There are so many things nobody tells you about when it comes to death, especially when you’re single, older and have zero family and very limited friends. Like, they don’t tell you what you’re supposed to do with all the photos of yourself as a child that your parents took but then you expand that, and think about when YOU die, who’s going to take the photos of your life and dispose of them when you have nobody to help you exit this world? I mean maybe I knew because as and adult there are VERY FEW printed photos of me. Everything is digital. (Which is something I need to think about- I need to create a “Doomsday” counter of some sort… if I don’t access something within two years, all digital proof of my existence is deleted. I mean, I am kind of reducing my footprint now because I don’t matter to anyone anymore so there really needs to be no trace of me anymore. I am starting the Twilight of my life now. It only gets worse from here on out and I WILL die eventually. There is no one to take me out of this world so I need to start figuring out how I will take myself out when my time comes. Leave no trace… Well that’s not exactly true. I have something in mind if at the last moment, I can make a shit-ton of money. I have an idea, a plan… but it requires my luck changing… but I don’t have any luck but the bad kind.
They don’t explain to you what you are supposed to do when you’ve got no money and your dad dies. Thank god for Catholic Charities but they don’t explain what you do when you don’t have the money for an Urn or to bury your dad because remember, you couldn’t even prevent him from going to the county morgue (don’t think about that, don’t think about that, you made it right in the end. you made it right, mostly, in the end). But you go to pick up your father’s remains, find out that he didn’t even fit into one remains box, so you get a reusable tote with the crematorium’s name on it (yeah, I’ll take that to go buy my groceries in it… If it wasn’t the bag for my dad, my morbid sense of humour WOULD do just that, but I can’t… because this bag held my dad, and it’s okay if its your dad, but it’s not okay if it’s my dad… see how that works?). So you bring your dad home and you just stare at the two boxes wondering what to do, then realize well, you’ll just but him in an Ikea storage bin in your closet until you get evicted or you become a millionare and can deal with it. And it’s surreal as fuck. And you feel just.. weird…
Then the dreams come that night, and they’re just sad, sad, sad… full of sad. Your father is in them, its a stylized version of Chicago that you keep in my mind. You note for a moment that you keep cities in your dream brain like short hand. You have Chicago, New York and London in some strange reoccurring shorthand when you dream of them… but here you are with your father in your dream and you watch his struggles And you see, you see… and your heart breaks all over again. You wake up, unrested, staring at the ceiling, feeling drained, feeling just a sadness… but the day is here and as I say over and over over, the world keeps turning even if you feel like it isn’t. So you get up. And you decide that today you’ll write on your blog that nobody reads because you feel the need to write.
I dropped off social media recently because I realized that people (well stop, I have always KNOWN that people ) don’t care. But it’s different now. I really am happier just detached from people. Don’t get me wrong, I have like two people I kinda of talk to right now and they lovely fucking people and have been there for me and oh my god, I think this would have been harder than it already has been if they wouldn’t let me just cry on their couch when I need to. I think they “see” me. They know I don’t need their fucking advice, I just need a place to break down where it’s okay to break and I’m not judged for it. If I figure out how to get income in, I need to get them the biggest Christmas present. But yeah, I just said “fuck it”. I’ve slowly been writing in my hand journals more to get it out, but they’re more “to do” lists though they have been evolving to contain more of my thoughts and emotions. They’re helpful because when I have moments of malaise, they keep me on track on the whats that need to be done… and I may be on my way out in this world but there is still a lot I need to do before my time comes.
There’s always a lot to do and never enough time.
It bothers me that my father is in my closet. I don’t mean that I don’t love him but he doesn’t belong in my closet but that’s where we are right now. And this, this I will also deal with and manage.
I don’t feel right yet. I need to go diving. I need to do something, one thing that I recognize as “me”. I discussed this in a previous post, there needs to be a “new normal” for me, and I’m not there yet. That doesn’t mean that I completely throw out the things that I loved to do. I need a little bit of soul soothing but unfortunately, I don’t have the resources to do it. I was told I could find someone to dive with if I could make it to Mexico and ironically, I’m cash poor, but airmiles rich, HOWEVER after my experience in France, I finally have decide that I don’t want to dive with people I’m not teaching or don’t know well personally. That’s it. I’ve had to many bad experiences now with assholes. I said something to myself the other day that really struck home when I was putting on a pair of shoes that were a little too tight. I mean I can wear them but they’re a little uncomfortable . I blurted out loud to myself “No, I’m not doing stuff that hurts me.” It made me stop, like litterly stop what I was doing and like look at myself. I said it again out loud: “I’m not doing things that hurt me, anymore.” It was profound. The things I’ve done that have hurt me just to do what people expect to be done. My relationships, my works, my loves (the very few that there have been). And just like that, I said “no more”.
Cool shoes, hope someone at the thrift store is enjoying them. I could have made it work with a little discomfort but life is too shore and my life has been a series of discomfort and that stops. Because I said so.
I’m surely speeding my trip to my underpass homeless encampment retirement. But maybe, maybe, an angel might finally show me a kindness and show me a little bit of compassion and hope before my lights go out forever.