kelsey and I make breakfast tacos for dinner tonight. Egg whites only. Kale, turkey bacon, black beans, perhaps some ground bison if our calorie budgets allow. We cook. We count. We document. We add. "I'm at 1,355 calories for the day. How about you?" I'll say. "890" she replies. "That means we can each have 8oz of chocolate almond milk after we work out before bed. Speaking of which, we should go, it's getting late." I try to speak in a higher pitch as if we're leaving for Disney World. "Dammit." She says what we're both thinking. "I know I know. I don't want to go either. Let's just get changed and get this shit over with. Then...almond milk."

We get to the gym. Planet Fitness in a low income part of Nashville. These are our neighbors. This is our side of town. Set aside from Kelsey, these are the only other people I see on a day to day basis. They've become familial to me. Judgmental glares and all. It's 10:15pm. God almighty I do not want to run 3 miles right now. I get on the treadmill and start running. I put my ipod on shuffle and my mind floats off into that nothing space where no thought and all thoughts collide like atoms in a nuclear reactor. My brain is a concrete smoke stack and my body is Chernobyl. Melt down. The wrong voices are having a hay day. I'm physically exhausted and my defenses are down. Their words become lazy and petulant like me. You're fat. You're slow. You're not a runner. You will fail at this like you have at everything else.

I close my eyes and change my prayer. When I'm running and the wrong voices attack, my prayer becomes, "I give it to my legs and I give it to You." "IT" being all weight. Every wrong voice. Every stress. Every fear, worry and insecurity. All anger and jealousy and pride. If it arises and I know it's not of God's character I pray "I give it my legs and I give it to You." I pray for 3 miles. 

We finish our workout and drive back home. I pour two 8oz glasses of chocolate almond milk and clink mason jars with Kelsey as we cheers to having just kicked ass on our run. We drink in silence and savor every single drop of those precious 100 calories. We sink into bed and I ask God not to simply conquer the wrong voices, but to give me courage and strength so that I may conquer them. For I know they will be there when I wake. They'll always be there, the wrong voices. Telling me I'm nothing. I'm done trying to avoid them or act like they're not there. I want to hear them clear as winter wedding bells and reply "You're right. I am nothing on my own. But to the one true voice, the only voice that's ever mattered, I am worth everything and because of that, I can do any and all things." 

[kylerictor]

Christmas Eve

We don't notice when we're changing, we only notice when we've changed. We don't see the flowers blooming, we see they've bloomed. Time has always, mysteriously been the blindfold to inevitability. We grow old, we change, we miss the whole miracle. Brief lapses of monotony are often the only things that can break us loose from our blank stares for a moment to notice these changes. Birthdays, holidays, funerals, vacations, etc. Personally, no other day results in my self reflection more than Christmas Eve. I'm not sure why this is so. Perhaps it's the constant thread of hope stringing the years together like popcorn on fishing line. Every Christmas Eve I have a feeling of hope. I hope it snows, I hope I get Mortal Kombat, I hope Uncle Bob gets here early, I hope mom made mashed potatoes. The hope is constant. Even as what I hope for revolves like a mechanical pastry case, it is hope in which I truly revel. I guess you could say that all I've ever wanted for Christmas was something to hope for. 

As I write this in the cafe of my wife's work place, waiting for her shift to end, watching her float gracefully across the floor like a beautiful ghost or angel, I know what it is I hope for this year. I hope to be a better man. I hope to be the kind of man that deserves her and our future children and this wonderful breath in my lungs. I know that I may never get there, to the point of deserving her or any of this life. But, we don't care that George is never going to lasso the moon. All we care about is that he never stops believing he one day will. That he never stops hoping.

So let disappointments lie in wait, hidden among the fog of our futures. Tonight, hope prevails. Bask in the inviting glow of the moon this evening and throw that lasso as high as it will go. Merry Christmas, friends. 

