Lease
I ran through the rain grabbing
pieces of light and shoving them in my pockets.
And so it’s time again to rethink. Was that the job I was given? To figure out how to live? To be dished out so much shit as a test to see what the human shit level is? Is that the job we are all given? If I have lived through so much worse, why am I finding living now so difficult? Does everyone ask these questions?
Today was a cloud heavy day in the Old Pueblo. For the umpteenth time this year, I woke up as if the world had shifted, and I had to learn how to walk all over again. I drug the sack of my body out of bed andI drove across cloud draped mountains to a matinee of THE EDGE OF SEVENTEEN, a very good film about teen angst and isolation.
Movies about teenagers are weird for me because the only access point I have is through my daughter’s experiences. Unless they cover (that other subject thay overshadowed my teen years). But for the most part, I watch movies about teenagers and think about my kid.
I was thinking of her all day today as I think of her most every day. Always. I feel I can never do enough or be enough for her. I try so hard, and fail even harder it seems.
This goes back to my question about rethinking what I’m doing here. How can I DO better? BE better? The question I have battled my whole life.
When I learned yesterday morning that Mark Fisher took his own life, it opened terrible floodgates of loss and dark self doubt or in a weird way affirmation.
Suicide is no stranger to me. My own brother took his own life while I stood outside his door for days knocking and calling his name while he lay on the mattress dead. My paternal Aunt Lois took her life. She overdosed and drowned herself in the Pacific at the same time. My mother was in and out of hospitalizations for suicide attempts multiple times during my early adolescence.
I have fought suicide for my entire adult life. Ever since I survived the streets. In 1987, I literally died of an overdose I took because I felt so guilty for getting drunk with my dad on Christmas. December 26, I took an overdose and was DOA when I arrived at the hospital. My heart stopped beating. My lungs stopped breathing. They brought me back from the dead.
When my dad died, it’s like my sole reference point for existence was pulled out from under me, and all I have felt is guilt for the things I should have done, confusion and anger about how I can love a man who hurt me so badly, sadness and loss for the gift of love he gave my daughter though he gave me a shit childhood, and also a never-ceasing feeling that my life on this planet is over.
All of this went through my head today. Because honestly, as a person who has suffered suicidal depression, when I got the word of Mark’s death, I for a minute thought, “If he could do it, I could do it.” I did. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
But I can’t do it. What has kept me holding on is my daughter and my ability to not only imagine but also feel what my death (especially by suicide) would do to her. She would never recover, and there would be no do-overs.
So today, I have taken this tragic event and turned it to an affirmation of life. I just need to get through each breath every day. Just that. For my daughter. For my cats. For me. For those who love me assuming there are some. (Like I said, I tend toward dark isolation.)
I have killed myself with the pressure I put on myself from the traumatic bond I had with my dad. It was killing me before he died, and it’s killing me after he died. I have tried so hard to do everything while I constantly feel that I do nothing. He wouldn’t have wanted that. Despite everything, he would have wanted me to live.
It’s hard as exhausted as I am. I have lived too many lives in this lifetime. But I have to just push through.
Tonight I went for a long in a winter storm. I’m still shivering cold from it. The sky delivered these miracles which I took with my cell phone. Then rain shorted it out. Said be silent.
And then the sky bled miracles and ghosts . . .
Shortly after taking these photos, I was running down the street when my daughter passed me on her bike. Her rear light was pulsing like a heartbeat. A heartbeat I must care for. A heartbeat for which I must keep my heart alive.
I came home and played electric guitar for the first time since Marlowe was diagnosed with terminal cancer. We have a new little rescue kitten Mustafar. I also call him Moose, Little Moose, and Mr. White Whisker. He came into a house where both humans and felines were grieving the tragic early death of Marlowe, but Little Moose has adapted and become part of our crazy family. However, because he was fostered by senior citizens, he was quite taken aback by the electric guitar. I am sure this will change in time. And I will too. Like finally shedding the many layers of darkness, or at least peeling away a few of the scraps.
A very hard message to receive: that someone’s death was maybe what I needed to appreciate the value of my life.
Meet Mustafar, Mr. White Whisker, Moose. He's so tiny. 3 pounds, 2 ounces. But he's adjusting to anarchy very quickly.
