okay. existentialism. thoughts.
I know this is a little serious. But it's okay. Look. I'm okay right now and I'm going to tell you about it.
That question. What am I doing in life, I keep asking myself. What do I do that's important, what do I do that is productive. What am I going to do with my life. Why was I allowed to live through something that so many other people don't, something that has left me, in all honesty, more traumatised than words can say. In short form, the simple truth is that I didn't mean to. When forced to choose between those ugly titles of 'victim' and 'survivor,' I take victim, not because I want to but because I didn't choose survival. It chose me. I was in no position to choose anything. That's a separate story, one that is finding its voice elsewhere. It gets easier, and I tell myself there's a reason for my continued life.
Existentialism teaches us that we are responsible for our own actions, and it tells us that we have to find our own meaning in life. I have to say I don't really like that idea in its entirety. It's so much easier to say "oh, it wasn't in The Plan," than for us to accept responsibility for own failings and inadequacies. MCPS picked a bad time to assign us The Stranger. I had just decided, "I am alive because there is something I am meant to do. I just haven't done it yet. I won't die until I have," and then here comes Camus, with his philosophy that there is nothing destined, no inherent significance to anything but what we find in it. It's honestly very hard for me to accept that certain events in my life have happened for no particular reason than because they chanced to occur. It's maddening.
I will be honest with you. My evening consisted of being rather drunk. So I could write about my experiences, if you want to call them that. I had some problems in my day, with alcohol, with cigarettes, with hurting myself, with food. I've just returned from visiting my son. And. Even with all of these ugly things I feel and embody sometimes, I know that life is beautiful. Life is unspeakably beautiful. Maybe because I have been close to death, because I spent a number of hours very close to it and I could have easily been tipped into it and there were times during the course of things where I didn't want anything else but to just die and be done with it, maybe because of that I realise and recognise the fragility of every moment, and that makes it so beautiful to be alive. At any time you can drop dead. And life is hard, but that is the beauty of it, too. Because you have to suffer to be a complete person. So you don't get spoiled, yeah?
Truth be told, I am having problems. 'Problems' = here, a euphemism, like to say that my encounters with rape and the loss of a child are but 'experiences,' like I'll put them on my resume when I go to get a job. There are things that I have done or been forced to do that would disgust you. There are mistakes that I have made that can't be considered within the realm of human potential for error. But I owe myself this much, I think. Even if I have to be alone. Even if no one can help me. I have to try to help myself. I have to try, don't I. You understand, don't you?
I just try to be a normal person, you know. I don't always succeed. But I think I did okay today. Just now, anyhow. You know. It's okay. Sometimes it really is.