[kylerictor]

Metal Coffins

           Two days ago I dropped my sister off at the airport where she boarded a plane and flew back to Frederick, MD. She came to Nashville a week earlier to celebrate Thanksgiving with me and my wife. I am very close with my sister and rarely get to see her. It's always a bit strange spending a long period of time with someone you love but rarely see. "Time on steroids" as my sister puts it. You want to catch up on everything and generally accomplish that within the first two days, then you have an entire work week to live a normal/not so normal life together before distance and time apart ensues. Moments of silence inevitably feel like opportunities wasted, so you end up having a conversation similar to those one has on long car rides when the alternative is cabin fever and eventual insanity. Time on steroids indeed. Then they leave and you're left with spots in your eyes for a couple days before the picture start to develop and you can see again. This is the memory of a visit. All other conversations vanish into oblivion and only the words that left a mark remain. That's your mental polaroid from the trip.One thing that made it into my mental polaroid is a conversation my sister and I had in my car in the driveway. I said some things earlier in the week that caused my sister to feel like I didn't respect her. When I asked her what she meant by respect, her answer was,

"I want to feel like you respect the way I'm living my life. That you don't think I'm screwing everything up."

After apologizing and affirming her that I did not think she was screwing everything up, I asked her if she felt that way about herself. If she felt that she was a screw up. She responded as I would have. "I know in my head I'm not a screw up, but I feel like I am all the time." I told her that I felt that way too and we wondered why that was so. We came to the conclusion that we felt the need to prove ourselves to each other but never quite figured out why we had that desire in the first place. It runs deeper than sibling rivalry, it's about proving we are grown up. It's about making sure what we feel in our hearts isn't being publicly broadcast or manifesting itself in the outcome of our lives. I confessed that I viewed my "passion" for music as not a passion at all, but a curse. That I so often feel like a joke of a man. That I'm chasing a pipe dream and no one has the heart to tell me I'm never gonna "make it". I want so badly to have consistency and never have to wonder where my next paycheck is coming from. I want a boss to give me performance reviews and a 401K or pension or paid holidays. My sister told me I was crazy and that she wished she had the courage and passion I had. She said, "You could do anything you want, but you keep pushing with music, you never quit and I couldn't be prouder.  Do you know how many people go to jobs they hate? Most of America travels to a job they hate every single day because they don't want to live that kind of uncertainty." Even though I knew my sister was right, that most of the country goes to a job they hate every single day, it didn't make me feel lucky or proud even. I just felt that I simply chose a different kind of pain. The rare kind maybe, but pain none the less. I think when it's all said and done, it doesn't matter at all where you make your money or how hard your job is or how much you can count on. The only thing that matters is whether you let fear call the shots or not. Those times I want to go back to school to be an accountant just for a consistent paycheck are the moments I let fear control me. When I am asleep next to my wife on an air mattress in some stranger's house in a new city where we just played a show and made no money is when I shoo fear away like a bothersome, harmless gnat. I think we are only alive in these moments. These are really the only moments that matter.

I just watched the movie Point Break. There's a scene in that movie where Patrick Swayze's character is giving an inspirational speech to his cohorts about being alive and the human spirit. He says, "This was never about money for us. It was about us against the system. That system that kills the human spirit. We stand for something. To those dead souls inching along the freeways in their metal coffins, we show them that the human spirit is still alive.”

I love this. Not because I want to rob banks to stick it to the man, but because at the core of that speech is FREEDOM. Freedom from fear. Forget about failure or success or respect or consistency or passion. I think all you need to do is ask yourself where in your life fear steers the ship. Take that wheel back and sail to the fucking end of the world, man. So, what are you afraid of? Write me and let's talk about it.

[kylerictor]

Portland, The Roots, Airports and Diarrhea

I'm in Portland, OR today. I woke up around 6:00 this morning which clocks me in right around 3 hours of sleep. My wife (Kelsey) is flying into Portland today to hang with me for the next 6 days as we continue our west coast tour. I had breakfast at a 24 hour diner-esque dive pancake house. It was aesthetically charming and, as you'll soon learn, gastronomically punishing. I hopped the #70 bus from the Aladdin theatre to the max station on Hollywood ave., picked up the red line headed east bound and ended up at the airport. Whenever I'm in a new city, using the public transportation system I like to pretend I've lived my whole life there. Like, I could hop on the red line with my eyes closed and just sense when my stop was arriving instead of checking my phone every mile and reading train maps and street signs with a rain man like obsession. I don't know why being jaded is something I fantasize about, but I do. I've always hated feeling like a tourist. Ironically I chose a profession that requires I wake up in a new city every morning. I'm eternally a tourist. Never home. Always looking at the map, rushing, waiting, anxious. I arrived at the airport two hours early. I don't mind that. I get to read. Drink some airport coffee. Smoke. Rinse and repeat. I've developed an almost applause worthy skill at killing time. I've been listening to the new Elvis Costello album he did with the Roots. Damn it is DIRTY! I mean that in the funkiest way possible. It's kicking my ass today. Speaking of which, that diner breakfast pancake dive 24 hour hell hole I mentioned early ultimately resulted in my asshole feeling like an angry russian TSA officer took a cheese grater to it. That make some of you uncomfortable. Good. Times that by 100 pancakes and you know how I feel. Airports are magical places to me. An airport is maybe the only place in this world in which I hope to never be jaded. It reminds me of Disney world. Every time. No matter where I'm flying to or from. Airports=Disney. I love Disney World. No conclusions today. Just wanted to let you know I had diarrhea and my wife is coming. She just landed. I gotta go. We're gonna make out.

