My Grandpa the Sheriff, Playboy, hero.

Today the world got a little bit darker. I lost my grandpa one of my heroes. Grandpa Benson was a force to be wreckoned. He was a business genious the true definition of a entrepeneur to the full degree. I never had much interest in the business world but he taught me the giant dragon and made me learn to appreciate it. Born and raised in Nebraska my grandpa was a farmer raised working for everything he had from the bottom up. I learned soo many great qualities from him. My sense of humor, business sense, and how no matter what if I work hard I will succeed. He was my drive to go to college and finish my degree. I just can't believe he's gone I am in shock and my heart is broken. I'm sitting here alone in this park and I just don't even know how to deal with this I feel like I'm in a bad nightmare. Some of the fondest memories I have of my grandfather are the interactions he had with my grandma. They were hilarious they would argue back and forth playfully. It was their relationship among my other grandparents that I idolized to this day. I would dream of one day having my love to banter with and tease like they did each other. My grandfather used to swear playfully CBC my grandma would get soo upset it was soo funny. We'd sneak to Taco Bell and get some tacos "don't tell grandma" he'd say! I used to laugh and laugh. Of all the places we'd always sneak to freaking Taco Bell. He taught me all about horses. How to ride then take care of them and even how to buy and sell them. It was our thing we'd go to barn after barn seeking out the best deal. He was a mover and a shaker to the full degree you could not get an edge in with him business wise he was an excellent negotiator. Let me tell you about Hugh Heffner the second! My grandfather was a ladies man they loved him. I teased him that he was a playboy.. It was that charm and fearless brave technique that helped me persue my other half.. My wife. 

        I feel like a part of me died today I can't believe he's gone. I can't believe that my grandmas partner in crime is dead. I can only aspire to be as great a man as my grandfather was.. I loved him dearly and admired him. I hope that he finds happiness in the beyond and I know for certain heaven just got another true gentleman and sheriff back. 

I miss you soo much grandpa and I love you dearly, I owe every gentleman quality to you. Thank you for helping shape me into the man I am today.

Handicapped

     It all started one morning at about 5 am. I woke up with excruciating pain shooting down my leg and focused in my lower back. The pain was soo bad, taking my breath away I tried to sit up but I couldn't. I knew this pain, but this was horrible. About 10 years or so ago I had a horrible injury at Staples. I was working on the ladder going up to get a machine for a customer. A small printer if I can remember correctly. Well when I turned to let her know I was coming down a huge machine fell from behind me, I turned just in time to catch the box and in turn was slammed up against the edge of the lift. I felt a pop a deep burn in the back but at the time I didn't think anything of it. I had to catch this box see the lady beneath me would have been hurt soo bad being that she was elderly and little and this box could have really done damage. It was the next morning that I woke up and could barely move my right side. It ended up I herniated two discs with that catch.. I ended up having to have surgery at 18 and had a really long hard recovery. 

     Let us flash forward back to the morning about 9 months ago.. October 10th or around there I think well anyways I woke up and couldn't even sit up. I slid to the side and got up slowly after about 20 minutes building up the strength to will through the pain. I couldn't straighten up. I tried the door frame stretch, I tried the floor stretch everything I could think of. Nothing worked, just a constant searing pain that at this point just made me start tearing in horrid pain. I ended up driving myself to the Critical care center at one of the hospitals near by. Turns out they couldn't help me due to the level of pain I was in and the clear agony I was experiencing so I jetted down the street limping into the main hospital.  It was horrible.. they tried everything even morphine and nothing helped the pain. Finally with a combination of medicines they were able to take away the breath taking agony I was in. Since then I have been in and out of the hospital each time them telling me there's nothing more they can do for me since they tried the strongest medicines to help take away the pain. 

      I went to all the specialists all the "best" doctors trying to find some help. I was hoping that one of them could do something. All of them came up with a different plan of action only one of them coming up with a plan I believed would work and I felt they actually knew what they were doing. I ended up seeing Dr. Simon which was a spinal specialist and surgeon. He was hard on the case trying to help me. We ended up setting a plan of action with a pain management specialist that I've been seeing since the initial injury. In the mean time I tried several epidurals which proved to be as useful as a asshole on my elbow. They provided no relief.. actually on the quest to find medicines that would help my pain I've had several horrible allergic reactions to the medicines. One of them so much fun that it caused a full body allergic reaction of horrible painful and itchy rashes all over my entire body. This was a real treat since I was at a constant 9 level of pain shaking in pain and now covered head to tow in this rash of wonder. Well while in the hospital they tried a second epidural which the doctor administering this shot ended up hitting my nerve direct.. I screamed in pain the shot ended up spiraling me into such pain that I cried and shook for 5 hours straight while they tried with a combination of morphine and other drugs to try and lower the pain to make it to at least where I could breath without shaking and crying. 

