Letter to a Friend

It's been nearly a month since my last blog post, and I figured I'd post a general update. A recent letter to a correspondent of mine covers all the points nicely.

February 21, 2014

Friend,

I’ll have to begin with an apology for my lack of correspondence; looking back, I realize my last letter to you was from July 2013. In my defense, a lot happened in the interim, and I suppose in retrospect surviving a suicide attempt created a bit more of an emotional health to-do than I anticipated.

It’s been a rough few months, a period in which I’ve slid from one pit to another and remained in a seemingly inalterable state of flux. I jump in my mind from possibility to possibility and nothing, it feels, ever really happens.

It’s a funny thing, what disaster can do to a person. You sort of find that your core qualities, those things that made you you, begin to slip, and then one day you turn around to see the roof in shambles and the pillars that once held it up—for me temperance, studiousness, religious faith, and optimism—dissolved.

Up until 2012 I was a genuinely sunny person, despite what I can—not immodestly—say were a number of difficult challenges: childhood abuse and illness, financial distress in college, and other things. You’ve had your share of knocks as well, so I’m sure you know how it is.

But what should have been an inevitable time bomb never went off; I graduated high school, entered university, and got through school a happy and well-adjusted person in spite of the chaos around me. It was only after graduation that the things comprising my identity started to erode. Persistent unemployment in the face of tremendous effort left me apathetic, and in time rendered me immoderate where before I had been controlled (in eating, in drinking, in leisure, in everything), uncaring where before I had been attentive, plagued with doubt where before I had been devout, and cynical where before I had seen possibility. Two years of this finally culminated in the suicide attempt last October, and led to a sort of lethargy that prevailed after that for several months up until very recently.

I’ve determined, after seeing in myself someone I neither liked nor recognized, to attempt a recovery of those qualities that once made for so salutary an existence. In that vein, I am resolved to drink and eat less, exercise more, and, in what you will likely find the most worthy of mockery, return to the faith that bolstered me through my adolescence and early adulthood.

People who know me have often found my Christianity to be the most incongruous thing about my character, seeing as how I’m both a flaming liberal and a flaming, well, flamer, but I’ve never really been able to conceive of a universe without a creator, and have always been drawn inextricably to Christ despite coming from a mostly irreligious family. I’m not sure how to explain it. It’s just what makes the most sense to me, and somewhere in my heart of hearts it’s what I’ve always known to be true. Given your level of wit, I fully expect some amount of lampooning when you manage to write me back. If you fail at this I will be very disappointed in you.

You’ll notice that we’ve moved, actually to a really splendid house that you’ll almost certainly be unable to visit—my parents are going away in April but have expressed a reluctance to let me have anyone over. Even if you come, you’ll have to be content knowing that the most spirited thing you’ll have will be the pleasure of my company; my mother has forbidden us to consume any alcohol while here because of the whole suicide-by-wine thing. I think they have it in their heads that if I get drunk enough I’ll try again. That betrays something of a lack of understanding as to what actually caused the situation, but as their hearts are for once in the right place I’m happy to abide by it.

You’ll be glad to know that our relationship is substantially better. Who would’ve thought that the experience of my nearly dying would prove unnerving? In any event, it did, and they’ve been much less dickish since they came close to losing me.

My rent, for instance, is kept at a much-lower $250 a month, and in general they’ve just been more concerned about me and solicitous as to my welfare. To be honest, I really needed it; when I first came back I was something of a wreck, and in that state I just wasn’t fit to do much of anything. I think I needed a time to mourn and self-pity and mope. I’m only now, with renewed faith and a renewed spiritual structure, beginning to pull out of that. Time really can be a lovely thing every now and again.

As far as professional pursuits go, I’ve jettisoned the internship in Marble City in favor of a public relations class at Mountain University. I was very afraid when I first made this decision that I’d done the wrong thing, but I’ve now come to the conclusion it was absolutely right; I am done working for free on vague promises of jobs that never materialize. I went to college. I paid my dues. I acquired a skill-set. And damn it, I am worth a fucking salary.

