A Little More Time (Epilogue)
My name is Joseph S. Fusaro. I am an author and audio engineer. I began writing lyrics at the age of 13 and found myself gravitating to my journal more and more as I entered my 20’s. After dropping out of college and then quitting my job in accounting I decided to drop everything and move to Los Angeles. I had lost my job, home, car, and had a couple hundred dollars which would run out shortly after I arrived in LA. I had no idea what I wanted to do but I knew that I could not show up at an office every day for the rest of my life and pretend that I was okay. Yes, I’m sure that my undiagnosed manic-depression played a role in this decision, but looking back I wouldn’t change a thing.
I ended up working double-shifts at a hostel, getting paid around $7 an hour. $330 of my $360 paycheck went towards my rent. In exchange for me working 10-14 hour days I was allowed to share a studio apartment with 3 other co-workers in an old brick building with no heat. Within a year I was let go and was homeless for a few weeks until I gave up and begged a family member for a plane ticket to come back to New York. I was 27 years old. I felt physically exhausted and psychologically distraught. I hadn’t slept in about 2 years and I knew that if I didn’t change the way that I approached my life, I wasn’t going to have a life much longer.
A grown man, I returned home to my Mom’s house, the house where I had grown up. Over the next few years I spent a total of about 4 months in different hospitals. During this time I decided to isolate from friends, family, and the world at that. I felt extreme embarrassment, guilt, and shame for my inability to control my mind. And in short, I felt like a complete failure.
While this may sound tragic. It currently gives me a sense of calm. If it wasn’t for those years that I experienced in pain, I may have never realized that I needed to find another way. At around the age of 30 I decided to try something different with my poetry. You see, I had always written about the things that hurt and the things that bothered me, but I had never tried writing about the feelings that I wanted to feel. I didn’t know that I had the power, with just a pen and paper to open up the possibilities of hope and peace. In 2015 I started writing and telling my story with the non-profit organizations This Is My Brave and NAMI. I realized that I was not alone and there were so many others, that like me, didn’t know how to turn their story around. They didn’t know that they have the ability to write their own story. It was at this point that I had finally found my purpose. My purpose was to share my story and to try to facilitate that ability in others. Since 2015 I have published 9 poetry books, and 1 with a group of amazing others, one of which you may know, Jose Rosario, the Founder of The Phoenix Empowered. At age 34 I started editing podcasts for Mental Health News Radio. And since then I can gratefully say that I get to do what I love everyday. I get to write. I get to edit sound. And I get to help others share their story so that we can keep this positive energy flowing to all of those that struggle to open up the possibility of hope. You really are not alone.
I usually don’t write more than a few sentences for a bio, however with everything going on right now I want everyone to know that you are not alone. I feel that the 5 to 10 years where I isolated and struggled prepared me to be strong for what is happening with Covid-19 and the quarantines today. The truth is, a lot of times the things that happen around us are out of our control and while missing friends and family may be difficult now, I can tell you from experience that any love that seems lost can and will be found. You just need to believe that peace and love are always possibilities. As distant as it may seem, there is a light on the other side of this. Know that in the near future, these times of quiet and loneliness will only help you feel peace and love with more appreciation than you ever have. When Jose asked me to write a piece for The Phoenix Empowered I thought that it would only be appropriate to write an update to “A Little More Time,” the first poem that I ever shared with the world. While a lot has changed, one thing remains the same, I make sure to always anchor myself to hope. Thank you for reading this and remember to always keep going.
Sincerely,
Joe
www.instagram.com/sincerely_joe
A Little More Time (Epilogue)
Another thought
I refuse to hang on
My seeking thoughts
Only made me fall apart
What if I could only see from the center of my sincere heart
What if I had known that my mind was not my enemy
It was merely taking on the desperate personality type
that had been packed with reasons to feel void from the start
Maybe my world would not have crumbled at all?
Maybe I'll stay right here
and bury the word "maybe" for a little while?
I have forgiven myself
My life was not wrong
It was perfect as it was
And as it is today will surely be as perfect
as it could've been a few years from now
I just needed to accept myself a little more
I have made peace with that
I have made peace with that
I hope that you can make peace with your heart too
My only unsolicited advice is that the previous line
is the only thing that you'll ever have to do
I know that you can
Write it down
It only takes one time
It's your choice to choose
Just say "I choose to feel alive"
And then watch your days slowly start to feel a little lighter
A little brighter
Your possibilities and opportunities to feel good
and give back will grow from narrow to wide
All we have to do in this life
is to be kind
It may save a life
All we have to do in this life
is to be kind
It may save a life
A little more peace
A little more love
A little more safety
A little more art
A little more fun
It is what we fill our time with
That gives us a little more
Looking out the window
It still amazes me that the sun never gets tired
A song plays in the coffee shop that reminds me of an anthem
that replayed in my head from 2002-2009
A broken heart
A broken self
It reminds me of loss
It reminds me of confusion
It reminds me of late nights
It reminds me of sad and broken times
However, today I feel stronger than ever
And I pray to whatever
that in a few years
you have a playlist full of songs
that kept you alive
If I had only known at 25 that my life was not over...
If I had only known at 25 that I had the ability
to either disregard a day and or plant a seed and watch it grow
My heart lives inside the Sun
It never gets cold
I wish I’d known
I am so glad I know
12 years later
All is good
All is well
The best choice that I ever made was to keep going
Too often these days I get up on stage
and I forget exactly what I want to say
So I will keep it simple
Let love lead the way
And keep going
I promise you that the day you stop tryin to figure it out
That is the exact moment you'll know
Let love lead the way
And keep going
Joseph S. Fusaro
4th March 2020