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.
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*Hugs*
ReplyDeleteI 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.
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.
ReplyDeletewell, let's both not do it, though.
ReplyDeletewe could have an Alive Club.
With cookies, milk and all that stuff? I'm game!
ReplyDeleteYou remember the story of Moses and the burning bush?
ReplyDeleteMoses 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? :)