An Open Letter to Marshall Bizzle

Dear Marshall

AKA Marshmellow, Smarsh, Smarshmellow, Marshmole, Buddy, Buds, Stinky, My Boy, Drooly, Handsome, Dowg, Stinky Breathe, Dog Boy, Good Boy, Droopy Face, and many many more that I'm sure I'm forgetting at the moment.

I'll start off by stating the obvious. I miss you buds, greatly.

Coming home tonight was incredibly painful just knowing you wouldn't be here. Standing at the top of the stairs one front paw up shaking your entire butt like it were going outta style. Smiling big of course, ready to pounce and say hello with a lick on the face.

Always happy I'm home, no matter how long it had been. Often times you'd do this even if I had gone outside to move my car. Or if it had been an unfairly long amount of time you never held a grudge, always the most excited you had ever been just that we had be reunited once again.

But of course I didn't get that tonight because you are no longer with us.

Tonight was one of the hardest nights I've ever had. To have to say goodbye to you so suddenly. It was, it is, unbearable.

Sitting in that cold hard room not knowing where you were just waiting for the bad news with the chance of good news becoming slimmer and slimmer with each update.

I can say that I truly knew what was happening when I saw the look on Mr Muerkhe's face when she first came back to tell me she had trouble with your x-rays. She, like anyone who had ever met you, loved you like crazy and I could see it in her held back tears that things weren't going to be good.

Then of course from there we went on our final car ride together, you falcoring your ass off out the passenger window, covering the side of my car with your slobber. Of course while sitting at a stoplight a woman remarked at how handsome you are, as did the woman in the vet just an hour earlier. Oh if we could all only be so striking and charming as you Marshall Bizzle, if only for a day, would know happiness.

From there we had that reluctant walk into the hospital. I wonder now if me forgetting your paperwork in the car was just another chance to prolong what I feared was coming next. I stopped and took a couple photos, after all you're such a handsome boy.

As soon as we got in they took you and put you in a special cage just for you. An oxygen cage so that big barrel chest could get all the air it craved. I'll be honest you looked rather silly in there. The dogboy in the plastic bubble.

I left you in their care, hoping. Barely, but hoping.

Next was more waiting, in a cold hard room. This was the loneliest moment I recall ever experiencing in life. I was out of the comfort and familiarity of our vet, and now trusting you my closest friend and family member to them. I felt so helpless, and I was. As were you. And it turns out as were they really.

This moment my good friend was one of those moments that you're usually there for and cure with such ease. Had you been there you would have simply done your trademark frantic face lick followed the hug/side of head rub that I'll probably miss more than anything about you.

You always knew how to make me feel loved and appreciated when I felt anything but.

Not this time my friend, at least not at this moment.

This moment was mine to soak in while the minutes passed like hours.

Of course eventually the hours did pass and I was left with clear answers. You had cancer and had it quite bad. The mass appeared to even wrap around that big heart of yours. In all honesty I didn't even know the severity of what I was looking at until it was properly explained to me.

Of course I bargained with her, tried to come up with solutions, things that made sense, begging to be told that you're going to be alright. I was never told this of course as we know.

Ultimately I couldn't make the decision alone of course.

I called your mother for the first time in many months and gave to her what was incredibly difficult to deliver news.

She of course rushed over as fast as she could.

I then did my best to explain the situation but I'm no good at understanding or describing such things so I brought her in to speak to the doctor.

I had to go through the whole process again. Like it was fresh and new, looking for a hole. Hoping maybe Brooke would have some sort of idea or plan that perhaps I had missed. Of course as we know this didn't happen.

And thats when the reality really hit. All options were exhausted and we knew it.

At that point I began to inform some friends. And of course with you being such a social creature had folks even come down to see you. You were a band dog for us the entire time so it was only fitting that the rest of the 22s came out to bid farewell to our fifth member.

From there it was back inside for some time with you. You of course could see I was sad and went through your routine multiple times, I'm sure wondering why your trademark tactics weren't working. Trust me boy, they worked great. It was great to see you feeling a bit better than you had the previous days. I'm sure having all that fluid removed was a relief on you. It really does bring a smile to my face to see how happy and upbeat you were, always positive you were.

I of course then got the idea that we go for a walk. Let you sniff anything as long as you'd like and piss on anything you felt like. You're never one to turn down such an offer so off we went. Strange how beautiful of a night it was. This was one of our most peaceful walks yet, sort of reminded me of the one we had just yesterday morning in its peacefulness.

Of course eventually the time came to bring you back in. I could only put this off for so long. Back inside where we spent more time, hugging, crying, licking, playing, shaking, you know all that stuff.

I held your head as you give me some final kisses while I told you how much of a good boy you are and I watched you slip away from behind your own eyes. Your head falling into my lap like it had so many times before. I gave you a hug, expressed my love one last time and reluctantly left the room.

Marshall part of me feels like a piece of my heart has been taken away. In reality I know that our time spent together only added to my heart and that can never be taken away. You taught me much about unconditional love, loyalty, forgiveness, and just being staying positive and happy regardless of situation.

