This read like watching the best kind of movie where there’s this emotional pivot that, in hindsight, you should have seen coming, but the story absorbed you so much, you were just with it and feeling it and then BAM this small moment turns the whole thing on its head. Not by changing anything but by making a turn that recontextualizes everything. Is this a story about pain or an origin story for healing? They blur together and become one and the same when you reached that point.
Considering our shared history of spinal trauma, reading this series shouldn’t be a positive experience…and yet my heart leapt when I saw it just now. I think that’s because I finish every one having learned more about you. We share the back pain history, the penchant for writing, and, I suspect, some addictive inclinations, and so I find myself eager to read the moment when you overcome. It injects this hope that I can too.
You’re the best. Thanks for continuing to share this, Michael.
Brilliant, my favorite chapter so far! I've always thought of writing as the best form of therapy (free, no witnesses, no time limit) and this piece reinforces that position.
"Setting fire to those prescriptions felt symbolic." It was! Doing this was a ceremonial ritual that is empowering and symbolic and it made me cheer for you Michael! Your writing is so vivid and alive and keeps me with you every moment, 100% engaged on the page. I always look forward to reading more❤️🙏🕊️
This is very inspiring. And it seems to me, if you could do this under so much pressure, it’s a tremendously powerful act towards trusting that you can be free from the addiction.
I was cheering so hard Michael at your Rx BBQ! It reminded me there was one time I fell off my scooter and my face smashed on the pavement. The ER doc offered to prescribe some opioids but I said no since that was a couple of years after Prince died and I was really afraid that if not even Prince could survive painkillers, then sure as hell I wouldn't 💜
Wow, this course correction and the way the prescriptions brought it all to a head is quite something. You express the conflict and revelation so well. I, too, went through a period where everything I loved to do had been stripped away and boy did I need a distraction! I used to think that was a bad word but I’ve heard it used over and over again—finding a distraction—as a necessary part of coping and even healing because part of the problem is that our brain becomes too hung up on the symptoms. How lucky are we that writing was yours!
As always…dude. 🤜✨🤛 Replace “skateboarding” with “dance.” I hadn’t realized this was how you started writing! Although the how and why is not fun, I’m so glad you did. And that you stuck with it so we could be here in this place together.
There is something so powerful in torching things ceremonially like that. I was cheering! Same with the insights you gained from writing. We’ve talked about the Artist’s Way. That was the course that really got me doing this kind of writing you’re talking about. It can be revolutionary if used in such a way and I’m so glad to hear that it was for you. As always I’m all uuuugh…so????? 🤣🤓😜
"I filled so many notebooks with chicken scratch. And even though I looked at it as nothing more than a way to distract myself – the act started to grip me. It was engrossing. It was challenging. And it allowed for creative expression. Experiences from my life, ideas, scenes, characters, reflections on skateboarding – everything became something I could write about. It almost didn’t matter what I wrote, it just mattered that the pen was moving. Filling pages with ink made me feel like I was doing something. Like I was moving forward. Like there was at least one ray of light breaking through the dark clouds that hung over me." This is immense, Michael. Really moving and powerful stuff.
This read like watching the best kind of movie where there’s this emotional pivot that, in hindsight, you should have seen coming, but the story absorbed you so much, you were just with it and feeling it and then BAM this small moment turns the whole thing on its head. Not by changing anything but by making a turn that recontextualizes everything. Is this a story about pain or an origin story for healing? They blur together and become one and the same when you reached that point.
Considering our shared history of spinal trauma, reading this series shouldn’t be a positive experience…and yet my heart leapt when I saw it just now. I think that’s because I finish every one having learned more about you. We share the back pain history, the penchant for writing, and, I suspect, some addictive inclinations, and so I find myself eager to read the moment when you overcome. It injects this hope that I can too.
You’re the best. Thanks for continuing to share this, Michael.
Brilliant, my favorite chapter so far! I've always thought of writing as the best form of therapy (free, no witnesses, no time limit) and this piece reinforces that position.
"Setting fire to those prescriptions felt symbolic." It was! Doing this was a ceremonial ritual that is empowering and symbolic and it made me cheer for you Michael! Your writing is so vivid and alive and keeps me with you every moment, 100% engaged on the page. I always look forward to reading more❤️🙏🕊️
This is very inspiring. And it seems to me, if you could do this under so much pressure, it’s a tremendously powerful act towards trusting that you can be free from the addiction.
Love this installment, Michael. And it it does the very important work of a serial piece of making me want to see what comes next.
Some light at the end of the tunnel. Words are magic :)
I was cheering so hard Michael at your Rx BBQ! It reminded me there was one time I fell off my scooter and my face smashed on the pavement. The ER doc offered to prescribe some opioids but I said no since that was a couple of years after Prince died and I was really afraid that if not even Prince could survive painkillers, then sure as hell I wouldn't 💜
Looking forward to Part 7 mate!
Wow, this course correction and the way the prescriptions brought it all to a head is quite something. You express the conflict and revelation so well. I, too, went through a period where everything I loved to do had been stripped away and boy did I need a distraction! I used to think that was a bad word but I’ve heard it used over and over again—finding a distraction—as a necessary part of coping and even healing because part of the problem is that our brain becomes too hung up on the symptoms. How lucky are we that writing was yours!
As always…dude. 🤜✨🤛 Replace “skateboarding” with “dance.” I hadn’t realized this was how you started writing! Although the how and why is not fun, I’m so glad you did. And that you stuck with it so we could be here in this place together.
There is something so powerful in torching things ceremonially like that. I was cheering! Same with the insights you gained from writing. We’ve talked about the Artist’s Way. That was the course that really got me doing this kind of writing you’re talking about. It can be revolutionary if used in such a way and I’m so glad to hear that it was for you. As always I’m all uuuugh…so????? 🤣🤓😜
Red pill blue pill black pill ... No pill ... mmmm .. where angels fear to tread
"I filled so many notebooks with chicken scratch. And even though I looked at it as nothing more than a way to distract myself – the act started to grip me. It was engrossing. It was challenging. And it allowed for creative expression. Experiences from my life, ideas, scenes, characters, reflections on skateboarding – everything became something I could write about. It almost didn’t matter what I wrote, it just mattered that the pen was moving. Filling pages with ink made me feel like I was doing something. Like I was moving forward. Like there was at least one ray of light breaking through the dark clouds that hung over me." This is immense, Michael. Really moving and powerful stuff.