All is Not Lost

It’s one of those surreal days that I don’t want to end. Frank Fucking Turner read my blog. And liked it enough to link it on his Twitter for his 164k followers. I emailed him, calling him a dick for making me cry (again) and thanking him for being who he is as an artist and for linking my blog post. he had a show tonight in LA, but still took time to respond with “A pleasure man, was a great write-up. ft”

Okay there. So, in reading that back I got something. Growing up, there was this parenting that I needed that I didn’t get. And my miracle of a therapist healed so many of those wounds. I don’t think she was supposed to do things like tell me shit from the fucked up parts of her life or say that she loved me to pieces. But, she did and it hit me right in the daddy issue.

And then, the open wounds I grew up with. I couldn’t show those back then, right? Because church. And looking good. And fuck that god damn fucking phony theology. So backwards. I was a kid in pain. And had to self-medicate. That is so fucked up.

But, okay it happened. And the ointment I found to get me through a day was humor. If I could make people laugh I didn’t have to feel the abuse or the lack of fatherly love or the motherly abandonment. Ish.

I could actually feel good about myself by making other people smile. And I was actually, like, kind of a good kid. The kid who spoke up when the cool kid was beating up the less than for absolutely no reason. And middle school was a fucking breeze. I loved it. awkward crushes. Dances with girls.

But, most importantly, I had an audience that I made pro-matt. And that felt a helluva a lot better that the combo feelings platter I got at home…the Christian guilt and the shame of being abused.

Valleywood middle in Kentwood, Mich was like how trump feels at a pro-trump rally. Home was like last night trump being stupid enough to show up at the world series. Chants of “lock him up” and resounding boos. Reality sucks, right?

Yes. Yes it very well fucking did. and reality hit me even fucking harder in the summer of 1985. I couldn’t emote. I wasn’t allowed to, so my play was to just shut off all emotion. But, on the day we left Michigan for KC, I hid behind my book case in my room bawling my fucking eyes out.

That is a wound that still exists. I didn’t feel at home with my parents. I felt at home with my buddies. And I had actually found a place in the world at school as a class clown type.

But, someone scratched the shit out of the “Cum on Feel the Noise” record that was a big deal back then. Screeeeech...there went my popularity. My home life was already fucked up and then the rug was abruptly pulled out from under the alternate home I’d created to deal with my pain.

Kansas city absolutely kicked my ass. I went from knowing my place to walking into an 8^th grade lunch room looking at a bunch of strangers' faces. I sat near the kids who looked like the kids I hung out with in Michigan. They weren’t having it.

So, rejection at home. No room for emotions to be navigated in a healthy way. And rejection at school. Fuck me. That’s brutal to think back on.

Slowly. I mean slow motion...very, very slowly I built myself back up. Freshman year was a little better. Sophomore year was cool. Junior year I tricked a girl into dating me. And by senior year I was pretty much back to my 7^th grade self.

I mean, I wasn’t one of the cool kids, but I had my friends/fans. I was like the funny kid of the smart kid classes. But, I was also weird religious, super into young life with an obnoxious leather cross around my neck.

But, again, just like in 7^th grade…I found my home. It was with the young life crowd. We were not drinking or doing the sex on each other or sinning, but we were pretty fucking hilarious. And it felt absolutely fantastic to enjoy life again having made it out of the dark hole that was my empty room in Michigan.

And even in college…I was Action Jackson. I was actually funny. Two kids on our hall were from Louisiana. they were great. Really funny, good dudes. They had a friend visit one weekend. We were all in my room. My roommate craig and I were being our normal selves and the guest from out of town observed our humor and gave me the best compliment I will ever get. He turned to his hometown buddies and said, “we’re not funny. At all.”

No higher praise. And that’s how my years at baylor felt. I just hit a pocket of confidence and contentedness that will likely never be matched.

And it was like this beautiful drug. The years of pain that I had never properly acknowledged didn’t matter at all. I had an audience. I had a nickname. It was actually supposed to be Atkinson-Jackson, a very white shout out to the carl weathers movie.

People started calling me action or Jackson and it was all fucking fantastic. Ohhhhhhhh shit. Again. I don’t really know what I’m going to say when I start writing. Or what I’m going to feel. But, I caught an ugly memory just now.

I took a semester off from baylor. And did what most 21 year olds do, I went crazy on the natty light and smoked a shit ton of weed. Just kidding. I was Christian. I got engaged.

Full stop.

What the hell matt? I want to punch 21 year old me square in the dick for that one. But, that wasn’t even the ugly memory. We were newly married. Living in married housing. And I dropped some real on my then wife.

And that was my “oh shit” moment from above. The realization that she wasn’t actually in it with me. The feeling of judgment, not understanding. I’ll stop there, because this isn’t a shit talking post.

The point is, on some level, I went back to 7^th grade me in my bedroom before the move. I was on my own again. My “home” wasn’t that. And you know. Christianity. So there would be no divorce.

Share my struggle. Share my pain. Get crickets. Realize I had just signed up for 60 years of this.

I made it through 14. Fucking barely.

I lost custody of our friends in the divorce. Good riddance. I’ll start again. But, the systematic destruction of me was brutal. From Action Jackson, life of the super Christian party. To, a fat, unfunny shell of myself.

when the wife stopped thinking I was funny I no joke nearly lost the will to live. That was the one thing I still had. And when my in home stand-up comedy got crickets that was another “I’m alone” moment.

Again. A come back. Again. A failed relationship. A few more of those followed. Build myself up in the just me phase. Pick the wrong girl and get a front row seat to my soul getting crushed again.

