Out of the Wardrobe

"courage, dear heart" || clive staples lewis

A mild-mannered ten-year-old sits quietly at the end of a grey cafeteria lunch table with his nose inside a battered copy of “The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe.” 

Further down the table the rest of the third-grade-class pick at styrofoam trays of greasy cafeteria food. A freckled-face boy with braces turns to the end of the table and says, “he's so gay it's retarded” - then returns to poking his chocolate milk carton with his plastic fork. The red-headed girl nods in agreement before loudly whispering, "seriously, reading at lunch? what a faggot." 

Confused, the young boy leaves Narnia, wanders over to the teacher’s table and asks, “Mrs. Smith, what does the “gay” mean? After an awkward pause, she responses, “it just means you’re happy, sweetheart.” 

The little boy reading Lewis was me. 

I’ve always known I was a little different. Sensitive and soft-spoken, I would rather play on the swings, read books or color by myself than kick a soccer ball or wrestle my classmates at recess. 

When I was in high-school I would often eat lunch in the library because I felt I had more in common with Hemingway & Tolkien than I did guys and girls my own age. I was “an old soul.” Or at least, that’s what I would tell myself. 

Mostly though, I think I liked the library because dusty paperbacks can’t whisper “fag” behind your back. 

I remember sitting in the library one afternoon reading “Leaves of Grass” by Walt Whitman. In “Song of Myself” he writes, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large… for I contain multitudes.”

I clung to this sentiment for dear life- because I felt trapped in Byron’s “melancholic merriment” - a walking, talking, contradiction. 

I had- and still have- a deep, cerebral faith and spirituality. However, I also battled a near constant depression. I also, as it were, had a crush… on a boy. 

This story- my story- is not an easy one to share. Frankly, it’s also one I don’t feel most of you deserve to hear. Those closest to me have been privy to my struggles with sexuality, faith and mental health for some time. So, I don’t share this for them, nor am I writing seeking praise, stale platitudes or some kind of public sympathy. 

I share this for other enigmas like me. My depressed high-school friends eating lunch alone in quiet libraries - jaded millennials clinging to faith by a thread because they feel the Kingdom has no room for people like “them” - for the college student thinking of taking his own life because an inescapable aspect of himself is seemingly at odds with the grace of Jesus Christ.  

I have lost too many friends to self-harm over this issue to stay silent any longer. 

Which is why, in the coming days and weeks, I’m going to unpack more of my story than I’ve shared before. 

I’m no activist or theologian- but if sharing my own thoughts & experiences with sexuality, mental illness, and faith can help someone struggling to find themselves- then it’s worth the exchange of personal privacy. 

For now though, I leave you with this closing thought: what other people think about you means nothing in comparison to what you believe about yourself. 

We’re never as alone as we feel like we are… your story matters, and so do you; for you contain The multitudes. 

-JohnMark

Kittens & Cardboard

The gravel crunches under my tires as soft, grey dust flies up from the road; rocks periodically shooting out from the unpaved street, rhythmically knocking the underbelly of my Volkswagen.

I pull down the well-trod driveway to a shuttered house surrounded by 25 sweeping acres. Pastures with waist-high alfalfa grass wait to by cut and baled out front. The air somehow feels clearer here- sweetly tinged with the scent of new-cut wood…  sharp & clean. 

There’s a fondness- for the slightly dilapidated fence, it’s well-worn boards smooth from battering winds and rain of a hundred summer storms... for the grouchy mare grazing peacefully in the pasture, her tail flicking left and right in a bereft attempt at preventing flies from getting too close. 

I slip off my shoes in the cluttered mudroom as the grumbling garage door slams shut behind me. I’m barely inside the house when several cats slink in to join me, purring softly, clearly hoping their affections will impel me to refill their vacant food bowl. 

As they glide in-and-out of my legs however, my mind begins to wander from the Georgia countryside. 

