May 3, 1994
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide - judging whether life is or is not worth living."
Albert Camus - The Myth of Sisyphus
Some "F" words: fear, futility, faults, forgiveness, frail, fatalism, forsaken, family, forever, forgotten
Yesterday I stopped by the Brooks Library in Harwich and as I was looking through back issues of Newsweek, I came across an essay on depression and loneliness and read these words, "depression is life's loneliest agony," and that this agony turns into such great suffering that it is called, "the shipwreck of the soul." The agony I suffer has not only been a shipwreck of my soul but it has swallowed me, body and soul.
When I return to Sandwich last evening, my father was at the cottage. I was hoping he would be and I was glad to see him and happy to spend time with him before I die. But this morning he pissed me off by asking me two simple questions. "What do you do during the day? and "What did you do yesterday"? I mumbled and jumbled some vague reply but was pissed. I don't know what pissed me off the most, the questions or the fact that he expected an answer, even an asinine answer. I have come to hate questions of any kind - questions frighten me and fill me with anxiety.
But now I shall answer my dad honestly, for this is what i did yesterday! I went to the walk-in clinic in Yarmouth and got a new prescription for sleeping pills. I had gotten a similar prescription just before I went to Ireland. I'm stocking up on "killer pills," pills that will put me to sleep permanently. Then I went to a gun shop to look at more powerful handguns. I'm still debating over a gun or pills - a bullet to the brain or a gross, as in twelve dozen, of pills to my belly. The only thing that bothers me about a gun is that it's too messy and may do serious psychological harm to the person that finds me.
Well, what else did I do yesterday? I walked around the mall, read and went to the library. What am I suppose to do when I have no place to go, nothing to do and no one to be with? All I need to do is to survive for twelve more days, then I can rest in peace.
I have been waiting for either my mother or father to ask me those questions. Jesus, I hope my father wasn't expecting an honest answer. And I hope I'm not hurting my parents. I wish I could tell them that I cannot keep living just because they may not want me to die. But I am beyond having such conversations, even with myself.
I am mentally strained and beaten. There was a time when I was mentally tough but those days have passed. Mental toughness is a characteristic of those who want to succeed, and a virtue of those who have to survive. Most people have endured greater hardships than I'll ever experience. But my desire to succeed and survive vanished long ago.
I have judged my life ad not worth living - my spirit is frail, my life is futile.
4:00pm - Sandwich Library - Sandwich, MA
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