I sat in my doorway, Room B 33 for the last time looking up one hall and down the same hall watching the world unfold for another fun filled day at Heartland of Victorian Village.
You find out very quickly that just because you, me in this case is being discharged today doesn't mean that anything special will happen. The world just continues right on it's way, on it's own.
Movement continues, speech continues, joys and sadness continue just as life and death is nothing more than changing directions and continuing.
I think I will be remembered by a lot of the help here. I just hope what they remember aren't those times when I was not being a kind, loving and understanding human being. I was being a belligerent, did you hear what I said asshole.
It's eleven o’clock in the evening. My first day in my new apartment. I am feeling such joy and a little anxious being in the big city all alone. That will pass after a couple days.
After seven months of incarceration. I am free. I am starting all over again with all new belongings and all new gifts. This is a once in a lifetime experience and really means not much of anything when compared to the vast infinite wasteland of information that is being thrown into our feeding trowels every day but on an individual level it's amazing, truly a euphoric feeling that is impossible to truly express or explain.
So much has happened in just a few days. Too many emotions to record and document.. It's like a new world has been laid out in front of me and I find myself beyond excitement and also frightened at the vast array of confusion that is going on on all four corners of my vision.
I am fixing meals I haven't had in a year. Tasting flavors that I forgot how they tasted. Smells both good and bad everywhere. Sleeping when I feel like it and finding myself sleeping longer and more restful. It I all so alive and so penetrating.
Missed a damn doctor's appointment Friday and you would think the world was caving in. I would rather find a doctor in the hospital right fucking next to me. I can wheel over there in eight minutes.
It's a brisk Sunday afternoon and I have done everything you can do on a Sunday now and I should just take a nap but I am fighting it even though the afternoon naps have been wonderful.
I've had my mp3 files of music playing non stop. I now know why I made them when I was in the gulag. I will finally have internet access on the computer Monday and these files at last let me listen to music while waiting for access. I have it on my phone so I wasn't completely shut off from the world.
It's amazing how crippled we become when we can't get access to something that wasn't that big of a deal hell, twenty years ago. The technology over the last twenty years is stupefying. There is nothing to compare it too. It's like aliens came down and gave us this technology and we have had to learn it in a very short period of time and yet our children and grandchildren pick it up like it was second nature.
So I made shrimp Alfredo while in the wheelchair. Drained the pasta and all and it was fucking unbelievably good. It was that grunt a little with each bite kind of good, or moan, according to what works for you. I am a mix of a grunt and moan. The grunt is when I first put the food in my mouth and the senses realize how god damn good it is and the moan comes after I swallow the food out of sheer ecstatic pleasure.. I found myself doing my little mm mm after swallowing my brewed and sweetened iced tea. So many things I have been away from for what seems like a long, long time.
Cooking is such a renewed joy again. For so long I have been on institution food and even at OSU where it was delicious there is still something about it that doesn't sit right.
It came upon me quicker than suddenly. One minute I was walking down the street and the next I was sitting in front of a very large desk. It was a brilliant white in color.
On opposing sides were people that looked like angels and sitting behind it was a small dwarfish man and a beautiful woman. Both had brilliant long flowing white hair.
I blurted out before I was able to stop myself, “What the fuck just happened?
Everyone in the room laughed. I was quite relieved.
The man behind the desk spoke with a deep voice that didn't really fit his soft gentle features and his size. He said, “Mical hello, how are you?”
He waited for a response.
I didn't give one.
He continued, “Well Mical, my name is Enlightenment and this is my wife and equal partner in everything, universe. We are here to help you through this transition period of your journey. I know, I know you are confused.”
I spoke up, “I'm pretty fucking confused/”
The man never faltered, “You will begin to understand as time passes.”
I woke up covered in sweat and freezing to death. It was like having the flu
while in space.
It's the beginning of a new day.I
I am up at midnight wide awake from taking a nap earlier and I can't complain because the nap was quite nice.
My brother Nathan and his two boys, Chuckles and Tucker came to see the apartment today and we went over to the hospital and ate dinner at an Italian place that they have in there.
It was a renewed event that we used to do all the time.'
It was a precious time.
When they got to my apartment Chuckles and Tucker got their instruments out,
Tucker a trumpet and Chuckles a trombone and they played songs for me in front of the apartment.
It was such fun and I wondered what my new neighbors thought who I haven’t even met yet.
I loved the comfort that we all felt together.
Nothing was out of reach.
The world was ours to live and love in and we were breathing in it's beautiful fragrances and enjoying our freedom to be.
I was so deeply moved.
Nathan took the boys and got a list of things that I needed at Kroger.
When he got back he painted the previous tenants names off of my mailbox and we then took the journey from my apartment to the hospital to get some food.
When they left my modest neighborhood I felt a part of me leave with them.
I knew that there would be another day tomorrow to see them.
They were leaving this environment of, the only words I can think of is white trash neighborhood which is what Nathan and I grew up in and going to a place of wealth and comfort in one of the new fancy motels in Columbus over in my favorite part of Columbus, Upper Arlington.
I felt a little envious but it was ok. My comfort was here in my new little home.
I spent the time hanging up my paintings in my front room which has become my studio and listened to indie pop music from somafm.com.
Decided around eight to take a nap and woke up at eleven.
It's the beginning of a new day. 
I keep saying it.
So much has happened in what feels like a short amount of time. I have become a free man and I have had my moments of sheer ecstatic joy and my moments of realizing my recovery and pain but from on extreme to the other this has been the most beautiful and most important journey I have been on. I am fifty nine year old.
I will be sixty in January and I have never been so happy to be alive.
The last year there have been two times where they were just waiting to pronounce me dead and numerous times when I thought I was in danger but my determination has been true and strong. I refuse to give up. It is not my time.
Hello world.
Its a new beginning.
cool peace
hippy mike
love
spirit
cool uber groovy cool