Several people have written me in the last few hours due to a rather cryptic Facebook status I put up earlier yesterday that simply said "bad, bad, bad, bad day".
First of all, rest assured that I'm as okay as I'm going to be. I'm not in danger, I'm not unable to function, and I'm eating, drinking, showering, living. So, no worries there. However... I'm currently dealing with a very personal, painful situation that has been a very long time in coming. It's culminated into ... I guess that one could say that I've reached the end of the rope, and I'm letting go.
For my own health and sanity, I must.
I never wanted things to come to this point, but it's now out of my hands. It's not under my control. And... what have I learned, boys and girls? I cannot control anything other than what I do.
Heh, that's become some kind of mantra for me, I think.
Healing will come, just like I've healed from other things. But I suspect that it'll be a long, long time before I can say that it no longer affects me.
It is now 5:15 in the morning, here, and it's dark and quiet outside. It resembles how I feel right now... dark, but quiet. I'm just going to be, for a while. Simply be still. I don't have to decide anything today. I don't have to do anything but simply be.
The death of a dream is always hard. But new dreams will come. I have to believe that. I have to, if I want to survive.
Thanks to a certain couple of people out here for listening to me... and for not judging me, or thinking that I'm pathetic. It gives me hope that maybe, just maybe, I'll see my way through and out of this.
In the meantime.... breathe. Just breathe. And be.
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
Showing posts with label death. Show all posts
26 May 2011
08 December 2010
Imagine....
Somehow it just doesn't seem like it's been thirty years.
If one were to ask me what the top three unforgettable moments of my life were (at least right now), I would say 9/11... the moment the Challenger exploded... and the death of John Lennon.
December 8, 1980
If one were to ask me what the top three unforgettable moments of my life were (at least right now), I would say 9/11... the moment the Challenger exploded... and the death of John Lennon.
11 September 2010
29 August 2010
Thoughts about Katrina.
Today is the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It's so hard to believe that that was five years ago... and I remember the horror of it all, thinking that New Orleans was doomed and that they'd never get all of that water out of the streets and that they'd find so many dead bodies, etc., etc. And in some ways, that did come true - some of the pictures were and are horrific. But I'm impressed with how N.O. rebounded after everything was said and done. It's not all fixed, of course - that'll take decades. There's still houses for sale in the Ninth Ward - I actually went on a real estate website for that area and looked at the offerings. I could actually buy 3 or 4 houses there for what I paid for this one, fix them up, make a profit - but I wouldn't. What I'd really like to do, if I had the money to, would be to buy those houses, fix them up, then just give them away to the ones that needed them - or if I had to sell them, sell it for a dollar, help those folks out. I don't really know that people would move back down there, though. I know that I wouldn't, myself, not because I'm afraid, but because I just don't like the South - I didn't like living in Georgia, so I know I wouldn't enjoy it there.
It amazes me that I had thoughts along these lines. It could be that I still have a shred or two of compassion for my fellow man - how about that.
One of the most heartbreaking pictures that I ever saw from Hurricane Katrina was one of a woman who had lost her... husband, boyfriend, not sure of the relationship... and was crying next to his body.
The body wrapped in the sheet had a name - Xavier Bowie. A lot of people didn't or weren't able to put names with the horrific images that they saw in the days after the hurricane. But those people that lived through this, they know and remember. It's still sickening to see images like this one five years later, and know that the man in this picture, Mr. Bowie, died because he ran out of oxygen and wasn't able to get medical help in time. A senseless, ridiculous death that didn't have to happen.
I was working at Bank of America then, on the late night shift, as a check processor. So I had a lot of opportunity to listen to the radio - specifically talk radio - and hear the live reports as they were coming in from New Orleans those couple of confusing days where no one knew what was going on, whether people were alive or dead - and as early as the next day, people sure were pointing fingers and assigning blame. It was disgusting, hearing some of these people speaking, especially the conservative faction like Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. (And let me tell you something, if you want to hear a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler ranting, tune in to Michael Savage. It's fucking EERIE how similar they sound. Seriously.) I can only imagine, five years on, what nonsense Glenn Beck is mouthing to the sheeple in D.C. at the tea party rallies.
(Can you all tell that I am not a fan of the extreme right? Tee-hee.)
Sure, I think that a lot of things were done the wrong way after the storm. I remember a rather juicy, angry post I'd made about the FEMA-issued debit cards back then when I still had my LiveJournal account - how I was angry about some of the less-scrupulous taking tax dollars to buy Coach purses, expensive jewelry, nights out on the town, etc. That was definitely not the way to go, and I'm still really ticked off that people would be so avaricious. But I have the gift of introspection, and there's always going to be a few people in every massive crowd that will not do the right thing, that will take the easy way out, that are soft and weak. The majority of those people did the right thing and used it for living expenses, for things they needed and not wanted. I know that, deep down.
I'm more disgusted with the fact that the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans didn't have concrete plans in place to deal with an emergency like this. To this day, I'm haunted by the fact that all of those school buses sat in a yard, flooded, instead of being used to get these fucking people OUT OF THERE.
