I don’t feel like living anymore.
Now that’s not a cry for help and no need to put me on a suicide watch. It means “the they” have won. I’m beat. Beat down.
I used to suck the marrow out of life. There was no challenge I wouldn’t accept and very little I didn’t want to do. Early on I set my eyes on hang gliding. Haven’t done that one yet and I have yet to “jump from a perfectly good airplane” either. But I was fearless and I have done much!
In the 9th or 10th grade I was at a school dance taking a break from the noise of the gym and talking with friends in the hallway. Something landed in my hair and I turned around and mouthed off at some muscle bound nimrod that had obviously thrown whatever it was. The first punched landed before I had fully turned my attention back to my friends and I momentarily blacked out as I slammed up against the lockers. Just as my vision returned I took another punch to the face and discovered blackness again. I received about five consecutive hits just under the left eye. Blackness returned to light just in time to see the fist, blackness, repeat.
I could not get a punch off and could not get my arms up to block the punches. I could hear a voice, “just walk away.” Is that where I am in my life? I am definitely taking repeated blows. Am I to “just walk away?” And for the literal readers, no, not family. I would never abandon family. I mean dreams. I mean desires. I mean Willy Loman. I mean Sam Lowry.
One week later, my blackened eye was traveling to Virginia to embarassingly visit relatives.
I don’t feel like living. I don’t want to hang glide or parachute anymore. I don’t even want to leave the ground. And I am tired of having to explain my blackened eye.
(Of course this post is a result of exhaustion, stress and economics. Let’s see how my tune changes if I ever get back on top.)