You lived most likely your entire life with this thing growing inside of you. Seeing that today only demonstrated once again how strong you are. I can't believe you managed to be as great as you were with that weighing on you everyday, making everything you do difficult. I will keep this as an inspiration to me everyday.

I look at the calender and I realize in total our time was a mere 2 years, 5 months, and 4 days.

But you and I both know thats a ridiculous measurement. Those 2.5 months when we were here alone I wouldn't have survived without your company. You kept me motivated, strong, happy. You kept me from sinking into a hopeless depression day in and day out. I never asked this of you, not once. You just did it. Just like you picked me when I saw you at the shelter, just like you picked me when your mom and I split up. You were always there for me Marshall. Especially on those lonely nights when I felt like no one else in the world cared if I even existed or not. You were always there.

And for that I thank you and will love you always for because you saved me. I always claimed to have rescued you but the truth is that YOU saved me. For that I am eternally grateful to you.

I love and miss you like crazy already buds. Thank you for everything.

Love always,

Kyle/Dad/God/Woof/Whateversillynicknameyouhadforme

To whom it may concern:

For what its worth I don't subscribe to a belief system that believes in an afterlife or reincarnation or whatever. I wrote this strictly to share my feelings for my own mental health. Please don't say he's "in a better place" or anything like that. He is not in a better place, he is simply out of pain now and for that I am happy for him.

And to anyone who sees this and thinks "he's just a dog." Thats fine to think that. If you stand by that thought then I definitely agree that your dog is JUST a dog. This dog was my best friend, my child, my only family.

If your dog is just a dog thats fine, this dog and I had something special and I think that was observed by anyone who spent more than a few moments with us together. He was and is far more to me than just a dog.

Its Saturday night on a 3 day weekend and

I'm sitting here by myself at the house.
I'm actually considering sleeping, but part of me wants to stay awake and be introspective.
Funny how different moods can strike seemingly out of nowhere.
Tonight the Hypnic Jerks had a show at Brauerhouse in Lombard. It was a decent time, good company and I usually dig the vibe of that spot.
Tonight for some reason as soon as I got there I just wasn't feeling social at all.
Just not in the mood for surface talk bullshit. I'm finding myself less and less interested in such things as time goes on for the most part.
Lucky for this guy they happened to play first so I did get to leave pretty early which is good.

Currently I'm finding myself in a weird place mentally. Some moments I feel fantastic, energetic, and positive. Than others I'm finding myself soaked in self loathing and little hope in anything really.
I understand these are both aspects of the human condition but its strange to have these types of swings in regards to the same things within very short time periods.
I lately often find myself working towards certain things and making great strides and than ultimately thinking to myself, why?
For what reason am I doing this?
Basically I'm having trouble figuring certain things out.
Pretty much everything I do has 1 of 2 motivators. For me or for others.
I'll admit openly that right now in my life I'm at a very me centric selfish stage. Very focused on all my own shit.
Now the irony I'm finding in this is that all those things I'm working on for me and me only even when I do well the victory feels very fleeting unless shared with others. Getting some excitement from elsewhere.
Its like I always hunger for some sort of external validation as if my own isn't good enough.
Even when I get the validation it is also fleeting. I'm finding myself awkward and incredibly poor at taking kudos and compliments yet requiring them to maintain positivity.
This is another one of those things though, where I flip flop daily.
Sometimes I can stay fueled exclusively on my own drive and feel great about both myself and everything around me even with negativity coming in. Then other times its the opposite. Feeling shitty about things regardless of how much good feedback is coming in.
Perhaps I'm a bit bipolar, I'm not sure.
I do know that some folks bring out the positive side more than others. As in when I'm around certain people I'm simply elevated. These people vary in social group, age, gender, ethnicity, everything. But there is something in their personalities that is consistent. An honest, open, nonjudgmental, loving, positive, genuinely interested in you and your life type. The kind of people that when you succeed and do well are TRULY happy for you, rather than being the type that is happy for you on the surface but internally either doesn't care or is upset to see you doing well when they aren't in the same regards.
I try to fill my life with these people, but it doesn't always work this way.
So until it does I'll continue to try and be more like that myself and try and keep that attitude with me at all times. Thinking and knowing even though someone isn't there physically their footprint on your life is. Your experiences together, your sharing of thoughts, of emotions, your time spent and things gained never really go away.
You can take it with you and play it back whenever you'd like.

I've just got to remember to try and do that more often.
For now I'm still feeling weird and am super tired, goodnight neverland.

Silence and Solitude.

Two things that have taken me a very long time to find the value in.

I'm sure this stems back from when I was a kid. For most of my younger years it was just myself and my young mother. Shit by the time she was the age I am now I was already 5 years old.
Anyway during those younger years I was often left alone while she worked (or slept for that matter, she worked A LOT and weird hours).
Looking back I'm assuming this is where my long discomfort with silence and being alone came from. Even then when by myself at the house (well trailer actually, ha) I'd always have a TV or radio on, ALWAYS. Its like I thought sound would protect me from whatever monsters I could conjure up in my mind based on clank made by a furnace or the wind making the house creak.
Shit come to think of it this is probably how my love of music even started as well. At the core of it I've always said my favorite music makes me feel not so alone both in the world and in experience and perspective.

