I doubt I have any readers, as I have not posted with any regularity since the very inception of this space. There is a part of me that takes that personally, as though my inability to captivate other readers with stale content and nonexistent updates is somehow a reflection of my own worth as a writer, a thinker, a human.
The acquired anonymity may yet prove to be valuable. Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, the WordPress community has seen fit to continue offering me a space where I can be both curator and chief contributor, and I can continue posting (or not) at will. As I sit here idling away my time at the office during the slowest point of the year, I find myself missing a regular writing schedule, something I’m certain I’ve never experienced to begin with.
So this is my big New Year’s Commitment for 2012: I promise not to forget that, for a matter of hours before a lunch break in late December, I wanted to try my hand at writing things no one will ever read in the most public manner imaginable. Note that there is no implied promise of regularity, dear non-reader, for I can’t imagine such a commitment would be anything resembling valuable, but the abandonment of such a declaration would carry with it the potential of yet another existential crisis. Which brings me to the real topic of the first post upon my return to “blogging”, for every human on this earth and no one at all, simultaneously: the existential crisis. More specifically, the “big one”, the one I have struggled with for some months now, in solitude. The “big one”, which is also the worst I’ve ever experienced, if I’ve ever truly experienced one up to this season in my life.
Before I describe what has consumed every free thought for the better part of the last year, I’d like to explain, to myself mostly, why I’ve chosen to suffer this burden in solitude. It’s certainly not for lack of support, as I am blessed enough to continue to enjoy the companionship of my two wonderful, supportive, and loving parents. It’s certainly not for loneliness, as my wife and soulmate completes me in ways I never imagined were possible as a headstrong young bachelor. I also have younger siblings, a brother and sister, both of whom have amazing and complex personalities and both of whom I could rely on for anything, though my love for them precludes making any request outside of that which would be absolutely necessary. I also consider myself blessed for having a wonderful and wonderfully well-behaved dog, who has provided companionship and pure, unconditional love to our lives for just over a year now.
I believe the reason for my self imposed exile, until I am able to vanquish the demon that has burdened my thoughts, feelings and emotions for the last months, is because of the effect it has had on me. Though I’ve always considered myself a philosopher, ready to consider the deepest meanings of life, love and the human condition, I have never encountered a thought that rattled me to my core. I have never encountered a thought that inspired fear- real, horrifying, dread, until now. Though I have prided myself on my ability to stay strong, cool and composed in the most chaotic circumstances, my appreciation for the ironic never led me to consider the possibility that my nature would buckle under its own weight in the rote, quiet stillness of a good life.
My father’s early life was the stuff that inspires Oscar winning dramas- abandoned by an escort-by-trade mother, acquiescing to the pressure from his influential-but-corrupt father, adopted by acquaintances of his mother’s who, sensing an opportunity, provided a roof and provisions in exchange for his servitude. I can’t help but imagine that this man, who overcame even those circumstances to become as loving, loyal and successful a man, husband and father as has ever graced the face of this earth, did not pass on some of that unquenchable fire to his children. You can see it in our resolve when we are told, by life or by man, that we “cannot” do something. You can see it in the way we tirelessly strive to improve ourselves and our surroundings, not for any compensation but the intrinsic realization of having contributed something to our surroundings and fellow humanity. This is surely also attributable to the presence of God, and the Spirit that inhabits our souls, instilled and inspired by the teachings of our parents, but my father was a fighter and survivor before he came to know the Savior.
That very spirit, that “hero complex”, is what lies behind the instinctual response to my existential crisis- I am protecting the loved ones that have striven to protect me for all of my life.
Though I have less than nothing to complain about today, my life has not been as charmed as it might lead others to believe. As a teenager, continuing to grow in my faith and my studies, I fell in love with a beautiful young woman who attended the church where I worshipped and served. We carried on a relationship through high school graduation with every intention of spending the rest of our lives together, in the way young people make plans assuming life will always be as it has always been while knowing the very notion to be untrue and unreliable. Then, one fateful January day in 2001, she was ripped from our lives. Within the course of a few hours, the person I had come to rely on as my best friend and companion was gone, without a goodbye, without closure, simultaneously without finality and with the ultimate finality. My instinctual reaction was to be strong, to attack the pain, to work tirelessly to win the battle I knew I never could.
I tearfully and sincerely prayed for the resurrection I was convinced was fully within God’s power, ready for science to explain it away as a misdiagnosis or a dream or some heretofore undiscovered medical condition.
I slept.
I wrote her a song. I rehearsed the song with my friends and fellow musicians, and prepared to perform it at her funeral.
I prayed again, asking for all the things anyone ever asks of the Almighty when grieving outwardly but inwardly winking and reminding God of the resurrection He could perform, that had formally been requested and just making sure He got the message.
I designed the program for the memorial service, and poured myself into that work as though the effort itself could help bring her back…
And then it was over. I was alone.
Sure, I had friends, and good ones, and the most loving family anyone could ever ask for, but it was the literal manifestation of the feeling of being “alone in a roomful of people”.
And I went through Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief like a street racer collecting checkpoints, criss crossing the emotional spectrum and hitting each one with the enthusiasm of a punch-drunk street fighter sensing a weakened opponent.
And then that was over, and whatever I had left became my life. Like a 4 cylinder subcompact with a blown spark plug, I continued to run but I knew something was missing, and wrong, and it was never going to come back on its own. In my case, of course, there is no AutoZone of the soul, and I went on because life just goes on. It’s just what life does.
