Watch the world argue. Argue with itself.

The last week of March 1992 I found myself at a place they call rock bottom.  It was a silly place but boy did I fit in.  Got pulled over by the cops for flying down the highway chasing an egg mcmuffin.  Thought I was clever and in the clear - just a quick class skip and speed race across town and I'd make my clique happy with the delivery of McGoodness before next period began.  But I drove too fast in a 45.  Got a personal escort back to school.  I was a good kid doing bad.  I was a depressed kid who never did anything right.  That moment - that hour - that silly traffic ticket - was my last straw.   I wanted to die.  My parents wanted me to live.

Living with a brutally negative voice inside your head is merciless work.  You constantly have to fight against your inner-self.  It takes so much fucking effort to tell that nagging bitch that she is wrong and that all this pain and heartache and madness is worth it sun up to sun down.  There's very few days where there's any evidence of that being a truism.  So its a constant game.  Trickery.  Mindfuckery.

Last week of March 2012, two of my children help me believe in laughter and unicorn farts and rainbows and time, the other one is trying to drag me down with her.  I live with one indisputable truism:  It's the fear of other people's pain keeping me alive today.  What I couldn't do to my parents, I cannot do to my babies.  I wont cheat them.  I wont make them remember me always as "dead."

First Day of School?  She was dead.
Got my drivers license.  She's dead 10 years.
Married.  Step-Mom will light the candle

Am I selfless or hella selfish?  According to my parents, all that matters is my mental health.  I survived another day.  And I'm still fucking here !!  Its supposed to be an accomplishment.  But at almost the 40 year mark, its still a goddamn burden to be here.  To wake up every single morning and put one foot in front of the other hardly EVER seems worth it !  There's too many goddamn strings attached !

And now the teenager.  The fucking teenager.  She's trying on my shoes.  And she likes them.  She fucking thrives in them.  She is "her true self" in them.  She's got ever reliable access to the best cobbler known to man but she keeps peeking in my closet for my worn thin, smelly, outdated flip flops !  I can't take it so I'm angry.  I'm violently angry and viciously effected by her every misstep.  But she likes it.  She's finally who she really is.