Back to the topic at hand though up until recently silence has been something I avoided and solitude is something I've always only enjoyed for very short amounts of time.
Of course as a kid I was afraid of monsters but as you grow the monsters don't go away, they just stopping looking like monsters and start looking more like people and situations. They become the things your scared to try at, the things you're afraid to risk, those things you may have not been diligent enough on potentially falling apart. Same shit different name.

Anyway I'm at a point where I've slayed so many of these fucking monsters that anymore I'm simply charging them head on whilst screaming "FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDDDOOOMMM" a la big papa Mel.
Examples of this are I will often just drive in silence anymore. No radio, no music, nothing. Just quietly drive.
Sometimes my mind is running, sometimes its still, sometimes I sing, sometimes I think out loud (most folks would call say I'm talking to myself), sometimes I just stare at the road and feel what simply sitting and breathing feels like.
Another example is sometimes when I get home and no one else is here I will simply lay on my back ankles crossed with my hands behind my head and stare at the ceiling and let my brain just wonder. This is something that has become one of my most relaxing activities, I'm sure it doesn't hurt that every time I do this its shortly after a work out.

Really my ability to deal with these things came over the past couple months. Basically from mid April up until July I lived completely alone for the first time in my entire life. Marshall Bizzle was here of course and he's probably a big part of my success but no other humans shared my home.
During this time I was able to strictly focus on myself and my own goals both short and long term. I've achieved many of the short term and am working towards a couple big long term goals.
Basically what I'm saying is solitude is good because it can allow you to focus on your own shit for once and get it straight distraction free.
In turn this sets your mind free and generally takes it out of crisis mode and allows you divert your mental energies towards more fruitful things rather than fear.

All I'm saying is perhaps spend some time alone and face this shit inside your head properly so you can deal with whats outside of it properly. Just another step towards being as free as you want to be.

File Under Bullshit

Well its been quite some time since I touched this thing.
I started it with the intention of sort of getting back into the swing of doing such things regularly and it just didn't happen.

Well here I sit in a very different place from then so I figure why not give it a shot again?

For this one I figured I'll start with just where I'm at right now.
Just recently celebrated my 27th birthday.
I'm playing guitar in The Roaring .22s and 5 string bass in the recently formed metal band The Facilitators.
I work at company called Fusion Systems (just hit 1 yr there actually). I go back and forth on my opinion of this place, we'll see how it goes.

In late December my longest relationship to date came to an end. Thats a strange thing as a whole really. While it was coming to a close I fought it like crazy and seemed like the worst thing ever. Now that it actually IS over and I never see her anymore I am very happy about it. I've been able to go back into things I love and reorganize my life in my own way without someone else's priorities.
Which has been particularly grand in itself as I've taken up some great habits. I've gone back to cooking regularly and its been great. I've started running again. I actually put down over 15 miles this week, I'm quite proud of myself on this one. I've cut back massively on my beer intake, I still party on the weekends but I maybe have a couple beers throughout the rest of the week.
My guitar playing and singing efforts have easily doubled or tripled as of late. I love it. I've been doing a lot of writing, still getting comfortable in my own skin in certain regards but its a good kind of challenge. A pic I took after doing some writing yesterday cuz the image made me happy.






































Best part of the end of said relationship is that I got to keep my dog Marshall Bizzle. When we first broke up I remember saying I think to my friend Pat that if she wanted to leave thats fine but my biggest concern was Marshall staying with me. He did a great job at showing who he wanted to stay with and who he preferred. I do sort of feel bad for her in that regard, but like I've said from the beginning Marshall has a great bullshit detector. Luckily she accepted that and didn't really fight me about him staying with me.
So far I think Marshall has really enjoyed it being just me and him actually, he could definitely sense the tension and negativity.
We go on a lot of long walks, do a lot of playing, and I've started bringing him to band practices which I think he likes. I've also been fixing some of his behavior issues since its only me and its easier to be consistent with him.
Heres a pic of us from a recent trip to the park.






































It is strange though, I'm still in the same house as I've been the past 2 years but I'm now in it alone. I thought I was gonna hate it and be lonely but I've actually come to love it. I can do whatever I want whenever I want.
Hang out naked and play rockband? Sure.
Play guitar while singing at the top of my lungs at 7am on a Saturday? Fuck yeah.

The one thing about the post break up thing that has bothered me though is all these things I didn't know that have come out from friends. I really wish I would have known this shit a year or more ago so I could have quit wasting my time. I understand why folks wouldn't or couldn't say these things to me, I just hope next time they do anyway regardless of the immediate consequences because long term its definitely for the better.

Anyway thats all I'm feeling up to writing about today, this will continue to evolve slowly I'm sure as I've got a lot in my head that will be useful to get out.