Deathday.

Thanks tochis!

March 27, 2010 marked the 13th anniversary of my aunt's death. It also became the day that I put my relationship of ten years to rest. Although it didn't die peacefully in it's sleep like she did. It raged on for hours and felt like it lasted for days and in a span of 12 hours I went from having it all with a boyfriend whom I thought I would spend the rest of my life with to having nothing except an incredibly dry mouth from all the yelling and crying. I remember being very thirsty as I fought to hang onto what, at that time, felt like the most important thing in the world. Now it makes me think about other things that seemed so important while I was alive that do not even matter anymore and I have to wonder if they ever mattered.

We walk through life building ourselves, molding our character, aligning who we are with what we believe and if we can lay to rest at night without being tormented by our actions towards others and ourselves then we know we did good. And if we can continue to sleep with an unburdened conscious until our dying day then perhaps our final resting place will be the heaven we imagine it to be. But if you were like me and spent countless nights tossing and turning because you are unable to turn off your mind and you question everything that you are, then I think you may end up with a fate similar to mine when it's your time to go. Because I never had restful night's sleep, I never went without doubting myself and the things I did, and I never knew if I was good.

I've met other souls like mine wandering aimlessly in this place. You can tell them from the people who are alive by their eyes. They are vacant but eager empty but hopeful compared to those who live who have eyes that betray their existence because the are dull and careless, blank and tired. There is a park I like to go to that I never went to when I was alive because it was overrun with the dead or at least they didn't exist to me because they were homeless, they were society's rejects, they were abandoned and left to die. I come here now because I am one of them. I too am dead but still hanging onto life. But this feeling isn't new, the last time I felt this was the day everything that mattered to me died. After that it was easy to let everything else go.

Imagination.

Thanks mot!

Sometime I would imagine there were bombs hidden under the table when I was out at a crowded place. I would imagine there was a package taped under my table, perfect red cylindrical sticks of dynamite waiting in anticipation to explode. I would imagine the rhythmic ticking counting down to the final explosion and I would cross my arms and hug my body waiting for the blast that would inevitably come. And then I would close my eyes and imagine my body exploding into a magnificent kaleidoscope of bits and limbs that would litter the sky against a backdrop of deep orange flames and the red hot heat. It was so beautiful to watch the burnt ash of everything rain down and stick and cling to the dregs of bodies and building parts, and I would smile. But when I opened my eyes again there I was sitting in a crowded bar listening to music from a far away land that combined fiddles and flutes and voices that sang out and hands that clapped and feet that stomped and faces that smiled.

I don't smile, but when I close my eyes and see the bright flashes of color behind my lids, my lips slowly turn up.

Water.

Thanks DawnVGilmorePhotography!

I last thing I remember was being in the shower.

It was one of those showers that is meant to change you, you go in feeling one way and when you come out you are forever changed. The water washes over your exposed naked body and cleanses you of all the dirt and grime and sin and filth that contaminated you. The water is supposed to make it all better.

I remember stepping into the water and immediately feeling the stream of bullets beating against my back. I hoped that it was beating out all the bad and all the negative, and for a short while it seemed like it was working. It was in that moment that I felt my shoulders relax and my head roll back and then I realized the water was filling my mouth and drippng into my nose, now the water making me worse. I was choking on it and gagging because I couldn't breathe but instead of moving my head away from the relentless stream of water, I stayed. I let the water fill all the crevasses of my body and get deep into those hard to reach places hoping that I'll get cleaner, hoping to get better, hoping that all the kinks would somehow work itself out and I would be free from the constraints of my mind and my biases and my steadfast resolution of how things are supposed to be. I was finding out that I was very wrong about the direction my life was taking yet I was glued to this path because I had paved it for myself since I was a small child and like most things that are learned and ingrained at a young age, this was something I could not easily let go.

What is this path that I speak of you must be wondering, well I'll tell you. It is the idea that was drilled into me as a child, but perhaps has been ingrained into American culture and perpetuated through ones upbringing for many generations, that of graduating from college, going to grad school, starting a career, getting married, having children, growing old and eventually dying. It is on this path that I began to waiver, it was more than just doubts about to whom to married or how many kids or which profession, it was why do all these things? I questioned if these were the things that I wanted to do and if maybe a more none conventional approach was my answer because after trying and failing at the path laid out for me I was ready for a change, but not just any change, something monumental that would really shake things up, so I let the water fill my lungs and I didn't fight it, I let my consciousness escape me and I didn't try to chase after it, I let my head hit the faucet and I didn't feel it.

That was the first time I tried to kill myself.

Common Ground.

Thanks loonatic!

During my life I tried to define who I was in order to stand out from everyone else. I felt it was the most important and necessary thing a person could do, more so than having a successful career, or a stable relationship, or lots of friends; knowing who I was, specifically what set me apart from others was my Holy Grail. I thought that if I could achieve that, I could die happy.

I think if I knew that at 28 my life would be over, I would have done things differently, which isn't to say that I regret how I spent my final years, or any time of my life for that matter. But if I knew I was going to die, I would have wrapped things up, drawn some conclusions, and reflected on the progress I made towards finding myself.

But it's the nature of life not to know when the end is approaching, or near, or coming, only when it happens and then it's over just like that, in a split second, in the blink of an eye, except that eye never opens again, not even to say goodbye. Just one more peak, would have been nice, damn, it happened so fast. So, anyways, I can't say if I died happy, or died knowing I lived a full life, because what measures a life? How many years do you have to live for your life to be full? Was 28 years enough? I say no. Til the day I died, everyday was a constant struggle, with the choices I made, the place where I was. I was no more sure of myself then I was at 18, which isn't to say that I hadn't learned anything in 10 years because I did, I learned a whole hell of a lot, but learning quantity just makes it harder to find the things that really matter. I thought for sure I would have at least another 30 years to shift through all the stuff and make some sense of it.

Now I'll never know, but I do know this, I spent my entire lifetime searching myself for those idiosyncrasies that separated me from everyone else, that identified me, and as time went on, I felt like I was slowly creating my individuality. I had my own thoughts and opinions and feelings all of which were unique because I used my own reasoning and insight and reflections to come to my conclusions. I armed myself with these positions as I went out into the world and what do you know? I found others who thought like me and dressed like me. I felt, for the first time, that I was a part of something bigger and I felt safe. I blended in with a larger group and I felt more confident in speaking my mind, but what I was really doing was further dividing who I was from who I was not, creating a bigger gap between us and them,;and them over there, oh and them too, yup and them, and them, and them, until before I knew it my "large group" was a select few and everyone else was, well everyone else.

What happened was my individuality became a collective conscious, one in which I embraced while forgetting who I was and blindly running with the pack because I had made a connection with other people who were as individual as I was,. Yet somewhere along the way I forget who I was, and I lost that part of myself that defined me, that made me stand out from the crowd, because all of a sudden the crowd was just like me. The crowd was thinking my thought and having my opinions and telling me how I feel and my reasoning and values got skewed and I didn't even know it. And before I was able to find out what mattered, nothing mattered anymore.