And then I started setting goals. Small ones, at first, then larger ones. Then I got a good job that I hated, and made beautiful but superficial friends, and learned to cherish the time I could spend with my good friends and my family. And life went on, and I met a beautiful woman who loved me, and loved spending time with me and my family, and we were married. And I got a better job, and a better life, and we inherited some money for our first house, and life was good. Life stayed good.
And then “it” hit. Finally, and forcefully, dear non-reader- the very crisis that inspired this post that you have dutifully been not-reading to this point:
I have been consumed by what happens when we die. Even just typing the words sends shivers down my spine. There is my death, which is as personal as it gets, but it strangely doesn’t move the needle much. Sure, I believe there is a God and that though we are wrapped in frail humanity, the “us” is actually a spiritual being that inhabits our meat bodies which will one day fall away and allow us to live in spirituality for eternity, or at least just move on to another existence… But I don’t know that for sure, and neither do you, and neither does anyone. We’re all in the same boat there, so I’m OK with that, and I’m OK with seeing what happens… as long as something happens. The thought that maybe nothing happens, that maybe we just expire and there’s darkness… Not even just darkness, but less than darkness… nothing… no thoughts, no feelings, no sensations, no awareness, no consciousness, but just what happens when we sleep or are knocked unconscious… that scares me. That frightens me. That instills such a sense of dread in me that my stomach turns into knots and I find it hard to keep my composure.
But that’s just me, and maybe I’m looking down into the abyss and overthinking it when there is so much living left to do, and maybe I can just forget about it because there’s nothing that I can do about it anyway…
And then I think about what will happen when my father dies. And just knowing that it will happen makes me sick. It frightens me and saddens me and it’s only a thought, a mere possibility… And then my mother. And what happens to either of them if the other goes first? And what will we do? Who will I go to football games with, and ask advice, and argue politics with, and share my life with… And then I want to cry. But I won’t, because I’m strong and I’m at work and I’m a man that makes fun of men who cry.
And then what if my sister dies? My Brother? Just typing the words… I don’t want them to, but I’ve seen how this movie ends. I’ve played this game and there’s nothing you can do to keep the princess from being captured, you just get to see it happen and then play the levels that come after it.
What if my wife… more accurately, what will happen when my wife… I don’t want to explore this anymore. But I feel I have to.
Just putting this much down has been so therapeutic, but I’m looking my demon right in the face and it’s ugly. And it smells horrible, like a mixture of BO and sulfur, and its breath is hot and it’s uncomfortable. And it’s a coiled snake, ready to strike, only I know it won’t because I’m already poisoned. In that sense, I guess it’s not so much a coiled snake as it is a resting snake. Only it’s not resting, because it’s just… waiting. It’s waiting for the poison to finish its work, it’s waiting for me to stop breathing so it can take my carcass. And so I’m staring right in its face and it knows what’s going to happen, and (now) I know what’s going to happen, but I don’t know what it’s going to be like and I don’t know how the poison is going to feel if I see somebody else I care about get swallowed up first.
And then I think of death’s sting, and how Jesus overcame it… and it quenches some of the fire that is raging in my heart. It makes me think maybe, even though it doesn’t say you won’t be stung, the passage means that it at least won’t sting. And then the grave has no victory. And that means that even though it gets to sting you, it didn’t even hurt, and we don’t even stay that way so the snake gets to watch us go unconscious, and it swallows us, but then Crocodile Jesus Dundee comes and cuts the snake open and then we’re saved but unconscious but uneaten, and then maybe we come out of it okay in the end.
And then I hope with all of my heart that that is what happens, because otherwise, what a horrible cruel joke to play on humans. We are all going through the same things, even if we don’t stop to think about it, or don’t have the capacity to consider it, and we all know the snake is there, even if we don’t want to or can’t look it in its face.
And that has been my crisis. And I don’t want to share it with anyone but you, dear non-reader, because I’m afraid I’ll inspire others to turn around and look at the snake waiting for them to die and then they will be sad and confused and full of dread like I have been.
And I’ve searched online for an answer- maybe I’m sick. Maybe I have a mental disorder that makes me think this way, maybe I’m depressed or suicidal or both and maybe this is how it is manifesting itself… but I have mainly found other people looking for the same answers. Occasionally I see experts, or at least self-identified medical professionals, respond to these seekers with their professional opinion, but I’ve never seen anything offering anything of more substance than “it’s called being human, deal with it”.
So while I continue searching, I keep feeling like I already have the answer, but I’ve never stopped to consider just how beautiful it is that there is a God above who has created us and loves us and wants us to live a good life before we cross over and join Him in the next phase. And if it isn’t true… I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to consider what happens if I just go unconscious, because it sucks and it makes me feel sad and angry and powerless and I don’t like feeling that way.
But mostly, dearest non-reader and imaginary friend, I thank you, and by extension the framework that WordPress and the active WP community has built that allows you to exist in my mind, for allowing me to put to digital paper what has been plaguing my innermost thoughts and feelings.
I now, for the first time in months, feel a sense of “okayness” with this all, and a bit of comfort. And a bit hungry for actual food. And hope.
And that is something I wish I could give any real reader that may be reading, because it truly is the sweetest feeling we can ever have on this miserable rock, floating out in the middle of nowhere.
And just in case you are a real reader… thank you. For reading this, for making this about more than just me… and I sincerely hope you find what you are looking for.
