“…the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved…”
- Jack Kerouac, On The Road
My back against the very wall, exasperated on the kitchen floor surrounded by the darkness of night, banging my head against the very rock that had me jammed uncomfortably between it and a hard place, I broke.
Last night I made my slow way home, limping on a broken spirit; a tired soul. I climbed concrete steps and rested on wooden benches. At the corner of Melrose and Highland—the night seemingly its blackest at only 6 p.m.—the gridlock-riddled city of LA pumping steel and gasoline, I knocked my head back, shouting through tears at the very God who breathed life into me, “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE HERE!?”
I write to you today from the Apple store at the Grove in Los Angeles, an over-crowded establishment filled with geniuses, and high-tech consumers jacked on caffeine and the idea of taking a brand new MacBook Pro from the package. Â It is here that I must surreptitiously write today’s post, a clandestine operation as I pretend my only business here is to identify the body and remains of my own computer which is now officially toast. Â I start writing about sex and pornography, generating the highest amount of traffic I’ve had yet, and less then twenty-four hours later my machine is dead and gone.
It’s a cold and rainy day here in Los Angeles. I slept in late, missed my bus, and waited in the rain for a ride to Starbucks this morning. The next bus didn’t take me far enough, and I walked with my pack slung over my shoulder down the dirty Hollywood sidewalk, my faded boots with fraying laces and thin soles carrying me the rest of the way. By the time I made it, I was aching for a cup of coffee only to discover the cafĂ© in Barnes and Noble conveniently covered up all their outlets to keep out bloggers like me. Considering I am writing these blogs on a Macbook fossil — an artifact Indiana Jones would have fallen into a pit of snakes for — I was forced to venture on because my machine cannot last without power.
Cold, tired, hungry, feeling anxious because it was already 9:30 a.m. and I still had no damn idea what I was going to write about this morning, I started clicking through the internet looking for inspiration after I got settled a few blocks down the road. And how quickly I stumbled upon swimsuit models, sexy rock stars, and lingerie ads. Reminded that it’s been over eighteen months since the last time I looked at pornography, my heart hurt. Not for me—it’s simply no longer a part of my life, and I don’t miss it—but for the millions of individuals caught in a worldwide lie.
The first time I used pornography I was eleven-years-old.
My first experience with vulnerability was in sixth grade. It was the first time I extended myself towards someone. Her name was Mary. Mary, Mary, Mary, at the time I thought you ruined my life the day I met you. Mary liked me. A lot. So it should have been easy. But I was terrified. A girl had never blatantly expressed her interest in me, and I didn’t know what to do with that power. Through a friend of a friend, she asked me to be her boyfriend—what exactly that consists of in the sixth grade I cannot entirely recall. Phone calls. Passing notes in class. Writing her name on the back of your hand as an act of public declaration.
The same things I do today as a functioning adult.
I was so terrified to let her in, I kept her waiting for three weeks.
She was approaching me, and I was still terrified of rejection. What would happen when she got to know the real twelve-year-old Max? The one obsessed with dinosaurs and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The nonathletic-picked-on-by-the-jocks-Max who went through a growth spurt so awkward that summer, he was three sizes too big for himself and still learning what to do with all that extra arm and leg. I couldn’t figure out why she was attracted to me. In the end, I finally said, “Yes.” And I was still alive.
Then she wanted to kiss me, and I died.
I mean really kiss me. This would have been fine except Mary was experienced. I wasn’t her first. She’d already locked lips with her ex-boyfriend, Ian—dangerous, bad boy, wavy locks of hair, Ian. How was I supposed to compete with that?
I put it off for three months, but I couldn’t avoid it any longer. Mary, along with the rest of the sixth grade class, was beginning to question my masculinity.  It was time to put myself out there. I wasn’t good at anything else. I wasn’t known for anything. Yet, all the bullies who picked on me weren’t kissing any girls.  This was my chance to prove myself as a man.  I extended myself to her, risked everything, and engaged in what is still one of the most horrifying experiences of my life—my first kiss.
The next day at school I was a hero.
