|
June 2/97. 0850. Life it seems, is passing by like the captured pictures of a slide show. I'm watching with a slight smile on my face, I'm watching the tears of yesterday. June 3/97. Tuesday. Aching with an unexplainable loneliness today. Reaching out and touching nothing, and to my surprise, finding out that this hurts so much today. Rejection pains me, yet sometimes I can remove myself far enough for it to feel like a distant expected visitor. Yet today, today,... Last week, I'd resolved not to fall apart so easily again. So even as the tears sit heavy in my heart, I will watch them silently and guard against them with the meager weapons I have on my hands. It seems the hole of despair sits gaping right in my face, and it seems hard to avert my face and still not see it there, at the periphery of my cursed vision. I was in the midst of packing my stuff over the weekend and found a slip of paper which read "Gizmo died Dec 29/91. This river flows from dark to light. Forever still my heart remains." Gizmo was my pet rabbit back in 91. What happened to it would probably not be remembered again. Not even for myself. June 4/97. Wednesday. No words left today. June 6/97. Thursday. 1736. Restless. Fighting soul and emptiness. Fighting non-words and confusion. Fighting for words. What can I say when my heart expresses such hollowness? Which words to use when the soul's eye is blind and the screams are silent? I feel nothing. I am all wept out. I am wrung dry of emotions. And the longing for something... anything.... is reminding me how different death would be. The longing for death is terrible. Even to me. I love its closeness yet it terrifies me beyond belief. Must I seek it, or will it seek me? Is it a game for me to play, or is it lethal to touch? I know not. July 7/97. Saturday. 18:14. So useless this past week. No drugs, nothing, yet the vague physical tiredness persists and I cannot locate the reason nor figure out why. This afternoon I actually took a nap. The last time I ever took a nap (a drug free one) must have been when I was a child. I want to give up. I feel like giving up, and this scares me. Sleeping doesn't really help. When I wake, I feel useless and more hopeless. But the sleeping puts an end to my plans. Awake, the only thoughts in my mind are of how to make it work this time. I can't do this anymore. I want to put my hands into my head and yank out my brains just so that I will stop thinking. And while I am at it, I want to put my hands into my chest and tear out my heart so it would stop aching and hurting. Good things so hard to remember. Are they even real, or were they always just a figment of my imagination? Past relationships so dead and buried. Were they truly alive at one point? No, I don't remember anymore. It was all in another life. On another planet. Monday. June 9/97. 0915. I hardly believe in myself anymore these days. All I see are failings, a whole series of them, tracking my path taken, like black dirty footprints on a new shiny floor. I want to get away. I feel so trapped in a body that controls me. A mind that imprisons me. I want to run screaming away from me, my faceless image, my battered nerves. How?...... Wouldn't it be nice to just let go when every aching muscle in your body is consumed by a fiery hell. Couldn't I just let go and return to a pit I know will welcome me? Who would care to free me if I do not do so myself? June 12/97. Thursday. 0802. Round, brown black eyes staring at me. I see depthlessness within it. But if I look closer I'll see myself, a child, sitting huddled alone, behind the large white painted building. I see a child alone, while others play; basking in the quietness of her own world, yet hearing the sounds of the other children at play on the other side of the school building. I see a slow understanding in her eyes and in her soul, as she comes to terms with that differentness in her. And pain rends my heart as I see the collapse of her spirit. I am awakening again to the sights and sounds around me, tired and numb after the dampening of my spirit. Silently reflecting upon the period of agitation, angst and confusion. One more roller coaster loop over and done with. When's the next? I don't do too well on some days. It seems I don't do too well more and more. I find myself on the verge of falling and it takes all I have to keep from falling. During such times, nothing else takes priority, even when I know life must go on. But I find myself so replacable. Someone once told me that life, people's lives, are very much like kleenex. It gets thrown out when it's been used and becomes no longer useful. That's a depressing thought. Yet I realize how true that seems. Getting through even one day at a time is hard. I question repeatedly if the quality of all life is such. And if it is, how do I sustain myself? If it is, I don't want to sustain it. The motivator now, perhaps, is hope. And hope, I believe, is the denial of painful reality. June 13/97. Friday. Small steps. Walking on air, walking on ground. No difference. If there is, I can't feel it. Went running last evening. It's been a while. I've been neglecting my training. Two races next week, and still unmotivated. But I did it. Dragged myself kicking and screaming to the track. I hate doing intervals. But Thursday nights are Interval nights. It was tough. Today I feel calmer. Maybe it's the Haldol, maybe it's the weekend. I prefer to think it's just the weekend. For me that means having two whole days to myself. No contact with anyone I wouldn't want to talk to. Two days of hiding, two days of living dead. Woo-hoo. June 16/97. Monday. 0830. Conditions yesterday was perfect for running. The route was flat and fast. I shaved two minutes off my previous race time which was also my PB. Slowly getting there, and feeling quite smug with victory especially since I haven't been training as hard as I should be. Emotionally, I'm surviving, I suppose. I could feel the depression clinging to me as I forced myself out of bed this morning. It's hard, and I suppose it will always be hard. The crashes will come when they come, and bracing myself for it will probably be the best thing I can do. But the weekend was healing. I read, I wandered around town, I sat outside on Saturday at the inline skate park and had my lunch. I read in the park. I was alone, and perhaps that was the healing aspect of it. I was aware of the jaws of grief circling my soul like vultures, but somehow, they hardly ever swoop in for a kill on weekends these days. And less and less so as I participate in road races and focus on the running away(literally) part of these organized events. I think that other than weekends, the fear that settles within me... and that uneasiness which often tempts me to run screaming away and sometimes suicide,... is one related to relationships. I hate the pressure of having to socialize, of having to maintain a facade of normality, or wondering if an act or spoken word might mean something more than it seems. But maybe that's