The dark piss in the shower passed and I did not die that day from it. It's not stopped me from one (of many) eternal flaws, this one being I can determine my own Hollywood Ending. Because I am 50% convinced of my end-date, 2.8 years from now, and have been 50% convinced of this for years (50 % being either it will or it won't), it's allowed me to write the pending script, the Grand Plan: buying the truck, driving around, getting lost and lost some more. Falling in love with being. And then lying down finally. With a cat as my navigator/wingman. I'd have a cat now but I sleep in a twin bed, restlessly, and also never run my heater or AC. I suffer enough, why torture an innocent bystander? What will become of the orphan cat after my suicide remains to be determined. Maybe I will leave it one day on the farm of a retired lesbian couple.
It may not happen. How many of us get to determine our end anyway? When does the time become perfect? What is the definition of that, the parameters of the day that is perfect to die? I must have some idea of this, and I do. In a way that it will never be perfect, but it will be enough.
I was thinking earlier today, Is dying the only way I can live? I walk with so much trauma, crippled by it, my trauma and gene smoothie, I am functional only alone, and while I am riveting most of the time, to HATE every time I leave my dwelling is no way to live. I've tried for years to let it go, this utter disappointment in everything human. It's unrealistic, it's self-destructive, it's a purview that can't be won. Why must I insist on taking up this position and hate life rather than let it go and maybe like life a little?
My means are limited and so my world small. While I do enjoy what is available within those means, it is exactly all that surrounds my in this small world that I can not seem to transcend. I can't pretend it doesn't exist, the ubiquitous ridiculousness of US. I don't know how to not see (ergo suffer) it when options around it are minimal. Like: I need socks, I go to get socks, all the socks are in the mall, I have to go into the mall, I FUCKING HATE MALLS! Like that.
I hate everything about a mall, the fake air, the decor, the music, the aimless wandering of blank people eating shit food, the items in every store window. That I have to go to six stores to find socks I might wear, that I never do, that I always have to compromise, that I never own socks I actually like.
I enjoyed? I was, anyway, able to be in the world once. I liked going out, movies, diners, bars, venues, crowds, music, plays, happenings, gatherings, smashed in with the rest of them. I've done Times Square on New Years Eve. I did the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center one year, my favorite part being after the Oooh and Ahh of the ceremony, the packed-in crowd dispersing with things like, Get the fuck out of my way! CBGB's on Sunday afternoon punk shows, Simon and Garfunkle in Central Park, any subway during rush hour, I could pack myself into a crowd with the best of them. I didn't see it coming: I walked into a packed bar one night and thought - I don't want to be here. It wasn't then the density of crowd, it was them. They suddenly seemed to be trying too hard, posing, cartoons and stereotypes. I'd say phonies if it didn't put me in Holden Caufield territory, but like that, to varying degrees. I left and I never went back, to any of it. The switch simply flipped one night, and I didn't want to do it anymore.
The other thing happened. Chapter 1 of Little Bored Fauntleroy. I don't know, I somehow, somewhere along the way lost myself and stayed there. I saw my own fallibilities, my demons, and eventually the horror that is me and I knew I couldn't go back out there, there was too much wrong with me. So I went the other direction, deep, deep inside. I planted the flag and here we are, thirty years later, deciding OK, I'm good, thanks. To finally DO what I've been doing anyway for the thirty - erasing myself.
I've been working on some art task each morning this week, mostly busy work between two points. Two hours pass, and I think, you know, not only how luxurious it is to lose oneself for such chunks of time, but also how most of my adapted endeavors are to that end, the big three being making art, riding a bike, and drinking vodka (watching stupid TV the unofficial fourth), each one a beautiful nothingness to disappear into. But I am not suspended, in any of them. I retreat into my head and wander, around and around, aimlessly and to no end. There are no breakthrough scientific discoveries, nothing at all that could make it even vaguely worthwhile, just a cyclical rambling around old and tired wounds. They've become my friends, my company, my comfort, my purpose, and I can't wait to escape everything that takes me from them to get back to them. They serve me no purpose, they don't add or enhance, but they are ever there, steadfast and loyal.
For years, and a little bit still, I understood how unsound this existence was. I understand I am here regardless how insignificant that is, at least enjoy it. And I do, so much. (See previous post.) I am simply not built to WANT to go to TGI Fridays with my coworkers and laugh my proof that I am successfully aligned with the correct going narrative. And I have the DNA sequence that disallows the alternative, acceptable, quieter shared joys of life - whatever that looks like. So here I am, stuck in the middle with me, often in LOVE with outside, but now watching myself slowly disentegrate with age, and that will never get better. I get to maybe go out on my own terms. If I'm lucky. If I don't have stroke first and can no longer hold the razor blade. The narrative, the aesthetic, the story will be mine, finally and with love.