I’m younger and beardless; naively wandering through a yet-to-be gentrified section of Brooklyn. Not far from the Utica Avenue station I stumbled across a box of kittens sitting under a dim streetlight near a shabby apartment complex. I paused for a moment; swallowing in the sorrowful sight. However, as I attempted to formulate a plan to smuggle the kittens across the East River and into my midtown hotel room, I noticed something. 

They were happy… or, if not happy, at the very least exceedingly contented; as if the damp, recyclable carton had always been their home. Realizing even Manhattan has its limits- and not feeling like explaining to my Uber driver why I was toting a box of cats into the Marriott Marquis, I decided to keep walking. 

Not far behind me, a stranger- a Brooklyn local judging by the deep v-neck t-shirt and suede argyle vest- stopped at the furrowed cardboard emblazoned “Free Cats” and picked out the runt of the litter. However, crafting artisanal cheese platters at the organic Food Coop in Park Slope hadn’t prepared him for what happened next. As he lifted the tabby from the box, she became erratic- crying and clawing, desperately trying to fight her way back to the place she knew to be home. 

I didn’t realize it at the time- but that’s what an in-between feels like. It’s a disorienting space wherein everything you’ve known gets stripped away. 

Whenever you enter your in-between- whether after college, or later in life- it’s often more than a simple change in scenery… it’s a seismic shift in all you’ve been defined by. 

When you pursue individualization and the truth of who you are- whom you were always meant to be- the extraneous labels and superfluous aspects of self all get removed, peeled away, killed off. 

You’re free for the first time, but also left floating in empty space… like New York at night; there's no stars, no moon, no sense of time or direction.

You're also alone... for when you stop letting other’s projections of you dictate your identity, there’s a chance the people you’ve been surrounded by might reject you. As you move on, the rest of the proverbial kittens in the box don’t understand where you’re going, or why you’ve left. 

But… back to the tabby for a moment. 

The man behind me on the street in Brooklyn looked like a pretty nice guy- he had well-manicured facial hair, a handsome, if unnecessary fedora, and slid into the passenger seat of a Subaru- the crying kitten wrapped in that suede argyle vest. 

What strikes me now, as my own cats wind between my legs, is the simple fact…. in that moment, the kitten had no idea she was going to a better place. 

Shivering beneath the cotton folds she was terrified- everything she had known had been taken away and she hadn’t the faintest idea where she was going next. 

Now…. I don’t know if my in-between ends in a Brooklyn brownstone with a hunter-green Forrester & a nitro cold-brew tap in my kitchen.  I certainly hope that’s the case… but right now, I feel like I have more in common with the kitten wrapped in the vest than I do the beautiful bearded man. There’s a large part of me that’s scared and wants nothing more than to run back to the box- everything I’ve known- the structure and security I found in my cardboard identity. 

The drive between the place and people I called home to my destination seems like a lifetime- yet in the grand scheme is nothing more than a quick hop across boroughs. 

Perhaps these are nothing more than the esoteric ramblings of an enigmatic twenty-something with too many thoughts & feelings. Yet, if growing up has taught me anything it’s that I am not the first, nor the last, to feel this way… and neither are you. 

In this season I’m finding to build is to first destroy, to know truth is to grieve the past, and to let go is to leave room for joy. 

To quote eternal Hunter S. Thompson, "never forget you come from a long line of truth-seekers, lovers and warriors" and you're so brave for leaving your box behind. 

Hidden Moments

"Hidden Moments" 

Moskenes Fjord  || Lofoten Islands || March 2014 || Nikon D3000

It’s 85 & sunny outside but I don’t really care. I’m curled up on a giant beanbag inside my cave-like room… the fan hums softly in the background; the only noise aside from the calico kitten purring softly beside me. 

Glancing around my cluttered abode, I take in my surroundings, as if I’m experiencing the space for the first time… all manner of trinkets litter the walls, drawers and bookcases. 

A dusty framed Polaroid of Taylor Swift & I rests on my desk beside a carefully folded American flag that once flew high above the nation’s capitol. Starbucks mugs- precariously reaching toward the ceiling- read like a Rand McNally Atlas… Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston… Paris, München, Waikiki. Silent ceramic memories of attained goals and achieved dreams. 

