My dad died in April 2005. A couple of months later, my dad's brother Mike died too. The following year, a friend of mine succumbed to a lengthy battle with Leukemia. Thoughts I'd had before started to come alive - what if I was bad luck? What if everyone and everything I interact with is suddenly destined for unfortunate demise? Maybe the world would be better off without me. So I digressed into a state of nearly nothing. Looking back, I remember an obsession with shadows. I wonder now if I wondered then which part of me was real - the physical me or my every-bit-as-present shadow. Shortly after my friend died, my Ma was diagnosed with cancer too. The thoughts got worse and I fell off the deep end. I was prepared to destroy myself and in my mind, if I were to succeed, I would be a martyr. I would have (finally) made the world a better place. Cocaine, booze, weed, cocaine, booze, weed, MDMA, heroin, cocaine, booze, weed. After work, before work, during work, after work, before work, during work, yesterday, today, didn't sleep, maybe tomorrow, probably tomorrow, hopefully tomorrow. My blood was probably poison. My urine brown and putrid from dehydration and an overworked endocrine system. I thought nobody could tell. I was a fucking fool. A couple of my friends overdosed on accident. Maybe I was more hopeful than I thought. It's not as though I was better at getting intoxicated, but I never crossed that line. I danced with it, sure. I hope now that I never gave up on myself. I certainly wonder how many others did, but that's not for me to worry about. I wish I could remember if I ever completely gave up on myself, though. I remember thinking about it. I think I remember convincing myself not to, but I'm probably lying to myself to protect some cosmic truth. As though, if I could not see the value in my own self being, then I would, by the laws of the cosmos, not be at all. Of course, I never slipped into unbeing. People cared about me, whether I did or didn't. But I haven't forgotten what it feels like to live in the gray area between existence and non. In some ways, I still exist in that fog. I'm not sure I understand how to exist properly.
