The idea that I caused someone's death has changed the way I handle difficult times tremendously. I know I did not cause her death but I don't. Why don't I know? The only person who can ease my mind is the one who died and I doubt she will speak up. Sometimes I think that she would never blame me but other times I remember that what I thought I knew (in regards to how she thought) was not real. Not that she lied to me, she simply was not who I thought she was or she had changed into a completely different person. Unfortunately, no one can answer that question, either. As I became a part of her life, all of her past friends and family retreated. They were not around for the four plus years I spent with her; watching her deteriorate then heal only to once again fall apart and finally cease to be. I know that during the time when I left, and before she died, she had made new friends at her new job. I never knew them or what they thought of her. I do know they must have been fond of her for they were the ones who raised the money for her funeral, planned it and made it happen. I don't know what she was like before she died. I know she did not speak fondly of me and if I were to believe her family (which I have no exact reason not to) she did not tell them the truth about our relationship. I don't know if that was going on during our time together or not. We did fight a lot and I would leave from time to time only to return out of fear, obligation, and due to a familial love. I never went back due to romantic feelings. I fell out of love with her when she betrayed me. This is unpopular to state. I, although quite ill myself, helped her through the initial health problems that should have, according to three doctors, killed her. I also resolved several issues that would have led to the premature loss of her home and her animals. I also, of course, tended to her home and animals. Of course, those who were not there, for whatever reason, believe what they were told--that I sat on my ass during all of this, drinking and watching movies all day. Odd though, that for the more than 400 days she spent basically bed ridden, hair falling out in patches, her yellowing skin scaling off like dirty snow and her belly distended due to her swelling/failing liver, someone was feeding the animals, maintaining her home (inside and out), and correcting the mess she had made from years of abusing credit cards, borrowing against her home, and ignoring insurance claims against her. The last few things were areas where I was fully ignorant. Thus, it required me to spend hours upon hours learning this stuff on my own. She would not let me ask her family for help with these matters because she did not want them to know about her situation. I did eventually tell them that she needed a liver transplant and she had a discussion with them about that. It never came to what the doctors said was absolutely the only remedy. That is due to my care, my attention, and my many sacrifices. I lost out on plenty of, what could have been, life-altering opportunities. I could not leave her alone and no one else was stepping in to help me or her. I also called her family every time I had to call the paramedics to revive her and take her to the ER. Not once did they show their faces. Actually, that is not true. There was one time. The last time. I had moved back in because I needed a place to stay and she insisted that I stay with her. I made it as clear as the desert sky that if I had to call 911 at all I would leave. I was there no more than a month. One night her speech began to change into the "I am drunk and my blood sugar is way the fuck out of whack so watch out because a number of situations could arise from my usual mistake of eating nothing, drinking even the slightest amount of alcohol, and ignoring my potentially deadly type-1 diabetes. One, I could become violent and you will have to subdue me or take a beating. Oh, be careful when you subdue me for I may feel like calling the police, and be careful if you decide to take a beating for sometimes I like to use common household items, like ceramic mugs or metal bowls, as weapons (who knows, though, tonight may be the night when I go for a knife?). Two, and this is the one you are hoping for, I will quietly mumble my nonsense while staring at you as if you are the worst human on the planet (you've learned to ignore this one). Of course, there is Number Three, and that is when I collapse (my body all dead weight like lead), and I become unconscious; my breathing stops? Can you tell? Yep, it's time to call the old EMS because this could be it, I could die" voice and I was so god damn mad. I hated that voice. It meant that she was gone. GONE. That meant I could no longer communicate with her; not at all. I know it is mean but I wish everyone could have witnessed this side of her, just once. Then they would understand just a tiny bit of what I went through with her, and that tiny bit would be enough. It is THAT fucked up. You are witnessing a metamorphosis; watching her turn into a completely different person in less than a second. She has no recollection of it. She never understood what it was like on your end. Well, she did, because I would record that shit on my phone, and I would force her to watch it. She always refused and became enraged by the idea. Back to that night. I did what I usually did, and I pleaded for her to check her blood sugar. She mumbled that it was fine and then trailed off into nonsense. I told her to go to bed, to leave me the fuck alone, I did not want to listen to "the voice" to see "the face". She tried to get up, she fell, and she was out. Not from the fall, but from diabetes plus alcohol plus irresponsibility. I called 911. They took her away.
It was not a horrible one. She needed to go to the hospital but she would be fine. They knew this. I knew this.
"You are going to follow us, right?"
"No. Not this time. Tell her to call her sister when she wakes up. Tell her I am not going to pick her up."
"Alright. Take care."
They knew me. They saw everything and had for years. They knew, one day it would be a corpse. One day, they would be too late or one day, I would not be here to make the call. How long would her body remain on the cold laminated concrete floor of her would-be once-upon-a-time mid-century modern home? What would the dogs think? How hard would they try to wake Mommy?
She called in the morning, asking if I could pick her up, "I am done. I told you, 'no more'. My stuff is moved out, and I am not coming back. Call your sister. Let her take care of you. Tell her the truth!", I said being careful to annunciate every syllable--to be as clear as possible.
"Don't you want to know if I am okay? It wasn't my blood sugar. Not really, I mean. The nurse said my blood-alcohol was super high, like, too high even for someone without diabetes. She said if I don't stop this, I'll die. I mean, like, I WILL DIE, like, soon." And she said this calmly, almost as if she was telling a joke or an unbelievable "did you hear what happened to so and so" type story.
"Who the fuck are you and where have you been? More than a year, do you remember? You lost your job! You didn't leave the bed because you couldn't! Your hair was falling out, and your skin was falling off! You turned fucking yellow? Ring a bell? You needed a NEW LIVER. That is what they said. Until I made you better. You remember all the shit I did, all the shit I lost? Did you ever say 'thank you'? Then I left you. For a year I left. I never wanted to see you again, but I came back and you promised, 'never again'. So, fuck you. Never again."