[kylerictor]

Maybe Home Is Where We Most Clearly See Him

I'm about 5 days in to a 3 week tour covering the west coast of the USA. Tonight we're playing Salt Lake City, UT. The further west I get the more enamored I am with the fantasy of living somewhere other than Nashville. It could just be that the west side of my country is so aesthetically different than the east. But it could also be something deeper. Do you ever get the feeling that you were destined to end up somewhere? Somewhere as in a physical location. When I say it out loud it sounds a little too, I don't know, new age-y and stupid. But when I stand out in the dessert with mountains surrounding I can't help but wonder if God ever has a desire for us to just get up and move to a specific location and I don't mean for a missions trip. It's easy to say "I think God wants me to move to Africa and help Africans because, uh, they need help." What I'm asking is, I wonder if God looks down on me, standing in a Pilot gas station, mouth agape at the beauty of Utah and beyond and whispers, "Why not? Do you sense my beauty and goodness more out here? Are you more inspired to create out here? I know how much you love to create. I created you specifically to create and I think you're great at it. What's stopping you? Nashville is the music city? Come on. Don't you know I'm bigger than that? You can sing to me anywhere you want. So, would you like to sing to me in the mountains?"

If God were asking me that, my answer would be...yes. Yes I do want to sing to you in the mountains. Maybe "home" is just where we most clearly see Him.

More posts as more westward visions arise.

[kylerictor]

I AM ME

What do we have if not the machete hacked trails of our fathers;

Wooded tombs, tearless to our inevitable fate?

Damned machines raging forth failure and regret halving the heart like an apple? 

“If only we knew”, we’ll say.

Or…

The darkness will beckon

The peaks will doubt

The oxygen lessen

The windy air shout

My hand will rise

My gaze will narrow

My bow will fly

Forth my arrow

I am the blade that buffers the branch

I am the bridge connecting the banks

I am the leaf on a pivoting bough

I am the spark and the flame and the cloud

I am the uncharted mile

I am the prisoner freed

I am not form and file

Praise God! I am me.

[kylerictor]

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY-1954

Macy's dress on, the water runs hot

Steam hugs the winter glass 

With muted sunlight kissing milky pearls

Ringless fingers methodically caress soiled china

Completing the regurgitated duties of yesterday

The faucet drips in ritardando and the sound of water descending on marble

Eternally reverberates through the ghostly hallways of an empty house

Today marks 21 years of marriage

Wealthy man

Pretty things

Misguided envy

Dreams of what those capable hands could attain

Once filled her heart like the winter river at the turning of seasons

Now, dreams seep out slowly, daily

A wound never healed or bandaged

Left to fester and burn in the soapy dishwater

The cherry red veil of a door opens

Brisk winter air sneaks through as the “Man” enters

The “Man” with his conquests and paychecks

The “Man” with his ever present alibi of provision

The “Man”

Oh, if I were a “Man” 

If I were free to die as I pleased

I would live

I would shout and run and breathe in my good fortune

I would live

Roses with city water petals and drugstore price tags

Are requisitely pressed into the daisy print apron

“Thank you honey. Happy Anniversary. Pot roast for supper tonight.”

[kylerictor]

BUT NOW

I once saw myself a great man

cracked from labor, wise from failure

beside me sits a woman well loved

inside me sits the heart she holds

behind me lies despair availed

above me reigns a Master pleased

I sought no treasure but that of my own heart

I’ve laid aside all offerings of “goodness” the world offered

for but a whisper of what my soul has yearned since breath

I took no road

I took to the fields

I had but one guide

and to it I stayed true

to my wife I stayed true

to my friends

to myself

I once saw myself a great man

but now, now I only wish to be forgiven

now I only wish to wake

For I am a wicked man

and with the morning comes mercy anew.   