    The level of drugs it took to even put a dent in my severe pain nearly killed me as one night my heart nearly stopped and they called a code blue. I was given nitro and shots to get my heart back to a safe level. Since then I've been in a state of tachycardia where my heart rate is so fast that any time I am stressed I have intense dizzy spells and my chest hurts. So now I am on blood pressure medicine to help try and manage my heart rate and blood pressure. 

    I am just putting a dent in all that I've been through but here I am 9 months in, I'm on about 8 different medicines to help with all the sudden problems and the severe pain. At best this medicine I am on now takes the pain to about a 7 or a 8 on the pain scale of 1-10. I go to bed in horrible pain and I wake up in horrible pain. There is rarely a moment of peace. Now I am a very positive person and growing up with my mother that was handicapped and through a unfortunate wringer of health problems and 5 hip replacements. I always admired her strength and how through all the shit and pain she still managed to smile and be happy. I adapted this state of mind, being strong and always positive. I try my best to remain myself despite at times not having the strength I try.. to live. 

    I am at the point now where I am going to try acupuncture as a last attempt in the pain management field.. this week I am planning on making another appointment with the surgeon and presenting him with the results of the EMG test and see what he says what if anything we can do to end this non stop agonizing pain. 

    I don't know if I explained this.. but up until the morning of horrible pain I was a successful operations manager at a local community bank. I loved my job having built a legacy and working up from the ground up I had built several strong relationships and looked to the future in hope and dreams of growing more and more. Well due to this handicap I couldn't go to work anymore it was hard enough to get up out of bed to just move to the recliner in the living room. My work was understanding at first giving me the time I needed, the medical leave that was part of my employment. Though when this time ran up they quickly got back to the point of business and forced me to resign. I was devastated after giving 7 years of my life dedicated to their mission and company. At the end of the day it was all about business and they forced me without hesitation. So there I was at 29 suddenly unemployed. Also at the time I was going part time as a student back to college. Now to dip into the matter of college I was soo excited going back. I never went to a real college. I got caught in the money pit that was community college and the trap that it is it drained me and gave me now hope. But because of my wife's support and that of my friends I decided to go back to school as an adult and pursue my degree. I fell in love with academia and the real environment of learning and learned people. I LOVED college and was blazing through with all A's proudly. So as I am sure you gathered because of this horrible pain going to college was not an option.. and there I was again at 29 now having to withdraw medically from college. Two of my dreams shattered all because this chronic pain that was unrelenting. 

    Thank goodness I had signed up for long term disability with my employer and that kicked in after a huge delay mind you! Now the package I had for this was 60% of my pay. It was a huge kick in the balls for me and my wife's financial standing. This was soo sudden and hit us soo hard we struggle every day since that morning scratching together the money for our rent and bills its been so hard on the both of us. I tell you I have so much sympathy for the older folks that are expected to live on social security. As I've mentioned in other posts I live in Fairfield County Connecticut, if you don't know it's literally the richest county in the US and the specific town I live in is ridiculous! The prices for a one bedroom for example average about $1400 and thats an average of 500 sq. ft. So yeah.. and we live in a one bedroom apt. 

    I never thought in a million years this is where I would be.. at 29 forced to resign and drop out of school waking up every morning in excruciating pain and up most nights unable to rest. As you'll see by the time stamp of this blog this is another late night where I am in just soo much pain I can barely function. One of the most frustrating things as I mentioned earlier I am always positive I always try to be bubbly and happy despite the awful pain. Now for some reason some people consider that as a sign that I'm not in that much pain and that just drives me up a wall. Just because I don't show the pain by crying and moping doesn't mean that I am not internally screaming in agony. This whole experience has sucked soo much I cant tell you how frustrating the whole thing has been. The doctors having no answers.. the medicines harming my body more then doing good.. the horrid drug allergies.. added symptoms and even a random bought of Listeria its just been hell. 

