On the ledge
02 Feb 2011 Leave a Comment
Imagine for a moment the end of the world. Yeah, you’re looking at nuclear, and biological war fare gone mad, or natural disasters, working to wipe man kind off the planet, perhaps you’re a religious person and you’re imagining biblical ends.
But I’m not talking that kind of end-of-the-world. The end of my world has come and gone. One after another, things fell apart, I lost my brother, sister-in-law, and my precious nieces. (One unborn) You sit there aghast I’m sure, I fell the need to tell you, they’re alive and well. But because of something so entirely stupid, they kindly dispatched us from their family unit. There are excuses a mile long of course.
I managed to keep it together, after all the grief doesn’t belong to me. I only just got a brother, and I thought I had a friend in my sister-in-law. But my little niece, she’s the most exciting little thing to enter my life. She and her soon due little sister are likely to be the only babies I could have has in my life.
Life, it’s a funny word. My life consists of fighting a continual list of of orders. Nobody truly gets what’s going on with me, because I can’t put it to words, I’ve tried relentlessly over the years, but it’s ignored, brushed off, or written off.
I don’t go out to make friends, because I live in a shit-hole of a town, where the first night I go out to earn a life, I’ll likely be shot. Or maybe that’s just the ingrained paranoia. I don’t trust people, thank you very much, and I don’t know how to be social, so it’s a mute point anyway.
I’m getting ‘suggestions’ right and left about how to handle my practically non-existent social life. The one I like best is: “Get a job.” Here’s why I like it so much – it’s been a constant, ever present suggestion, and even an order most of the time. I’ve tried. Not that anyone believes of cares how thoroughly I’ve done so, but I have tried continually. Nobody is hiring. Even the people who say they are, or maybe it’s just me. Maybe my fat ass is just not hirable.
My brother’s sweetly dropped suggestion of a book club, is bull shit. I can make my own decisions, I don’t need to sit in someone’s living room while they discuss a book they liked that they think I should read. It’s more “suggestions” that I don’t want.
Besides, that was a ruin in the end of my world. I saw my brother and his girls above me, as we all clung to the rope that was our connection to them. He didn’t hold a serrated knife, or even and axe. He held a blow torch. Knowing that the only way was down I had to let go, my dad and mom held on for dear life. Or perhaps they never saw the torch The hemp of the rope smoked and smoldered, until it finally snapped and the rest of the family fell around me in a resounding thud.
The visual is enough, I hope to show you how I felt. I wasn’t shocked by the discourse, I saw it coming, be it bullshit or otherwise. However the event sent a shiver of many resentments. I resented my brother from taking my niece away from me, I resented him for leaving me to clean up his mess. I resented my mother for the constant cleaning she made me do (later to inform me that she did most of it) I resented her for not allowing me the downtime to recover from being sick before a whole new world of cleaning began. I resented my father, because while I understood his taking care of her, he stopped seeing me a long, long time ago. My fault, I know – but still.
☑ Family
I resented the innocents, my animals, whom I love with all my heart, but constant, fur, litter dust and, hay made sicker still.
☑ Family
☑ Animals
I tried to get over it, using my usual methods, I tried to write – nothing came. When it did I’d delete it all before I managed to get to the second paragraph. I grew angry and resented the fact that I couldn’t write any more. Then I resigned myself to it.
☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
Standbys were always waiting of course, and they lasted a while, but slowly, everything that had ever once made me happy, or kept me occupied began to die.
My music was annoying me, I couldn’t stand to turn it on anymore, it’a all so redundant, even cliché now. It’s only on in the car to keep me lucid while I drive.
☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music
Drawing did nothing for me, while I was glad I finally finished the design I had been working on, it held no meaning anymore. There was no pride, or relief at the end. It wasn’t like when I finished Tribute – it just didn’t seem to matter.
☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music
☑ Creativity/Art
The most devastating blow is fresh, barely moments old, it’s still open and oozing blood and pus. The one thing I could always turn to, the one joy that always held me together, even at the worst of times, had become mechanic, I realized I was only doing it to occupy my mind, there was no joy, no feeling left in reading. It’s gone… I can’t help but feel my tenuous grasp slipping. I let go of the rope, but I have been clinging in futile hope to the cliff’s edge, and it’s a long way to fall.
I gave up on wanting love, a future filled with happiness – and all that was left is crumbling to pieces around me. It isn’t simply one event, after all: who am I to place blame on anything, or anyone. It’s not fair. This is just the path my journey has taken me – I stare at the chasm below, and wonder if it matters.
☑ Family
☑ Animals
☑ Writing
☑ Music
☑ Creativity/Art
☑ Reading
☐ Hanging on…
When there’s only one thing left to do, you do it. I fear however that the slightest pressure could crumble the earth at my fingers, and send me spiraling down somewhere I shouldn’t have to imagine.
