Tag: death | The World According to MEH

The Changing, Part I: A Eulogy for the Broken Minna

Posted on April 6, 2011 by admin • 8 Comments

Dearly Beloved:

We are gathered here today to mourn the passing of someone very dear to me: Me. Oh, I know I am still alive, so obviously, I am not mourning the actual physical passing of me, as fascinating as that may be. No, I am mourning the passing of the girl/woman I used to be–the one who I am trying to no longer be.

For decades, I hated that girl/woman. I wanted her to die. If I had the guts, I would have killed her and her whiny, mopey, puling ass. I couldn’t stand being inside her head as she brooded about how much her life sucked for hours on end.

I hated that she was weak and indecisive and just so gumdropit* spineless. She was a complete mess, and she couldn’t do anything right. I hated her with every fiber of my being. I wanted nothing to do with her–which was problematic, of course, because she was me. As hard as I ran, as much as I numbed out, as much as I tried to get away from her–I couldn’t.

That depressed me even more.

Hate. it’s an ugly word, but it’s apropos in this situation. I can’t tell you how much I raged against her, how much I tore her down and shredded her into tiny bits. The demons in my head didn’t have to egg me on because I was a willing participant in her destruction. I berated her physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. She couldn’t do anything right, and oh, how I hounded her with that truth every Damascus Fig moment of her existence.

Let me be brutally honest: There was a time when I didn’t like a single thing about myself besides my intelligence. I hated my face, my body, my indecisiveness, my low self-esteem, my freakishness, my skittishness, and everything in between. I thought I was the biggest piece of shiitake on earth, and I didn’t think I deserved to live.

I abused myself physically in many ways because I just couldn’t express my disdain for myself deeply enough with mere thoughts and words. Horrifying? Yes, in retrospect. At the time, I thought it only what I deserved.

The Making of a Childhood Snuff Film

Posted on November 15, 2009 by admin • 15 Comments

Ed. Note: I have been thinking about this post since yesterday. I wrote it earlier this afternoon, but I didn’t publish it. Why? Because it’s pretty damn grim (and I say that full-well realizing that I have posted several grim entries), and I wasn’t sure I wanted could stomach having other people read it. However, I have decided, with much trepidation, to publish it. Fair warning, it’s graphic. And, I may pull it at any time.

Last warning: Very grim. Proceed at your own risk.

A girl of seven is pinned to her bed. She is wearing a white flannel nightgown, and she is thrashing as best she can. Her black hair is cut in blunt bangs, so it cannot cover the fear in her eyes. She is mouthing something, but it’s not audible. She can’t move her legs at all, but that doesn’t stop her from trying.

He is on top of her, one hand grabbing each of her wrists.

“Don’t move,” he orders her, trying to get her to be still.

“No, no, no!” She wants to scream it at the top of her lungs, but she knows better. Instead, she whimpers it softly, hoping he doesn’t hear her. He does. He shoves her wrists against the bed and presses his full weight upon her. He puts his lips to her ear, making her wince.

“Don’t say no.”

He has his cock pressed between her thighs, and he is pushing it into her. This time, he will not let anything stop him. No matter how much the girl struggled, he continues. When he is all the way inside her, he stops. Then, she almost blacks out from the searing pain.

I had been holding off the latest flashbacks for weeks. Every time it would start to play, I put the brakes on pretty damn quick. I knew what was next. I knew the logical progression. I could not handle it, so I put the blocks back up. I was at taiji yesterday, and I cannot keep the shields up and practice taiji at the same time. It was during chi gong that I started flashing back. The above came to me in movie-form. There was no off button or mute button to mitigate the effects. It’s the same as always. Late at night, in my bedroom, dark, but able to see what it happening. Then, the flashbacks continued while I practiced a few ba gwa moves. Thankfully, I was practicing my straight-palm strikes so I got to hit the wall during the following. It wasn’t nearly enough. The only saving grace is that the following came to me in still-shots and not movie-form.