entirely my fault. It probably is. That I take things too personally. But there is a certain peace to being alone, even though the emptiness and loneliness can sometimes devour me. Increasingly, I long to go away for a while. Be free, and maybe rethink what I really want to do with my life. And more seriously, if this life is worth saving. What would you do if you had a steady source of money that was almost enough to support yourself? That is, you do not have to work full time, and you only need to earn a bit of money to top up the income. What would you do to earn money? What would you do with the rest of the time? Would you stay at your current job? What do I know of such dreams I could never imagine? Today, I suppose my answer would be to run. There is only so much energy and time I can put into serious training with responsibilities in the pursuit of life. Last night I ran my first 8K / 5 miler of the season. My goal when I started was to complete the race while maintaining a good pace throughout. That I did. But after the race, that didn't seem enough for me. I want to go faster in my next race. Such a feat would not be impossible if I had the time to train everyday. Perhaps that wishful thinking came while I was drunk with that wonderful post-race high. Perhaps. But if I had the freedom to live a life I want; and simply had to earn little more than pocket money, that would be what I would do. Placing top three would earn me some spare change. And if that would take me a few more months to build up to, well, then, I suppose I would take on a part time job. Maybe coaching would be a great way to share this wonderful "running thing" some people seem to hate so much. That would be what I might do. My head seem so filled with dreamy thoughts now. June 19/97. Thursday. Definately more settled this week. Taking it one at a time. From reading a book to dragging this weary body out of bed each morning. Hiatus. This is the little bit of "mirage-like" peace that comes after fighting tooth and nail for my soul at stake. I know enough not to take it for granted. And I now know enough not to be lulled by it. You could say I have attained some sort of growth in this area. Not simply "maturity", but rather, a wariness not unlike animal intuition. One which preserves, not destroys. I am still fighting a system which knows nothing about me, cares nothing about me; yet heads up a world I would sell my life to belong to. I have questioned whether or not this is something I so desperately want at all costs. My actions would point to the fact that I do. But it's hard to tell what my heart really feels. Fighting for something sometimes distracts the heart and mind from other things. It is only when that object is attained, does the heart become either despondent or disillusioned for whatever reason. This is what makes life so difficult to bear. If there is a hole in a ship, one does not take a bucket and attempt to empty the sea. One either fixes the hole or abandons the ship, as in the case of the Titanic. Friday. June 20/97. Confusion sets in this morning. A friend from the past calls. And I am a jumble of thoughts, half stuck in the years when so much of what I did was 'lethal'. What's the difference now? Yes, I feel a rising tide of rage building within me. I want to rage at a world which has taken from me things I have never been willing to negotiate. I want to rage at the unknown force which has kept me barely alive, and so consciously so. I want to destroy the faces of evil which has stolen only the precious possessions of my life. Pack up and leave.
No. Not return to the past. But to walk away. Where? No where. Falling pieces of my psyche. I can almost see them. Coming down like rain. Like the rain outside today. And the fragments, shards of glass and unknown debris. No shelter. But standing in the rain like a fool I am. Grief is heavy in my head and heart. Grief is threatening to tear me further apart. The carefully set seams are tearing loose, the painstaking work of finding the safety this week slowly dissipating into this bizzare fog. And I am a mad fool left clutching at the air. Weekend looming ahead of me threatening to suffocate me now. Gawd... how can things change so dramatically, so radically, so god-awful suddenly. Throw me a life line. It looks like I'm drowning. June 23/97. Monday. People have such terrible capacity for self destruction. People have such terrible beasts hiding behind such carefully veiled faces. I spent the weekend hiding from my own beast. First behind a blanket and then behind a fog of blackness in a drug induced sleep. And the beast had such a far away quality to it that it never threatened me. But it could have destroyed me. Yet, yesterday, another race. I battled to wake up, shower, dress and endure that transit ride down to Fort York at 08:00. And when they blasted that canon to start us off (whoever's smart idea that was, I was ready to kill them), I ran along with everyone else, even though that hammering in my chest and the ringing in my ears didn't quite subside until later on that day. It was the worse race I'd run this season, with a time of 25:25. So much for feeling that post-race high. Today I'm still in a quiet, resigned mood. My head still hurts, I want to be left alone, and whenever anyone approaches me I simply want to run away. Yet it hurts just as badly to be isolated in this "head-space" island. There seems to be no end to this turmoil. June 26/97. Thursday. Past couple of days lost to me. As if I'd swallowed them. Or as if they'd swallowed me. Which is which? I've grown less sure and more apathatic. Tonight - a movie with Carolyn, might just get me out of this God-forsaken space. June 27/97. Friday. 08:40. Waking at 04:00 past couple of days to the silence and darkness of my apartment. Away from the noise and confusion of my dreams. Such vividness and bustle which is cut off the moment I awake, and the memories linger for just a touch longer before disappearing (forever?). Some will come back. Some won't. Those that do are often triggered by thoughts of suicide. There it was - two nights ago - me, bleeding in a horrible way. The more I tried to scream, the more blood I vomited..... yet always, I remain conscious enough to register that leaking feeling from within me. The life force pouring out in volumes. There is horror, no terror. There is bewilderment on my part that I still live regardless. People around me leaving/going/doing something/somewhere for the long weekend ahead. And I will only retreat to where I've always been familiar with. Perhaps in my attempt to salvage some peace, I might find a little. Even if it's for a little while. Monday. June 30/97. Faces of people. Voices of theirs. Too loud. Too many of them.
I need to escape. Yet I cannot. It was a more sociable weekend than I
planned. More sociable than I wanted. Now I want to disappear into
nothingness, be left alone. But a friend of my brother's in town,
and I am trapped, weighed down by having her stay with me.
|