After all of that, though, I still hoped to one day run into her. I wanted to see her the way she was when I fell in love with her. I wanted her to think that I would be jealous of her new boyfriend. I wanted her to think that she, by getting better and moving on with her life, by finding love and happiness with someone else, had beaten me. I hoped she would laugh in my face. I wanted her to be beautiful again, but I did not want this for me.
That is my problem. I really do this. I really think like that. I never wanted her back. Even as I fell out of love with her, I never thought to myself, "fix her, take care of her, so she can be what she used to be. So we can be what we were, and so I can have what I had." When I was giving up my life for hers I never thought about myself. I did not want anything for myself. That is a problem. That is why I am here now. I have nothing. I have lost everything and that includes time. I never thought I would have a future. I guess I lost the idea of a future. I never planned for this day. I didn't think about me. I was lost in saving her life. Now, I might be lost in the idea that, maybe, I killed her. Maybe, I prolonged her suffering? Also, I think there is a chance I should not have stopped drinking. It floats into my mind lazily, the thought that my current onslaught of bad luck, mental illness/anguish, are the fault of my not killing myself with alcohol. As if I fucked with destiny by caring first about her life, and then about my own. Or, that this present life of mine is my punishment, my earthly hell.
You have to understand that I am logical sometimes. This is from recalling what I have felt and is not necessarily what I am currently feeling. My feelings are fleeting. I am a million emotions a million times a day. I never feel depressed when I need to, and I never have panic attacks when I should. This is why few people believe I am mentally ill, and that includes several doctors. When I go to see a doctor it is like going to the record shop, I forget what I came for.
Her death coincided with the death of my father. He had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in September and she died in December. He died, um? Now, this does freak me out a bit. December to (now I am not exaggerating) early October of 2016 is mostly blank. I know I did things, but I can not recall those months the way I can recall others. Those months seem like they were decades ago, while the months before them feel like they're in the right place. I doubt that makes sense. I did not wake up from that haze until fairly recently. My brain just stopped recording, I think. I never mourned. I don't know how. I wasn't really allowed, and there was other shit to do. There was no time to heal. Like when I quit drinking, which feels like a million years ago but was not. Two years on June 23, 2017. That is all.
This time next month, I will have turned 38. I do not know where I will be, how I will be, or what I will be doing for a living.
It won't be taking photographs. Today a bottle of soda exploded in my camera bag, drenching my camera with DR. Pepper and ruining it. It took the kindness of others to gain that camera, three times, and I fucked it up with my stupidity.
Rent is past due as of today. That will be another action that will require hours (that do not exist) to materialize into being. All, while I cross my fingers so hard they break.
The above is not true. If a certain company would honor what they signed (which I lost when she died) instead of denying it ever existed, then, maybe then, I would have what I need? Or, if instead of drinking my face off for years, I would have noticed they were cheating me, maybe then. Or, maybe if certain people would have noticed my dedication, my work to help what was theirs and not mine, then I would have something. Or, if the first of the man-children I worked for would have done, from the beginning, what was right and human and just. Or, if instead of thinking so lowly of myself and punishing myself, I actually charged either of the man-children what I am worth, or what I deserve. They could easily afford that. Or, I could do what many doctors wished of me, and go way back to childhood so I could blame him for squandering his and her savings on his "dream" and then went running, running, running after it without a care. He chased his dreams and never imagined that those he helped create (for one that was all) may also have those things. Maybe, just maybe, you are supposed to give a fuck about the stuff you help create instead of burying your head in your suffering which was your doing; no one else's. Maybe if that "man" would have helped me when I was not yet a man? Maybe, then I would be fine? Instead, he sank his needy little paws into me, demanding my attention, my affection, my love, my time, and used my body as the only one to blame because it was the only one present. I did all of that by myself, too. No one made me care for him. No one asked me to be there for him and he certainly did nothing to deserve my kindness. I did ask him to do one thing, though. As he was dying, I asked him to apologize. He laughed a little bit and replied (a bit of the man he used to be was back for a second)"for what, Dan?", and he shrugged it off. He shot me a glance like I was a fucking idiot for asking.
It does sadden me that one of the things I have to change about myself if I want to be okay, is that I have to stop putting others before me. I have learned, those who I put before me are not going to return the favor. Most of the time, they won't even notice and they will find something about you to hate. And the universe isn't going to reward your selflessness. Karma isn't real. Shit doesn't have to get better because you deserve it or because you worked hard for it. Life can get bad and then get it can get worse. There is no balance, no harmony, to life. Life is chaos and disorder. Now, that isn't some bullshit, that is science. The Law of Thermodynamics not "The Choice" or some Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, "don't you get it, people? These guys don't follow what they teach. That isn't why they are successful and happy. They are happy and successful because they found out they can sell you dumb shits anything. They charge 5k to spit bullshit and you lick that shit off the floor. Movement creates heat and heat creates disorder and disorder causes chaos. No, it isn't the happiest shit around, but at least it is not a fucking lie that makes you poor and someone else rich.
All of the world's problems could be solved tomorrow if people ceased being greedy, selfish and mean. It wouldn't take love. We don't need love. We need common sense, compassion, empathy, and water.
I could solve all of the world's problems.
If I had a million dollars, just that, I could do enough to generate enough attention to convince enough people to change enough minds to change this planet.
"Humanity, Saved by Pyramid Scheme" is what the headline would read.
But that will never happen. I can't even pay my rent. I am not going to save humanity.
This could be longer but I will stop. Tomorrow is not today.