Eros or Thanatos, Part Deux

Posted on November 11, 2009 by admin • 8 Comments

Ed. Note: This is a continuation of sorts from the entry posted below. It would make more sense if you read that one first, but it’s not necessary. This can be read as a stand-alone.

I woke up today feeling like a completely different person than I was yesterday. The sky was a soft, light blue–the kind that you could almost wrap around a paper cone and call it cotton candy. The clouds were fluffy and white and looked like I could go bouncy bouncy on them. For once, I had slept decently–two three-and-a-quarter hour chunks, and I would have slept more if I didn’t have to get up to go to therapy. I felt tired as hell when I woke up, which is much better than batshitcrazy mind-numbingly exhausted to tears.

I give props to Kel and Gregory for helping me through an especially difficult day yesterday. Sometimes, a gentle kick in my nonexistent ass is exactly what I need to just make it through the worst of time. Well, the nudge accompanied by a healthy dose of compassion and love, and my sleeves (to wipe my eyes). They made me list ten things I loved about myself (ok, coaxed and cajoled) and just basically listened to me vent. Neither of them will let me get away with shit, which is also needed because I am very good at talking shit to myself and believing it.

Here are the ten things I listed that I love (or really like) about myself. I was able to come up with the first two rather easily, but the others were more difficult.

My mad writing skillz.
My intelligence.
My hair.
My tats.
My eyes.
My sexual prowess (in bed!).
My compassion, especially for underdogs.
My dark and twisted sense of humor.
My passionate nature which leads me to have many opinions.
My smile.

Life or Death–I Gotta Choose

Posted on November 11, 2009 by admin • 4 Comments

Ed. Note: I wrote this yesterday. I do not feel this way today. The entry above this one discusses how I feel today–which is much better than yesterday.

I woke up feeling extremely sad today. There are reasons for it, some known to me and some unknown. At any rate, I have been teary-eyed all day. This isn’t your every day ” I got the blues” kind of sad, either. It’s the “I feel it so deep in my gut, the pain is tearing me apart” kind of sad.

It’s the “I wanna crawl into my bed and not come out ever again” kind of sad. Which, if you think about it, is ironic because I hate going to bed. It’s the place of much of my frustration, and yet, I continue to hope that I can find sweet oblivion there.

I want to slit my wrist (only the right one. I don’t want to mess up the tat on my left forearm) and let the blood run freely. I want to wash down a handful of pills with a glassful of bourbon and let my demons finally take control.

I ran a few errands today. When I got back, I sat in the garage with the car idling. I had the garage door closed, and I was so fucking tired. It would have been so fucking easy to close my eyes and let the darkness just take me away. I saw the death membrane shimmer as it called to me. How easy it would have been to say, “I give up. You win. Take me.”

I hate myself today. I hate myself with a deep, abiding passion. I hate everything about myself. I hate being fat and ugly and worthless and needy and so goddamn fucking broken. I hate being a freak, an oddity, an outlier, an outsider.

I should never have been born. It was a fucking mistake, or someone’s idea of a cruel joke.

It hurts. Living hurts. My body hurts. My cats walking on me physically hurts (and they only weigh nine pounds (Raven) and ten and a half pounds (Shadow), respectively). The sunshine hurts my eyes. The world hurts my heart.

The Death Membrane

Posted on July 5, 2009 by admin • 17 Comments

hokusai_yurei I spent much of my life convinced that I wasn’t meant to live at this time on this earth. I have detailed before why this is so, so I’m not going to go through the whole list again. Instead, I’m just going to highlight a few before moving on to today’s post.

I have never decorated any place I’ve lived because I’ve never felt at home. Now, this might be because I haven’t found the right place yet, but I think it’s more because I knew at quite an early age that I simply did not fit.