     I pray to the gods that they will soon bring me some peace. I am terrified and uncertain.. the pain weighs heavily on my heart and its taking such a toll on my body and mental state. It's soo hard to stay positive when there is soo much fuckery and obstacles for handicapped people. I mean the hoops I have to jump through just to get my medicine. The way that every doctor in the medical field over charges and looks for any way to fuck with your finances is ridiculous. The fights i've had with insurance companies just to get help... to get tests I needed just to help diagnose me. It's been such hell.. I am just soo grateful for my wife. I don't know what I would do without her. Through all of this she's been my caretaker and my rock. She's pulled me back to reality when I float off in a bought of pain. She's been our financial rock as well getting everything in order and always having the money no matter what. We have had to sacrifice soo much its been hell. 

     I don't have a supportive family, I actually don't have any family to help me if I needed. My parents are both going through a disgusting brutal divorce where they are busy trying to destroy each other in a jealous rage its just such a circus so I've had to cut them both out of my life. They are extremely selfish I'll give you one good example.. they both know that I had to go through all of this and through the 9 months to day I can count how much they have been by and helped me if you'd call bringing a sandwich help on one hand. Two hands between the two of them. As far as my wife's family well her moms been here for us, but if your following my blog you'd know now that of course now I am the Anti-Christ so shes no longer here to support us. 

    I'm just soo tired, there has been no break everything is such a fight and when im in this pain I cant even form a thought at times so the last thing I want to do is battle for the simplest thing. I am currently in the process now of applying for social security because I have to at this point. Let me tell you the zoo and craziness that comes with that whole process. It's disgusting how difficult they make it, there is no break for chronically handicapped people its all just a fucking clown show.

I hope we get a break soon, between the horrible pain and constant fear of not being able to pay our bills.. I just have one constant and at this point I count my blessings for that and that's the love of my life my wife. I am soo lucky.. I love her soo much and the only comfort I have is knowing she's at my side through this. Thank the gods..  

Video"gate"

    So here we are on the tailspin of the inquisition. We're still dealing with the fall out of my recent video I've uploaded to YouTube. If your interested I will post the video below so you can see and judge for yourself. 

So this one video has caused more damage then I could ever imagine. As I explained in the last blog I've made my in laws are in a status of upheaval. I am basically on trial as the ultimate fuck up in the history of ever. My wife just had a meeting with her mom the first conversation since my video"gate" scandal. According to her mom they will never trust me again. There is no Bi there is only gay. If your gay you need counseling because your ill to them gay is the ultimate sin. So here I am feeling horrible because of the first mistake I've made in 11 years now my wife's entire family hates me and despite her being the perfect child never getting into trouble going to college and getting top marks and doing whatever they asked of her.. now because of me she is the lowest of low. What do I do with that? At this point I look at what they are doing and I remind myself that I am an adult.. I don't have to put up with this garbage anymore. In the adult world no matter what you feel you cannot lambaste somebody for being themselves. Now I am forced from this moment on to regret the one time I was honest.. the one time that I busted out of my shell and shared a morsel of why I am the way I am. 
    I am so disappointed in myself for letting this video get posted on a forum that her family and my own could see it. I will never be able to forget this, I knew their beliefs were dated and their prejudices were vocal and well known. But I'm sitting here and I feel nothing but pity for them. The fact that they would judge their niece, daughter, cousin soo brutal is disgusting and inexcusable to me. You may feel difference of opinion for people that is fine, but when they are family your supposed to love them irregardless and support them. So here I am forced to feel horrible for who I am forced to feel that I have single handed ruined the relationships my wife had with her family and my own. 
    I have lived my life in the wake of disappointment in people, my family never was there for me when I needed them. There was only one person that was always there for me no matter what supporting and loving me free of judgements and chains attached to her kind words etc. That was my Grandmother and sadly she passed months ago. So now her family has disappointed me I should have known better, then to expect them to respect my lifestyle my emotions and me as a person. They have shown me that they are not capable of an adult relationship and from this moment on I have no choice but to mourn the relationships I had with them all. 
    Her mother was a better mom to me then mine ever was, but there was a huge difference.. even my mom when I told her I was Bi despite her mental disability still managed to say well I will love your regardless and I actually believed her. I will never have a relationship that I can trust ever again with her mom or her family. 
    I WILL not feel bad for who I am, I WILL not let these old fashioned religious standards and religious retardation's weigh heavy on me. At this point it is their problem and they need to work through their acceptance. 
   There is only one regret I have.. and that is that my wife is hurt. At this point I have done all that I can to fix it.. there is nothing more I can do but stand firmly and just reassure her that I love her and we can stand against this together. I have learned that in the future I will talk with her obviously before I share anything more personal. I am just soo disgusted by this whole thing it makes me remember what my grandmother told me. "You come into this world alone, you will have family around you and friends. If your lucky enough you will find someone you love and they will love you. Never for a second think that your family and friends will be there always they are an illusion the truth is its you and your love vs. the world. Remember that always never let anyone have power over you ever." It was the best advice I have ever gotten and it stands true in this circumstance. 

