Every breath my lungs fight to take betrays my soul's instinct to find a way out; whether it be with alcohol, some varying form of dissociation, or a hard collision with a tree by the side of the road is of little importance, thankfully. I've fought these demons before -- but I thought the birth of my son 17 years ago had saved me from ever having to fight them again. I was wrong.
It began six weeks ago or so when one sunny afternoon as I sat at my desk working on whatever project was at hand, I caught an ever brief glimpse at the horizon's slow descend into darkness. It didn't really register within me at the time what was coming because that horizon hadn't come into view in so long. Looking back now, I should have stopped everything and walked away to take a break. I've been saying for months that I needed to take a vacation from life and check into a hotel room for a few days and just write. Since there aren't any hotels that allow guest to stay with only a payment of a thank you and a smile -- I was unable to take that break I instinctively knew I needed. Instead, I busied myself with more and more projects; working toward my goal of saving the world -- forgetting myself.
Within the last four weeks I have googled, "how to commit suicide and make it look like an accident" twice. As I said earlier, luckily my soul's instinct to escape doesn't seem to matter how it escapes, so long as it escapes. So, I make a drink involving bourbon in some fashion and put my headphones on blasting Nirvana, or Ozzy, or Seether, or anything loud and hard -- escaping, if only for a moment or two. Sadly, with drama lurking in every corner -- the reprieve is short lived and not nearly cathartic enough. Defining the drama is unnecessary for this current piece -- drama is drama no matter what shape or form it takes that we can all identify with. When the horizon has darkened, being blindsided by an insensitive bastard's discarded gum on the sidewalk -- now on my shoe -- can feel like the end of the world. That, and I had to put my dog to sleep last week. Drama. Is. Drama. Is. Drama.
Monday, August 11, 2014 at 7:08 pm I read my first post about Robin Williams. Within 10 minutes I somehow knew his death was not an accident. I knew it. I knew it with every fiber of my being because I saw me in his story. I saw the masks he wore, though very different than my own. My very first thought when I came to the realization of what had happened was, "how can I be expected to fight this battle when the genius Robin Williams couldn't fight it?" Selfish? Yes. But it's what I thought -- it's where I am in my life.
This week has been difficult. The people of the world lost in conflict and hate and chaos -- digging a hole the size of itself. There I am, standing on the side of the ever growing hole, ready to leap, but I don't. I -- in my weakened, fragile, heavy state find myself reaching into the hole to pull others out. This is both my blessing and my curse. On a very instinctual level, I know it's something I have to do; and yet, the weight of it all is suffocating me. Robin Williams leapt into the hole. Will his leap pull some others out? Will it cause others to leap with him? Will it cause me to leap with him?
The conversation has been started, but it will fade away like everything else that is hard -- and nothing will have been resolved. How do we begin shrinking the hole, thereby reducing the amount of souls it sucks in? Why is it that I have reached the bottom of this piece without once using the words suicide or mental illness? Both words have impacted my life -- so many lives for way too long and yet, stigma is still attached to them making it laborious to even softly utter them. The Band-aid was an ingenious invention -- but we, as a whole have got to stop slapping them on a broken society and look for ways to mend and heal what is killing us... what is killing me. My soul's instinct is to build a bridge of unity for the world -- and yet, here I am falling apart. Ironic. Yes. In order to help others I have to help myself, I know this... and yet... I feel lost.
