Death comes for us all, one way or another, piercing where it might. I remember exactly when I learned that I would die one day when I was a very young child, and my parents showed me the animated film “Charlotte’s Web”, when Charlotte dies. I remember crying and pleading with my parents that I did not want to die, and worse, wondering what -if anything- happens to us when we do. I could not escape the horrid thoughts of my eventual death, it seemed always near to me and the nothing I imagined after was inevitable. I found solace soon after in religion, and the promise of heaven, but of course, I soon learned of its fiery antithesis, and the various rules and coda which must be adhered to in order to avoid the torments of the latter.
I prayed constantly, tormented by abusive inner monologues, thoughts in my head that I deemed evil or unholy. It was like a multitude of voices were crying out inside me spewing bile and blasphemy in incessant litanies. For each of these thoughts, I would complete various rituals and pray in order to escape my infinite consignment to the abyss. This went on for years. Other children did not understand, I could not articulate to them why I behaved the way I did. I prayed, too, to be normal. I just wanted to be a normal child.
When I was about fourteen, I finally had enough. The devils in my head had won. All they prayers and rituals of cleansing and salvation could not deliver me, and I felt that God had turned his back on me. Was my suffering not worthy of the lord’s blessings? If he would not have me, then I would go on my own. I resolved no longer to pray, but to beat the voices down by force of will. What could the voices take from me? Now, as a teenager, I did not fear death, but welcomed it, and hell was not a concern, nor was empty, infinite nothingness. This world was not of my creation, and I was not a true denizen this creation, and the humans I lived among, those who shunned and laughed at me, I would not count myself among their number anymore. All of this was preferable to what my life had become as a puppet of delusion and paranoia. Like any good penitent, I was adept at self-destruction, and pain pleased me. It made me feel stronger.
I’ll be thirty years old next month. I have a house, a sweet little daughter, and a lovely wife. I’ve survived abuse, fights, drug addiction and blackout drunk benders. The hardest part has been surviving myself. My outlook is different now. I still battle the voices, but they are quieter now, muffled; my outlook is different and after spending years learning to drown out all that caustic noise in my head, I’ve learned to see God, beauty, and life as a whole in a new light. I know still that I will die, but I don’t worry about it anymore. I don’t know what happens, and I don’t care to know, either. Some questions aren’t meant to be answered I suppose. As always, I’m grateful to be here. To those of you who see this on this little independent backwater site, thank you, and to those of you who hear the voices too, bring them low by defying them, and may the light of your smiles and the light in your hearts always guide you to truth.
Towers of Rust 