Yeah, I know, some people were stubborn and didn't want to leave, but you know what? Had I been the governor of Louisiana, or the mayor of N.O., they wouldn't have had a fucking choice. You either leave, or you'll be forced to leave - whether you have to be arrested or not. But the picture above is just... fucking... sad. They could have used those buses, Greyhound buses, ANYTHING to get people out of there.
There is and was so much wrong with the way this was handled that I can't even go into it all, because the post would be the entire page and then some.
Five years on, New Orleans is still trying to make a comeback. I hope they do. I can't even imagine what would happen to us here in Baltimore if a similar situation arose - and it could happen, y'know. We're near a harbor, and it's flooded before after a hurricane. Just not to this level, because a cat. 5 has never come up here (it probably won't, as we're too far inland for conditions to be right). But one never knows, that's the point.
How do you end a post like this? A touching "rest in peace" for the dead? Or fervent hopes and wishes for the living? A warning that something like this could, Christ forbid, happen again? What do you say to these people that have had so much taken from them, but given the strength and the courage to survive the unsurvivable?
Just as those who don't have depression will never understand what I go through.... I will never understand, as an outsider who didn't live through Hurricane Katrina, what these people have suffered.
And I thank whatever deity that you may/may not believe in that I was spared that knowledge.
It amazes me that I had thoughts along these lines. It could be that I still have a shred or two of compassion for my fellow man - how about that.
One of the most heartbreaking pictures that I ever saw from Hurricane Katrina was one of a woman who had lost her... husband, boyfriend, not sure of the relationship... and was crying next to his body.
The body wrapped in the sheet had a name - Xavier Bowie. A lot of people didn't or weren't able to put names with the horrific images that they saw in the days after the hurricane. But those people that lived through this, they know and remember. It's still sickening to see images like this one five years later, and know that the man in this picture, Mr. Bowie, died because he ran out of oxygen and wasn't able to get medical help in time. A senseless, ridiculous death that didn't have to happen.
I was working at Bank of America then, on the late night shift, as a check processor. So I had a lot of opportunity to listen to the radio - specifically talk radio - and hear the live reports as they were coming in from New Orleans those couple of confusing days where no one knew what was going on, whether people were alive or dead - and as early as the next day, people sure were pointing fingers and assigning blame. It was disgusting, hearing some of these people speaking, especially the conservative faction like Sean Hannity and Michael Savage. (And let me tell you something, if you want to hear a reincarnation of Adolf Hitler ranting, tune in to Michael Savage. It's fucking EERIE how similar they sound. Seriously.) I can only imagine, five years on, what nonsense Glenn Beck is mouthing to the sheeple in D.C. at the tea party rallies.
(Can you all tell that I am not a fan of the extreme right? Tee-hee.)
Sure, I think that a lot of things were done the wrong way after the storm. I remember a rather juicy, angry post I'd made about the FEMA-issued debit cards back then when I still had my LiveJournal account - how I was angry about some of the less-scrupulous taking tax dollars to buy Coach purses, expensive jewelry, nights out on the town, etc. That was definitely not the way to go, and I'm still really ticked off that people would be so avaricious. But I have the gift of introspection, and there's always going to be a few people in every massive crowd that will not do the right thing, that will take the easy way out, that are soft and weak. The majority of those people did the right thing and used it for living expenses, for things they needed and not wanted. I know that, deep down.
I'm more disgusted with the fact that the state of Louisiana and the city of New Orleans didn't have concrete plans in place to deal with an emergency like this. To this day, I'm haunted by the fact that all of those school buses sat in a yard, flooded, instead of being used to get these fucking people OUT OF THERE.
Yeah, I know, some people were stubborn and didn't want to leave, but you know what? Had I been the governor of Louisiana, or the mayor of N.O., they wouldn't have had a fucking choice. You either leave, or you'll be forced to leave - whether you have to be arrested or not. But the picture above is just... fucking... sad. They could have used those buses, Greyhound buses, ANYTHING to get people out of there.
There is and was so much wrong with the way this was handled that I can't even go into it all, because the post would be the entire page and then some.
Five years on, New Orleans is still trying to make a comeback. I hope they do. I can't even imagine what would happen to us here in Baltimore if a similar situation arose - and it could happen, y'know. We're near a harbor, and it's flooded before after a hurricane. Just not to this level, because a cat. 5 has never come up here (it probably won't, as we're too far inland for conditions to be right). But one never knows, that's the point.
How do you end a post like this? A touching "rest in peace" for the dead? Or fervent hopes and wishes for the living? A warning that something like this could, Christ forbid, happen again? What do you say to these people that have had so much taken from them, but given the strength and the courage to survive the unsurvivable?
Just as those who don't have depression will never understand what I go through.... I will never understand, as an outsider who didn't live through Hurricane Katrina, what these people have suffered.
And I thank whatever deity that you may/may not believe in that I was spared that knowledge.
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