24 November, 2010

Still. Life.

Yesterday morning I was driving my friend's car crying and asking for God to kill me.

When I went to bed I felt okay. One of my best friends, who lives in Washington State, is here for Thanksgiving, and so is Liam (my housemate)'s sister.

At about twelve or one when I was back from driving the car, Liam and his sister asked me to go to lunch with them. I had just started dyeing my hair but they waited for me and I remembered thinking, it just keeps going. Sooner or later, someone will be waiting for you, sooner or later there will be a new episode of The Walking Dead and you will be curled up watching it with some kind of soda or juice.

I find half-full packs of cigarettes in the park. I go to a college that has electric typewriters and an art library full of my favorite comics from when I was a kid. Liam worries about me and wanders in to ask if I want to watch David Blaine Street Magic for the hundredth time.

(I ask what he can possibly still get out of it but he says, "Now I notice little things.")

When I was waiting to wash the dye out of my hair so I could go with Liam and Jodie, I sent my friend a text: "Is it brave to go on living if you don't have anything you can do?" And I do wonder about this. I am not a depressed person, but sometimes it seems reasonable to think that stopping everything would be better. It's more a tactical decision than an emotional one.

Recently I read a quote about how if you're disabled you have to learn to be a human being and not "a human doing." I see what this means, but I guess I find it really inadequate--I mean, other people would not accept me as a being; if I completely collapsed and only wanted to experience good things, it would just be seen as laziness, depression, or a triumph of disability--a sad story. I have to stay in the doing frame because being from me would be unacceptable.

But I'm just trying to say I am, I am, I am, anyway.

5 comments:

  1. *Hugs*

    I know that there was more point to this.

    But if it helps, I would much rather have you as a "human being" than as a human who's dead.

    Sometimes I think everything in this world has doing as part of being, but some humans think that doing has to be big and a certain type.

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  2. I like this post. I believe that yes, it's brave to continue life without wanting it, but I also believe that it's brave surrendering to death, because it's like walking into a dark room - you have no fucking idea what to expect.

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  3. well, let's both not do it, though.
    we could have an Alive Club.

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  4. With cookies, milk and all that stuff? I'm game!

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  5. You remember the story of Moses and the burning bush?

    Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

    God said to Moses, “I AM WHO AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”


    Cool? :)

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