I sink deeper into the seemingly bottomless memory foam and begin to ponder how I arrived here… I don’t remember how it happened, or when it happened… it was as if one morning I awoke to find all the verbs in my life had shifted tenses; seemingly on their own accord. 

I *have* dreams became I *had* dreams. 

I *love* became I *loved*

It’s not depression or anxiety… although both are present in part. 

No. 

This is different. It’s more wilderness than some kind of hell. Though, admittedly, some days there doesn’t seem to be much difference. 

It’s no man’s land… and it’s perplexing because it’s a place nobody ever talks about. There’s not much to share when you’re in an “in-between” because there’s not much worth sharing when you’re waiting. 

There are Tumblr pages of poetry filled with angst filled millennial musings about how hard life is “in the valley” 

…. and it certainly doesn’t take much time on Instagram to unearth what life looks like from a mountain-top. 

But what about the place separating the instagramable peaks of life from the vale of ‘reblog worthy’ trepidation below? What am I supposed to do when I’m lost in the space between? 

It’s as if Lent has come late- or perhaps over half-a-year early. 

I wish I could tell you that I’ve resolved it… that I’ve rekindled the fire within and am clamoring back up the mountain once more… but I can’t tell you that; at least, not yet. 

I will say that while I’m unsure if this is a season of sweetness or of sadness... I'm learning neither lasts forever… thanks for letting me share these hidden moments with you.

Anonymity

My 2015 "spirit animal" was a box of Franzia. 

I mean, I knew post-collegiate life wouldn’t be a fairy-tale but I thought we would have gotten past, “once-upon-a-time…” 

The year started with interviews at Google; but quickly my standards fell simply to “job.” By June, I couldn’t get my local Barnes & Noble to call me back.

There were many days where I watched the sun rise and fall without leaving the house… or even my room. 

I listened to a lot of Noah Gundersen. Drank a lot of boxed wine. Spent a lot of time on Tinder. Adopted two cats.

Then autumn came, school was back into session, and I watched voyeuristically through the lens of social media as people I loved moved on with their lives… their stories continuing to be written, only this time, I wasn't in them.

I had my own business, but entrepreneurship can be a lonesome existence, especially at first. My lack of traditional employment and solitude, coupled with a biological predisposition for depression led me to the darkest place I had ever encountered.
 
By winter I felt utterly alone… A place past lonely. A place off the map- somewhere I had never been before.

I knew cognitively I was smart and gifted and talented. I had been given tremendous opportunities, I had (& still have) incredible parents and supportive mentors… but instead of helping, that knowledge only made me feel more guilty and ashamed about my present circumstances. 

Alone. Afraid. Anxious. Depressed. 

I felt hidden; as if there were an unconquerable canyon between my capabilities and the reality I now found myself in… an insurmountable valley separating the man in the mirror from the man I wanted so desperately to be. 

I’m not sure if panda’s hibernate but that’s what it feels like- a bear during winter, left deep inside a dark cave wondering if- and when- spring will come again. 

I've spent most of life looking forward to spring.... forever waiting for whatever it was I thought I was going to become. Faced with my immaculate, futuristic daydreams, my current, lonely reality always paled in comparison. 

Spoiler alert- there’s no resolution at the end of this page. My proverbial spring still hasn’t come but my perception of "hidden"- both a place and an adjective has shifted… 

I used to think hidden things were unimportant, but now I know that they’re just unseen. 

Character is formed in hiding. It is the dark places and empty spaces that ultimately shape us. What we do here matters. Winter seasons, lonely nights and awkward in-betweens should be celebrated not wasted. 

Of course, I still dream about the future.

But at the end of the day… my only “dream” now is to start valuing each one of the millions of moments that make up life as more than just a tedious overture leading up to a singular “main event.”

They say that life comes in seasons. There are seasons of sadness. There are seasons of sweetness… but I don’t think this is either one of those. 

This season is about becoming.