I got teased throughout elementary school, junior high, and high school. I was semi-popular in college, but only after I totally remade myself over from the sad sack I was in high school. I lost a ton of weight, slapped on the makeup, started dressing outlandishly, cut my hair asymmetrically, and wore mismatching earrings. By then, I knew there was no hope in hell that I could fit in, so I decided to be as different as possible. On a vanilla campus like St. Olaf, it wasn’t that hard to stand out, especially because the place was so damn homogenous back when I attended.

I Left My Heart in the 80s

Posted on June 26, 2009 by admin • 22 Comments

poppies As you probably know, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett have both died today. They were both iconic in their days in their own ways, and, apparently, the whole country is mourning. I say this with minimal snark because death is sobering. However, I question the reaction of everyday people to these deaths, especially to Jackson’s. I’m listening to Keith’s show right now, and he’s doing a piece on Jackson. Keith had a woman on who gave a hagiography to Jackson, talking about how celebrities deserve all the adulation because they bring together multiple generations.

To that I say, what the fuck ever. Look . Michael Jackson was a talented singer/dancer who had a shitty childhood that resulted in him being a fucked-up adult. I wasn’t particularly fond of his music, but I could at least recognize that he was amazingly talented. However, why does that make him worthy of the throngs of fans who burst out onto the streets today in angst and anguish? I’m not even talking about the pedophilia accusations. Just, as a person, why is he so mourned? I felt the same way when Princess Di died. I just didn’t get all the hoopla. I mean, I understand that they are the symbols of something bigger. I understand that people invest emotion into their celebrities. I just don’t know why. I mean, I will be very sad when, knock on wood, Alan Rickman dies. I probably will shed a tear or two, but then I will move on because as much as he plays a huge part of my fantasy life, he is not a part of my real life.

Just to be even weirder, I visit TheCatSite.com every day. I mainly like to look at the pictures of other people’s cats. Well, there was one set of black long-haired babies that really caught my eye. I followed their posts, and the name I suggested (Pax) even got used for one of the kittens. He died today. His human posted about it, and I was crying. I felt more emotion for little Pax dying than I did for the King of Pop. Why? Because Pax was more real to me (and not because I named him). If, again, knock on wood, one of my online friends died, I would be shattered. Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett dying? Not so much. I mourn the passing of an era and the fact that I’m getting goddamn old. I hope that Michael Jackson has found the peace that so eluded him during his life. I hope that Farrah Fawcett is resting in peace as well. Beyond that? I don’t feel much of anything. And that makes me feel like a jerk.

Rest in Peace?

Posted on May 6, 2009 by admin • 2 Comments

gravesite Addendum from yesterday’s entry: I said I would choose diversity every time. I gave many reasons why, but I neglected to mention the most obvious reason–diversity itself has value. Sticking with the Supreme Court, they recently reviewed a case in which a thirteen year old girl was strip-searched in school. Why? The school had a zero-tolerance drug policy, and another student said the first girl had prescription-strength ibuprofen on her person. The girl was made to strip and was searched by two female employees of the school. She didn’t have anything on her. There was much bloviating about how this was a close call, but to me, the fact that they didn’t notify her mother before searching the girl was outrageously derelict on the part of the school. Indeed, it seems to be mostly men who didn’t have a problem with this strip-search. Here is Justice Ginsburg talking about that case and other gender-discrimination cases. The male justices didn’t seem to think the impact would be much on the girl, likening it to changing for gym. Justice Ginsburg said that while she and former justice, Sandra Day O’Connor didn’t agree on much, they did agree on gender-discrimination issues most of the time. This case will be decided sometime in June, most likely.

See, here is a truth that is rarely said. It is hard in general to put yourself in the shoes of another person. If you are of the majority, it magnifies the problem ten-fold. As a woman, I read about this case and cringed. I can imagine the shame, horror, and degredation I would have felt at age thirteen at being ordered to strip for school officials. The worst part is that it was all circumstantial evidence, and the attorney for the school is trying to make it seem like a ticking bomb scenario–which seems to be the preferred defense of choice these days.

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