I hope I can make this quick.
Suicide is in the news again. Chester, Robin Williams documentary, and not-quite-the-same I just sat through a presentation talking about LGBTQ youth and their rates of suicide and particular problems related to inclusion. In the set of presentations they also included a story of a baby born with cancer who died a little over the age of 2, and a sentiment that “God puts people in our lives for a reason.” Also, wholly unrelated but for it happened to me in close proximity, I went out to see someone away, and they were less than excited at my presence.
How do we unpack this and mash it all up? Let's start with the idea that people are in your life for a reason, or you in theirs. The second half I can at least speculate some divine role I was “supposed” to play. I've talked about it before. Being something of a “destroyer” or “anti-particle.” Things collide with me and never seem to come out like they imagined on the other side. In a world of tight-lipped and tight-assed people, I would serve a palpable function. If you're squeezing on to your conception for dear life, I'm the devil. Isn’t it properly avoidant and convenient of God though? Without him, how could you humble yourself in the presence of your dead child? Good thing you’re so important for him to focus on you so specifically; just what you needed.
In talking about the dead gay kids, the point was stressed that the difference between life and death can be a feeling of inclusion and support. It can be having just one person who accepts them for who they are. It can be opening their eyes to a timeline for if and whether they want to come out so that they're safe and supported. We're in southern Indiana after all, that point needed stressed. Included. Part of the greater pack in which you depend on for survival. No finer point could be put on it than a suicidal child whose identity is being denied.
To make that “unfair” and “terrible” and “what the fuck man?” analogy, every time you strip someone of their identity, you're playing the suicide game. I consider myself lucky to no longer be a child. I like that I don't lay my well-being on the hinges of how people decide to think of me or whether or not that want to engage or talk. One must wonder how many people are truly teetering on that ledge though when you consider the music of Linkin Park. “Somewhere I Belong” has been on repeat in my head for a few hours. I'm not the only big fan. I've never connected so strongly with millions and millions of people to still fall under the weight of my demons.
Is that a choice of mine? Am I just better at constructing a story that externalizes? I was thinking about my proposition to try and stay “generally happy” for a week. I mean, I'm pretending like me shitting on things doesn't make me happy. I don't hate my jokes. I don't pretend I'm at the mercy of my mistakes. I don't glom on to people but for the remnants of neural connections I can't untangle. Why is the darkness my playground when it's just the damning destroyer of worlds for everyone else?
I suppose I feel I'm ramping up a bit. I've beaten my head into submission, and now our awkward hug or song and dance about friendship leaves me as empty as I always wished as an anxious child. A memory hit me early of a time when my mom took us to The Taste of Chicago, I had no desire to go, she had complained of having little money earlier, and in my angry pouting she said, “Crucify me!” and I replied, “Gladly.” The look on her face left me as dead inside as I've ever felt. Not dead embarrassed or filled with regret. But in that moment, it clicked how useless and nothing you were going to mean to me as a person if my words were going to get you so crazily worked up or break your face to look like an African war mask. Bitch, you threw the pitch and are shocked by the home-run? You're playing my game.
I don't seek redemption or forgiveness. I'm proud that I've the constitution or manner that keeps focus. I drive all over this godforsaken state and see thousands of people just living their lives, voting for Trump, spending money they don't have, coming up with excuse after excuse for why their lives do or don't look the way they do. All of it boiling down to modes of being that have nothing to do with me. The only people who are my people do the shit I do. They risk. They're screaming the truth. They take the beatings for their behavior. And they know they are nothing without the ongoing conversation. Maybe if someone got to the work of telling these gay kids they will always and forever be the exception they'll swallow their fate and stop hurting themselves in service to shitty rules. Maybe if we stopped romanticizing and perpetrating depressing environments we'd get to listen to the ongoing creations from our artist heroes. Maybe it's my embrace of the darkness that makes me feel entitled to the world and my conception of myself well in spite of you.
Try not to die, I guess.
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