A Missing Ingredient

Forty-five years ago today, Dock Ellis, a pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who would go on to some success and much controversy, threw a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres. No-hitters are headline news but not usually career- or even season-defining.

If you are a baseball fan, you may know why Dock Ellis’ no-hitter is remembered, 45 years later. If you are not, please keep reading, as this is not a post about baseball.
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Near-Life Experiences

“Shall not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” I heard that somewhere. Recently a friend was bemoaning the lack of romantic exploits in his past, that he could have cheated on past companions but did not; he said that he still regrets that he had been “too shy.”

“Why create regrets about mistakes you did not make?” I asked. Because I live in a comic book in my head, I added, “That’s some deathbed scene, telling your wife and kids that you only regret that you hadn’t screwed up more.” My friend did not invite me to leave his moving vehicle.

Perhaps mistakes are the spice that makes life interesting, but it seems to me that I do not need to be anyone else’s mistake.

My present relationship is the longest I have experienced, three years last week. I am 46, so this statement represents a lot of dumb work on my part. A quarter-century of it. A lot of effort went into the fight to remain self-obsessed and increasingly isolated.
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The Bad I Do …

“I was standing there, minding my mind like it was no one’s business but mine to mind.”“Another Song I Haven’t Written,” by Me.

Doctor’s office, circa a few years ago. Sober for over a year, my life was still far from the “unicorns spitting Skittles everywhere on golden pathways to love” that some people would have one believe life is for them. I had asked to see a therapist, and bureaucracy provided me with a pretty good one.

(The office, part of my county’s Mental Health Department, has since been de-funded and the service sold to private business by the county. Public mental health services privatized. Everyone in Ulster County, New York, was suddenly declared to be balanced inside and completely well. My therapist and I spent our hours twice a week for a couple months sharing stories of the bureaucratic heck we were experiencing; he with not knowing whether or when he needed to start looking for work, and me with not knowing how to apply for Social Security. I know that he helped me at least.)
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