I have recently done a little poking around on that front, at least where public relations is concerned, but don’t want to write you about it until something materializes. At the moment I’m writing for the newspaper and editing manuscripts with plans to enter a teacher-certification program this summer if nothing comes up before then. And I really hope something comes up before then, because the course is two years long and would almost certainly require me to continue living at home while working and taking a full class load. I’m so ready to be done with this nonsense.

So how goes everything on your end? You’ve been in your new job for a bit now and have a place of your own, right? You’ll have to tell me everything—give me a book! And I won’t drop off the face of the earth this time, I promise. Let’s see about another in-person meet-up in the spring?

Hoping to hear from you soon.                                                                         

BB

Saturday Evening

This is the poem I didn't want to write

For to pen it is to pen the frailty of my own dreams
And of me

Once when I was shining I convinced myself, as all shining things do, that my sheen would emanate forever
Never put out by the black curtain of death
Or, more resoundingly, by the grey curtain of life

Now all that's iridescent is not my spirit,
But the shimmering smoke of the bar, the gleam of the sun in my unwilling morning eyes
The glitter of glass bottles and momentary abandon
The false belief that it will all one day

Get better

And shine again

I remain here
No longer young, but still deluded
No longer shining, but still aflame

Lost in the haze of broken promise that was thrust upon us,
But for which we will be blamed
A generation whose greatest fault was to be born when it was

But maybe some of us brought it on ourselves

Maybe I did
Maybe I did

The Long, Dark Night

In the nearly six years I've been blogging, I've never been absent from the site for so long. I'm not taking a hiatus or anything of that sort--in truth, I can't imagine it--but I am pausing the narrative that's proceeded uninterrupted here since 2008. Back then, everything seemed like a progression leading to something else. Now, with the economic dislocation of of the last decade persisting into the middle part of this one, a number of my plans have been thrown into the air.

For the first time in a long time, I'm uncertain. Not regarding my eventual success--as uncertainty in that quarter has plagued me for years--but regarding what path I even want to take. What now? Teaching? A second undergraduate degree? Journalism? Public relations? Which of those is even attainable? And what will I do in the meantime?

So if I'm circumspect, please forgive me. It's not that I don't want to share, just that I'm not sure what's actually happening. And with everything changing so quickly, I don't want to begin telling threads that might just peter off. So for the moment we'll say that things are unmoored. And I'll let you know when that changes.

Move-in Day

It was just me, the rain, and eternity as I drove down a stormy grey highway from upper Southern State into the Goldlands. I listened to a record from one of my favorite artists, a new offering from an old standby, and otherwise occupied my time by talking on the phone with Black Dress Girl and reflecting on my worries. It would be a lie to say they weren't there.

Still, through ice and fog and freezing rain, I made it to the home that will at least nominally be mine for something like the next four months. It's a huge old place, a sprawling 1970s mansion placed inexplicably in the middle of a modern housing development. Its residents are a septet of young Christian men who have charged me a suitably charitable rent, and I'm eager to repay that gift with courtesy. I'd consider it a blessing if I could make any new friends along the way.

Tomorrow morning I'll get up at six o'clock--something that's been unfathomable to me since high school ended eight years ago--and practice the arduous commute into Marble City, a trek I hope time will tame. My biggest single obstacle, and my biggest source of anxiety, will be arriving at the train station and finding parking. If I can do that I know everything else will be fine.

And then there's the internship itself. It's only two days a week, but those two days loom large in my mind. I hope I'll learn all I need to learn. I hope I'll do all I need to do. This could be a gateway to my future, and I'm thankful for the chance to open it.

The New Year

I have, as you may remember, a bit of heavy lifting that needs done. Time to get to it.

A happy New Year to you all.

Merry Christmas

This is my first Christmas in our new home, and I have the delightful intimation that it will also be the last one I spend here. This place is beautiful, but it's not meant to be mine. Next year looms on the horizon, a whirlwind of work and wonder and responsibility that a part of me fears--but that I know I must embrace.

I hope that all of you find yourselves surrounded with love and plenty on this Christmas Day, and I hope you are illuminated with joy for something. Whether that's a lovely present, or a holiday trip, or a lover or a child or a dream, I hope it lights you up.