Hurt wife unhappy life..

    It's been some time since I've last blogged and I have missed it soo much. Well for this blog im going to tell you the unfortunate story of the first time I went and created a video for YouTube. I was soo excited, planning for weeks. I decided that before I began YouTube I wanted to find something that I was very passionate about. I wanted to do something different then the other You Tubers. I love YouTube I watch it constantly and am subscribed to several of their entertainers. Well for my first video I decided that I was going to bare my soul and share my experience as a kid going through questioning myself sexually and the bi-sexual attractions that popped into my head. In the video I explained that when I was young I felt lost, I felt that there was support in the Gay community for their own and in the Straight for their own as well but when it came to Bi I felt you were alone. Explaining that my childhood was very difficult due to the fact that my mother was Narcissistic and my father was Bi-polar the one main thing they bonded on their common ground was making me miserable. It was one night I got home from spending the night at my friends house that I came into my room and found the shell of my diary but no pages.. my calender of Tyson Beckford torn to shreds and thrown about my bed.. 
I remember my heart dropping as I just sat their crying silently soo confused and angry. Without skipping a beat my mother tore into the room declaring that she "knew" my secret and that if I slipped up in any way she would expose me for the "monster" I was to my father. I was speechless.. My diary was the one outlet that I had it was the one way I could vent my aggressions my feelings, blogs like this were not popular back then and I didn't have access to a private computer. For years after this my mother on the daily basis would raid my room every time I was at school or every weekend if I was aloud to go out. My life was hell after the diary was found I was constantly afraid of my mom exposing my really only secret to my dad who in a brief description was a Harley riding body builder Mr. Straight of basher island. He always had the nastiest thing to say about anyone if he got a hint or found out someone was Bi. My mother had my in a state of constant fear up until I honestly moved away.. at 27 so that wasn't too bad.. only from 12 to 27.. Yeah.. right!?

    Well in my video I touched on this whole thing briefly mentioning the diary being found and my fear, touching on the fact that my childhood was a series of extremely difficult situations like this. This is a topic of another blog all together but growing up with mentally challenged parents is extremely hard.. 

    I went on in the blog to explain that when I met my wife 11 years ago that my views changed, it was up until I met her that I really hadn't found a girl that turned me on like she had.. she was different she was comfortable with who she was, secure and confident.. I loved it. I personally think that insecurity is one of the biggest turn offs for me. At the beginning of our relationship I told my wife that I was Bi I explained how in High School I found comfort in identifying as gay I just didn't like any woman around me and in high school. She was fine with this and accepted me for who I was. I started to explain that how with my wife I have the most comfortable relationship now in the sense that we can check our girls together and guys.. a relationship that I could only day dream of when I was young. 

    See to explain to you now why I decided to do this blog.. I have been battling with internalizing my feelings around soo many people I felt that I was silencing myself and it was taking such a toll on me. I have noticed how recently theres been a huge rise on teen suicides and most of them being gay or questioning. Being a huge YouTube watcher I have noticed that the community as a whole has had a raise in videos on coming out, lesbians and gays alike rising up and telling their stories. I noticed however a short on Bi individuals sharing their stories.. I noticed their was not really any circumstances of Bi people sharing their stories and the fact that no matter how bad it may seem it will get better. I came across the movement of the It gets better project (Itgetsbetter.org) and I have been a huge supporter in both blogs and responding to alot of the posts from people on the forms. I thought to myself if I could make a video sharing my experience with a glance into the difficult up bringing perhaps I could inspire someone..give hope to someone in need. To me if I had the chance to touch only one person and help them through the darkness and confusion of doubt and insecurity then it was well worth it. 
So after completing the video I posted it really excited with what I had made. I was soo excited, I had finally found my niche and I was going to use my own life experiences to help others. I went on to share a link on face book declaring that I was really excited and nervous to share this but I felt it was time and hoped that it would be well received. Well I was wrong.. 