[kylerictor]

The Myth Of Monsters

A little over a year ago I started working at a treatment facility about an hour and a half outside of Nashville. My friend Tyler was building a private practice that would specialize in songwriting therapy and asked me to be a part of it while she workshopped it at this facility. I was nervous to enter a world so foreign to me but excited to stretch myself and have a payed gig where I get to cut my teeth on different writing styles, so I said yes. 

This article isn't about the workshop, so I'll spare the details of our rocky beginnings and triumphant rise to getting fired. This article is about the participants (we don't use the word patient) we encountered and what they taught me about brokenness vs. evil. 

Every session starts out the same way. A therapist enters the room. A few seconds later, like a shadow, the participant follows. Most of the time the participant enters with conveying one of three emotions: Trepidation, arrogance or apathy.  All three come from the same root which is essentially fear. Some are very friendly albiet sheepish. Others are terse and dominant. Most are just very tired. They have already been through intensive therapy for three days before Tyler and I enter the picture. No cell phone, no caffeine, no nicotine and no mercy. These people have in some cases travelled internationally and payed a small fortune to get just 4 days on this ranch. They are on a literal and metaphorical journey and it is draining.

We all take a seat on worn in recliners and quilt laden sofas.  When the water bottles and purses are placed in their temporary homes there's a collective exhale and the session begins with a simple question:

"Why are you here?"

The response is always in short form at first.

"Well, my husband cheated on me" or "I'm a sex addict" or "I'm an alcoholic" or my favorite, "Oh God, where do I start?"

The dance continues, awkwardly at first, but they eventually learn where our feet end and theirs begin. Pretty soon they're gliding across the floor like Fred Astaire, weeping the whole way.  It used to surprise me how easily these participants would share a secret with a complete stranger, but now it makes sense to me. People want to tell their secrets. They want to be heard and shrug the sandbag off their shoulder they've been carrying for years. It's only fear that can keep a person from the freedom of revealing their secrets. Some participants were indeed too consumed by fear to ever share a thing and they leave the room as weary and alone as when they entered 4 hours earlier. Most traverse this chasm with great courage though and for the next 4 or 5 hours tell us their story. In no particular order or style they communicate anything and everything which left a good or bad mark in their hearts or brains from birth to present day. Tyler writes lyrics as I listen for a melody in their life. I write for about 30 minutes of the 4 hours we're there. The rest of the time I listen. I don't say a word. I just...listen. I have listened to hundreds of the most horrific and heart breaking and despicable stories you could imagine. I've seen a couple dissolve over 30 years of marriage right before my very eyes. I've seen powerful and wealthy men cry for their mothers in the fetal position. I've seen true hopelessness in the eyes of a 22 year old kid a week before he died from a heroin overdose. I've seen a prostitute's rage toward a pedophilic father. I've heard a church leader call his own mother a cunt. Yet all the details of these interactions don't mean a thing. It's where it all started that we find there are no such things as monsters.

People want and need to be loved. It may sound oversimplified, but I promise you, behind every jeffery Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy is a kid who just wants to be loved. To feel love or see it. To ultimately know and keep love. There are no monsters, just people who have learned to acquire love substitutes. So much of what happens to the child ends up running the show in cognito when that child becomes an adult. The sex addict isn't addicted to just sex, he's addicted to intimacy and the kid says that meaningless sexual conquests equate intimacy because they feel good. Of course the adult doesn't know that intimacy is really what he's searching for on that porn site. The codependent fears being left. "I will do whatever you want as long as you promise to never leave me". That's what the child needs from a parent, to never leave, but the adult doesn't know that the child's fear of abandonment is what causes the adult to do things for someone they would NEVER do. Shame, anger and hopelessness settle in and you have no idea how you got there. 

What I'm saying is, it's easy to play the "well, at least I'm not a murderer" game with ourselves, but after the last year and a half of sitting in rooms with "monsters" I gotta say, I'm one of them. I want and need love and do hurtful things to get it. I let the kid version of myself run the show A LOT. I'm scared to really find out all the ways that kid is killing me but I can't ignore him anymore. I'm not above being a monster and my guess is, neither are you. Gather your courage and talk to somebody. You might be surprised at how much of yourself you're missing out on. 

  Next week I will be going to my first personal counseling session ever. I'm really nervous but proud of myself for having the stones to go. If I can do it, you can do it.