An odd burst of optimism, see where it leads...

Hope

I don't know why I don't take solace in other people. Maybe because I know there is nothing anyone can assure me of that will make a difference in my life or with my problems. This isn't anyone's fault, just the nature of things. "It will all work out for the best" or "You'll land on your feet" are based on nothing but faith that good things may happen to ok people (I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a good person, average at best). I don't believe in higher agency or guiding forces in the universe so I am left with just the random happenstances of life.

Those of you who have been reading these blogs know I have had suicide on my mind. As of last night even, I was 100% sure this would be my last week alive. Why this week? I will have been alive 13,000 days by the end of this week. That, is not a small number. And, like most humans, I like being dramatic and picking nice, round numbers to do horrible things. I had (have?) my method all picked out and even figured out how to post these blogs on a time delay to get my last entry out as my life is ending. Morbid, huh?

Don't mind me, just hangin' around.

This evening, stretching into tonight, I have started a change of heart. This is going to sound so stupid when I say it (especially since the love and support of my friends and family do nothing to move me anymore) but I have been reading a lot of comics lately. Say what you will about silly superhero comics but the best of them are written to appeal to the best in us. Today I have been rereading Blackest Night (a big crossover event I was pretty disappointed in the first time around). It is essentially a zombie story set in the DC universe. I have also been doing a lot with my Heroclix database. In the back of my mind, I have been thinking about what I have versus what I want.

It turns out the only way to fight death in the Blackest Night is to combine all these forces on the emotional spectrum into the "white light of creation." This is all centered around the Green Lantern comics. Right before Blackest Night, they introduced the Blue Lanterns. Blue is my favorite color and these lanterns represent Hope (their symbol is at the top of this entry). My former friend, Jay, used to wear their t-shirt all the time (btw, I miss that guy quite often). I have been thinking about how I have no love, no money, no job, no home, no car, no advantages beyond being a white guy (and I think I've milked that as far as I can) but I can't honestly say I have no Hope. Thinking about the amount of debt I am creating is causing this crippling fear in me. I see a rerun of the last ten years of my life as I sacrificed and scraped and clawed my way out of debt. And I think about all the shitty times I had doing that but...I have made some of my best friends in those years. I got to be in love again, however briefly, which was actually quite nice. Yes, I had to starve myself thin to get a girl's attention but I am making moves that should return me to a presentable shape sooner or later. Why would I be sticking to my diet and exercise routine or trying not to spend if I really, deep down, expected to be dead by Friday?

There is still a part of me that believes things might get better. It is probably the same stupid part that believes in true love but it is still there. See, I never idolized athletes growing up. I never had older or younger siblings to look up to. My closest friends were all outcasts and geeks like me (I am talking pre-high school here). I never had religion and I have no concept of family. I had comics. I had Spider-Man trapped under a ton of rubble and refusing to lay down and die. I had Thor, cursed with brittle bones, slowly moving through a world of agony but refusing to surrender. The list goes on and on. When I was reading comics, the heroes suffered but never gave up. They lost their lives sometimes but for noble reasons.

Seriously, I read this when I was five years old, how can I not believe in myself?

I was reading pro-suicide quotes and a comedian named Doug Stanhope once said, "If you are halfway through a movie and it has just been shitty and keeps getting shittier, the odds are it isn't going to have such a great ending that the makes the whole thing worthwhile. No one would blame you for getting up and leaving." That quote made sense to me but then I realized, I can't remember ever walking out of a movie no matter how bad it is. Maybe I am naive, foolish, probably dangerously stupid about life but I have to believe I can change my life.

I didn't even walk out of this piece of shit, my least favorite movie of all time.

Besides the debt, this is a time of absolute freedom. I have no wife, no children, no job, no responsibilities. I can go wherever, do whatever, be whatever I want. My friends have offered me places to stay around Greenville. Maybe I do a little tour (couple of weeks here, couple of weeks there), maybe I write more, stick to my exercise program, find some shitty little temp job to get me by and then...go live my life. I have always told people while I am in my darkest depressions that it seems like I have been waiting for my life to start. At 13,000 days, 35 years of being on Earth...maybe I can make that happen.

Now someone remind me of this shit next time I plan to off myself.

My plan is now to kick, fight, punch and scream until I find a job. I want to salvage this year in KC. I want to do more improv with these great people I have met. I don't want to move back home yet but I won't consider it the end of the world if I do. That highly overrated movie The Shawshank Redemption has one line I like, "Get busy living or get busy dying." I have been very busy dying but I really want to live.


BONUS story: My house is infested with gnats. I keep thinking of Brad Pitt calling Nazis "Gnatzis" in Inglorious Basterds. The other night, at an improv show, they were doing a game with good advice, bad advice, worse advice. I asked the panel about my gnat problem. One of them had a character that was a former Soviet Assassin. He told me to sneak up behind them and cut their throats with tiny knives. A few days later, my year-long trivia contest led me to ask about the Night of Long Knives when Hitler killed his enemies. So, lately, when I take my can of Raid and spray down a nest of Gnatzis, I call it The Night of the Tiny Knives. Yes, I am making inside jokes with myself...this is the face of loneliness people!

Gonna need us a smaller knife.