This has been a year of difficulty for me, and an assessment of my pitfalls cannot fail to sober. But I am, the pain aside, filled with joy. It's joy for what will be, for what I'll be, for who I'll meet and what I'll do and the person I'll become in 2014, in what I have the irrepressible feeling will be a year of sunlight. And if I'm wrong, then I'll have achieved something in the effort.

A Merry Christmas to you all.

Selected Entries: January 2005

In January 2005 I was sixteen years old. As my junior year of high school reached its midpoint I faced the prospect of yet another disruptive interstate move and the apathy of the parents who were uprooting my life. My growing awareness of their callousness provoked rare profanity, while on January 20 I ruminated over a different kind of mismanagement when George W. Bush was inaugurated to a second term as president.

January 1, 2005

The funeral yesterday went very well. There was a brief scene in the funeral home with the body in open view. Most people (including Powell) went and kissed the forehead of the deceased, but I couldn’t. The idea of kissing a lifeless rubber suit was completely disturbing for me, and so I just leaned over the casket and made a sound like kissing. 

The coffin was carried, without incident, to the cemetery. I liked Grand Pa’s funeral much better. Great-Grand Ma’s service and burial were too automated, too impersonal. At one point during the service the preacher actually had to stop and look down at his paper to remember her name.

At the end of her life she didn’t look like the plump, happy old woman I’d seen when I was fourteen. She was so thin and shriveled yesterday. I’m just glad that it’s over.

January 2, 2005

School begins again in three days. I have no idea why we’re going back on a Wednesday, but that’s how it is. I’m anxious to see how I did on my AP European History portfolio. Not only does it count as my midterm, but I put a lot of creative effort into it. 

Man, I’ve really slacked during this Christmas holiday. I haven’t had a shower in two days! Isn’t that disgusting? Blonde Girl came by today and we talked about school and whatnot. Someone crashed into the neighborhood gate on New Year’s Eve, and now a pile of rubble is in the road. A police officer told me this evening that a drunk driver was to blame. The security people are improvising, but oh, my gosh it's so funny looking.


January 7, 2005

I wanted to go to a Little Christmas church service today, and of course it couldn't happen. Mom had an unexpected business meeting, which meant she couldn't take me at 9 a.m., and Dad didn't even pretend to try, so I spent today in school. Then when I got home, Dad informed me that we're probably moving again soon and asked my opinion. 

Well, let's see: I have an internship with a Democratic senator lined up for June and my name is in the ring for Boys' State, which takes place in May. So any move before the end of the summer could really muck things up. I told him that and he basically said he wasn't making any guarantees on the timeline.

Frustrated, I exploded at Dad that for once I wanted something to go right, for once I deserved to avoid being screwed over. Dad became indignant and now I’m just going to bed. Fuck him. He can take his  forty-one-year-old loser self and peddle his bullshit for someone who cares to hear it. As usual, they make some spur-of-the-moment decision and the rest of us are left to deal with the consequences. Perfection.


January 20, 2005

Dad was diagnosed with diabetes on January 18. I was shocked to hear this. After all, diabetes is the same disease that contributed significantly to Grand Ma Hick Family’s early death (it left her weaker to fight the cancer). Grand Pa Hick Family was beside himself when he found out about Dad’s diagnosis. We’re very lucky, because it’s not advanced at all and still in the earliest stages. If Dad eats healthy foods and exercises regularly, it could go away entirely. 

President Bush’s inauguration ceremonies continue on live television. I watched his inaugural address at noon. As was to be expected, he talked a lot but said very little. I must have heard the word “freedom” mentioned twenty times inside of thirty minutes. I kept waiting for him to say something concrete, or even to deliver some particularly stirring rhetoric, but it never came. 

They’re almost like royalty, the First Family. Watching all the pomp and circumstance this afternoon, it’s so odd to think that Bush’s second term in office was actually decided by a bunch of backwoods bumpkins whose social lives center on the local bar and whose knowledge of politics couldn’t trump that of a doorknob.