Now, upon further reflection, there is no way in hell any of the failed relationships was 100% on them. Maybe it was 100% on me. Who knows? But, there is a definite pattern. I get in this “I’m finally at my best” phase when I’m on my own. And a) pick the wrong girl but b) even more importantly I let myself get lost.

Shit. So go back to my lack of feeling at home. That’s what I knew in childhood. So, then…per the wisdom of dr drew…do I seek a lack of home in relationships, because that’s what I’m used to? maybe.

Chaos and uncomfortable was my norm. so, is that my pocket of what I am sub-consciously attracted to? if so, I am fucked.

Like, I can watch moulin rouge and think…yes…to love and be loved in return, that’s what I want and then I pick girls who can’t possibly be expected to love me back. Like for like. Real for real. fucked up but working on it for the same.

One of them even had the kindness to break up with me by saying “you’re past me”. Her actually sweet way of saying that I deserved better.

And so let’s just fast forward to yet another frank turner lyric. “we can get better, because we’re not dead yet.” I was pretty fucking close to dead when I got kicked out of my marital house. As frank puts it in another song, “a man who is dead to himself and dead to everyone else.”

But, fate/grace/an angel swooped in and 12 years later my kids have a dad. And they’ve seen a lot of shades of confidence in me over the years, but my best me is when I’m writing. My best me is the product of actually processing grief/pain/hurt/embarrassment etc out here on these blogs that I haven’t done consistently in a long time.

So, I guess all of the above is a love letter to frank turner. Because there was this buzz I had all fucking day long today after realizing he’d read my blog and wanted to share it with his people.

It was like all of the best mes…7^th grade full of funny me…12^th grade “anything for a laugh”/misguided christian me…college Action Jackson me…and the me that started blogging in the first place…we all had something in us that awoke with frank’s completely unexpected/unnecessary encouragement.

I’m not fucking dead yet. I have so much more to give. So much more to write. So much time and energy that I need to give my kids. my daughter writes for her school newspaper and loves it. today I emailed her my list of trump 2020 campaign slogans and I kept hearing her laugh from the kitchen table as she read out loud the ones she liked.

I am a freak. I can write. I do actually possess an ability to warm people’s heart while making them smile. It’s not simply “we’re not funny at all” anymore. It’s I have been fucking wrecked on repeat and at this point I’m thrilled if ya’ll just point and laugh at me.

We can retire action Jackson. 7^th grade me had his time. But, okay there…what frank’s kindness showed me is that the times that I write something. And it makes a difference to even one person. That is a big deal. and bloggy matt still has time to get back to finding his community/home/confidence out here on these pages.

God damnit, I started this fucking blog by listening to “state hospital” by frightened rabbit. And now I’m back to bawling my eyes out. I was left for dead. Alone in the almost divorced hotel. It’s not that much of a stretch to think that my kids could have grown up without a dad.

And the reason I say that is because the lead singer for frightened rabbit, an unbelievable talent…great writer…lost his life to suicide. And this particular song, state hospital, talks about a young woman on the brink of losing her battle as well.

She was “born into a grave”. Yeah, see…what fucking chance did I have with the history of abuse on my dad’s side? And then to find out that my mom’s “good” side had more of the same? Born into a grave. take your abuse. and pass it on. sleep-walk through life as a walking dead person was our family tradition. 

you're brought up to feel like an outsider. or as Scott from Frightened Rabbit called the girl from the song "a slipped disc in the spine of community." That painful feeling we've all been made to feel at some point.

You.
Don't.
Matter.

fuck that and the people who put us in those holes. who make us feel like we don't have a place. there was that 8th grade lunch room in which i didn't belong. i was community free. same thing post divorce. even worse, because that was a lot closer to life or death.

But, somehow this therapist got to me and pulled me out of a hole that I couldn’t have pulled myself out of. shame had my head pointed downward. Dr Grace metaphorically lifted my chin, looked me in the eyes and with tears full of grace said "we can get better".

grace was built to overwhelm shame. Like the woman in the video for that song who teeters on the ledge. the song calls out to her over and over “all is not lost”. Hang the fuck in there.

It’s tragic that the kid who wrote the lyric couldn’t hold on. That’s the wrong way to put it. it’s tragic that no one was there to catch him. we all fall. give any one of us his circumstances and past and experiences and who knows.

We need each other. We need frank turners screaming out, telling us we’re not alone. And that’s actually where I meant to start this blog, with John Prine’s “hello in there”. I read an old blog post I wrote about that song and my grandpa in the year or so before his death. Who was saying “hello” to him? almost no one.

And we can’t fucking live like that. Say hello to the down and outers. Frank turner’s kindness in emailing me back and linking by blog was him saying “I see you”. I feel brutally alone most days. But, my kids are my strength. And my blogs are my “marco” cries hoping to get back other broken people’s “polos”.

And I’ve missed this shit. The consistent blogging. The story time that always results with the most random people from my past. The other broken souls who care to give the people around them a better version of themselves.

It’s being dealt a shit hand to start life and choosing to “be more kind”. God damnit frank, I can’t even write my own thought without the beauty of your message seeping into my head.

My kids have a dad who broke the cycle of generational abuse. And that’s a good start. May they never know or carry my pain. And not cry alone behind a bookshelf on their own. And may I walk with them through all the other shit they’re forced to deal with. May they always know that “all is not lost” and that the real trumps this fucked up Instagram world.

Cheers motherfuckers and a heartfelt thanks to Mr. Frank Turner for breathing enough life into me to get me back to doing the one thing that makes me feel like myself, writing this little read blog. May you beautiful readers never feel alone and always feel like I’m saying "all is not lost" and “hello in there.” you’re fucking beautiful. and you fucking matter.