    At first I got a huge burst of support from some of the people that had been my closest friends on FB some of the friends people that I haven't talked to in years. They left such uplifting comments praising me and congratulating me for making such a bold choice. They said the video was emotional and inspiring. I was overjoyed.. I had done it! Well.. on FB I had my family and my wife's family as well. Now I had thought that since I had all of them as "acquaintances" that they wouldn't see this post, just as they hadn't seen other posts I made that may have been offensive to their older more "religious" values. I was dead wrong.. They all saw it. It was within a couple hours that the violent backlash started first from my wife's family. I was an abomination for posting such disgusting private information for the world to see.. I was now the enemy. After 11 years of earning a place at my wife's side, her husband I was now the topic of discussion the filth of the universe. My wife received several messages about how could she possibly be with me? She seriously needs to rethink her life and make a better decision not involving me.. that they weren't asking for 1 & 1/2 daughters when my wife married me. They wrecked me.. after everything I have done for them through the years all the time I spent getting to know them and in one night I turned myself from the funny big guy to the abomination. My wife was soo upset she was crying and my heart broke.. I would never in a million years want to hurt my wife I have spent the last 11 years doing everything I could to make her life whole I would go to the ends of the universe and tear the stars from the sky just to see her smile. Now because of me her relationships with her family are in peril mine..destroyed. 

    I decided I would go ahead and delete the FB post despite the overwhelming support from my friends on FB I figured I would just delete it. So I did that.. then the next morning came and I woke to another flurry of messages this time from my side of the family. Now the funny and ironic thing is that the response wasn't about how they were disgusted with me being Bi.. nope that wasn't it.. it was that how could I dare to expose that my parents had mental problems to the world? How could I say that my father was Bi-polar after his mom.. my grandmother of whom was my closest friend and my most loved family member died about a month ago. Again I was speechless.. I never set out to hurt him.. this whole experience wasn't about them. It was about me, what I went through and how I learned to overcome it. I decided to reply apologizing and admitting fault that this was intended to be private and posted by accident. Now with my family the situation is way different in the fact that I really have no relationships with them. To touch on yet another blog I am intending on posting I recently have been diagnosed with chronic back pain. I had to resign from my job of 7 years of which I worked myself up from the bottom to eventually the Operations Manager. While it was challenging I loved my job and was soo sad to step away from the small legacy that I built in the time I was there. I had long term disability which is about 60% of my income so that's what we've had to live off of. Not to get into this now its been a huge challenge and weighed heavily on my wife and I. In the 9 months I've been handicapped I've gotten little to no support from my family at all. They haven't come around to help take me to the Dr. or even bring me ginger ale when I had one of the countless allergic reactions to my medicines. So the relationships with them don't matter to me. 
However.. the relationship with my mother in law I do honor and love. Now I am faced with the fact that she hates me and all her values say that I am a bad person. I immediately sent a text explaining why I made the blog and apologizing for the fact that I offended her side of the family and that despite my views I am the same person.. the head of my household and still her son in law! I haven't heard back from her at the end of the day this isnt about her not forgiving me you cant forgive a person for who they are thats foolish it comes down to her accepting me or not.. that's the difficult part. 

    At the end of all this I am faced with the inevitability that I may have to see the end of some relationships whether I want to or not. I know that my wife and I can handle anything and while we are both set a back from this reaction and hurt in our own way that we stand firmly against any that challenge us. We are one unit.. if these relationships end we will have to mourn their loss and move on. 

    I just wanted to share my feelings.. instead I have created a tide of which I could have never seen pulling me towards the depths. I would never intentionally set out to ruin the relationship with my wife and her mother I know they are closer then close and best friends. I have put such a strain on their relationship and in response to this I went out of my way deleting the video from Facebook and YouTube. I apologized for something that I feel in all honesty I should never feel bad for being and that's myself. I never have apologized for being truthful or being myself.. but here I am . 

    So my friends I'm standing her with pieces of my life scattered on the floor before me and her family reaching for them throwing them at me in the intention of hurting me and hurting us.. and I just don't know. 

    I am Michael only son of a crazy home and husband to the woman I could only dream of. I am Bi-sexual and have been since I was 12 years old. This doesn't make me less of a man, it doesn't make me weak. It is who I am and I will never again apologize for who I am. I know now the error of my ways.. I regret posting it in a forum of which they could see it.. I regret creating more drama for my wife we already have had our lives turned upside down.. but I love her and she loves me and I have no doubt we will deal with this however the pieces finally settle. 

    The one constant in life is love, once you fall into it its amazing how it cultivates.. growing around you in this beautiful creature that you and the person you love only build upon. We sit now atop our thrones in the kingdom we've built and at our gates the enemy knocks. The enemy though is from within.. sure as the king of my own kingdom I could strike back eliminating the threat emotionally however I would never do anything that hurt my Queen. She is my everything.. I will stand tall and defend what we have built. I will not let any of these people grasping to their old beliefs or their religions hurt us. Love will prevail..