Three days later at school Mary broke up with me, and I hid in the bathroom.*
I tell you this because that fear of vulnerability and risk doesn’t change whether you’re 12 or 112.
On Thursday night I shot into downtown with nothing but a couple of bucks and some loose change kicking around in my pockets. I was off to meet a woman for coffee and food, and just like in sixth grade, I couldn’t figure out why she was expressing interest in me. Thank goodness I was unfamiliar with the downtown area and choose to meet up at The Down And Out, a bar suitable for any respectful criminal’s first day of parole. The place is positively charming if your wife’s just left you, or you’ve recently stabbed someone and you need to lay low. But as far as dates go, it’s not exactly an establishment conducive for exchanging pleasantries unless you’re trying to hide all your scars and tattoos in the shadows—or fidgety nerves.
We all know heartbreak and rejection. It’s universal. We feel it because God feels it too. He made us in His likeness. And we reject him day after day after day. Yet He remains persistent, unmoved, and still in love with you just as much as He was yesterday. He takes endless risks with us, letting us know how much He loves us, yet never asking us to love Him in return.
Then why is it so hard for us to risk? Because we live at the mercy of each others choices. We have no control over what the other person will say when we ask them to dance, for a date, out for a cup of coffee; if these skinny jeans look good.
The thing is, I don’t believe it should be hard. Risk is a part of life. God does it every day so we do it too. Making a decision not to risk is making a decision never to live, never to love.
Worse, by not risking, we’ll never experience God’s love. A love so powerful and consuming it never runs out.
Mary destroyed my confidence in being a man in the sixth grade, and subconsciously I still carry it around with me after all these years.   Today I am taking a climb well aware I may have to jump when I get to the top—to take the risk of not knowing what’s at the bottom. It doesn’t make a difference if I’m landing in a swimming pool or shark-infested waters. Either way, I still know how to swim.
Now, I’m not saying we should live a life of reckless climbing and carefree jumping. What makes the difference, what makes the rejection easy to handle, and what strengthens our vulnerability is listening when we get to the top. Not jumping for our own satisfaction and adrenaline rush—that will always end in death—but jumping because God says it’s okay, “Go ahead. I’ve got you.”
Even though He may not tell you what’s at the bottom, He knows you still know how to swim.
*Odds are those two incidents are directly related, and if you’re reading this right now please don’t judge me on my sixth grade kissing abilities—I’ve learned a lot since then.
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© Copyright September 2010 | | Make It MAD
I am the richest man in the world.
I have $27.67 in my savings account.
At this very moment I am enjoying a delicious and over-priced latte at Bricks and Scones in Larchmont Village, reading and writing while the rest of the population works nine to five at jobs they hate, chatting around the water cooler about that new shipment of staplers coming in on Friday. I’m still walking, still breathing, and as all this coffee goes right through me I am reminded I still have a properly functioning bladder.
Eighteen days have gone by since I last spoke to my father.
Twenty-two days since my return to Boardman, Ohio.
Twenty days my sister has now been married to her prince.
Seventeen days since I returned to LA.
Eleven days my mother has now been in the hospital.
Three days she spent carrying around a ruptured appendix pumping poison through her body.
Eleven days my sisters have been living off cafeteria coffee just north of the emergency room, burdened with phone calls to loved ones.
Seven-and-a-half days since I’ve taken a drink.
Twelve hours since I last lied.
Seven years ago I ran away from home, and told my mother she would never understand.
Ten years since my parents divorced.
Three years since my father remarried.
Twenty-two months since the first time I hit bottom.
Six days since I hit it last.
Seven hundred and thirty thousand days since Christ said, “It is finished.”
This is what a week of sobriety looks like:
Everything hurts.
Everyone is stupid.
Coffee becomes the single most satisfying substance on the planet.
Everything in existence is irritating.
Everyone knows when you’re lying, and this, of course, is maddening.
Friends and family have never been more annoying, but they’re essential to your survival.
Promise, you realize, is the greatest commodity known to man.
And one day of truly living can make you regret you ever wasted yourself on anything other than life.