Life and Death
Aug 10th, 2004 by mark
I am ready to die. The depression that has come as a result of the past few months is worsening, and I feel helpless in its grasp. It seems that every time I find a positive or uplifting piece of news that the world slaps be back down with more negative or out of control energy.
We are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. If the house in Illinois doesn’t sell soon we won’t be able to stay ahead of our bills. Calls will start coming in and we’ll “go poor” as Michele puts it so aptly. We worked so long and so hard to get away from monthly financial crises, to return to that stressful and agonizing way of living now is almost too bitter a pill to swallow.
Our relationship with each other has suffered in the process. We are both raw and numb at the same time. We are afraid to talk for fear of overwhelming the other, unable to maintain our own balance in the stoic miasma that results. I love Michele more than I can describe in words, and for a long time that has sustained me in times of dire emotion.
I am not sure that my love for her, or her love for me, is enough to make this painful existence worth living any more. My parents are slowly falling apart physically. Every week brings new news of another aliment, another drug reaction, and another doctor to see. Knowing that staying in this life means watching them die, and having to deal with the emotional flood that will result is not life affirming.
My brother and his family are also struggling just above the line that separates those who will stay safe and secure in the world, and those who will slip into the danger zone, perhaps never to recover. Michele and I slipped into that zone in the first year of our marriage. We fought long and hard to recover and were finally almost safe. The loss of my job in March pushed us back into jeopardy, and we remain there still.
I know that if we stay here that we’ll eventually recover. We’ll do without, and sacrifice, and suffer the indignities our “civilization” forces upon those in need. We’ll lose part of ourselves as the scars and wounds this lifestyle will leave will separate us from our core truth.
All I want from life is to be with Michele. The best part of my recent unemployment was being with her all the time. We had talked during the darker days of that period about a cut off date, a date when we would step off this mortal coil rather than face a continued struggle. Our date was to be September 1st. There was something comforting and enabling about having a literal “drop dead” date. We haven’t talked about it since I got my offer, nor since we’ve moved. But with the increase in stress lately I’ve started thinking about it once again.
I know that depression robs you of your ability to think clearly, you lose focus, you are unable to fathom even simple tasks. I feel as if the pressure that is upon us is artificial, that it is somehow there only because I imagine it to be there. And yet I know not how to remove this burden.
The samurai say, “Today is a good day to die.” I’ve taken that to mean control of ones death makes the burdens and challenges in life easier to face. This attitude certainly helped me during the long struggle to find a new job. Knowing that ultimately I controlled my life in the only sense that mattered (i.e. whether I chose to live or die) gave me the strength to face the obstacles in my way. However the caveat to this code is leaving your life in good order before you die. With the outstanding obligations I have I would be leaving responsibilities behind for someone else to deal with. In and of itself this doesn’t disturb me, my only real concern is whether this left behind responsibilities would create karma I would have to deal with in the next lifetime.
For that matter, would leaving now under my own choice create a situation where I’d have to return to similar life to get the lesson or lessons left uncompleted in this life? Or have I reached the conclusion of this lesson? Am I truly ready to move on?
Writing this out has helped to release some of the tremendous negative energy I had building up inside of me. Michele and I cleansed our apartment not too long ago (with startling results), maybe we need to cleanse ourselves too.
Hey Mark, i totally just stumbled across your site, having wanted to know more about the word zanshin having stumbled across IT in a bojutsu info site…. and i’m glad i did stumble across IT, both ITs, because i read your latest posting here and MAN! i feel like i feel you, you know? i’ve been doing the week-by-week financial thing until fairly recently (Allison and i just got hitched officially on last christmas, and we’ve been doing okay since then)…. and man, all i can say is, just hang around a little while longer, man…. i truly think that those fucked up times come around in life to give you a taste of the real deal shit for a while, before bringing you and those you love back out into the sunshine sayin “whoo boy that was a doozy that time, huh? And IT’s AWESOME to be back out!!!” IT’s all waves, man, waves…. you know that, i only had to read your latest sadness and your description of zanshin to know you got a lot of good shit goin for you and Michele and you are lucky to be together! if NOTHING else…. NOTHING else, mind you…. if NOTHING else, the universe wants you around to let some other people out there in the ether know about some of the good shit that THEY don’t know about yet…. and who’s goin to clue them in but you? Keep your chin up man, that wheel’s still turnin and you can’t slow IT down…. i gotta go, Allison made food…. write me back if ya want, i’ll send you a copy of my album so you got something good to listen to in the still of the night….
peace
Nolan