Death is a finicky Bitch. She’s moody, causing us to feel a different way every time we encounter her.
We always know that we’ll see her again. We never quite know when and most of the time it’s not welcomed.
She’s the face you don’t want to see at the party. Sorrow, anxiety, regret, relief, guilt or nothing; all come to the surface. No feeling, now that sometimes is worse. Because we think that we should have some semblance of feeling.
Or we turn our back to her. Not acknowledging that she’s entered the room. Or we welcome her. To take someone we love, hate or even ourselves.
She’s unpredictable. Not good, not evil and the reaction is never guaranteed.
I remember as a child, a small one; wondering how I would feel when my grandparents died, or the family dog. Would I cry, throw up? I didn’t want to do any of those things. What about my parents or aunts and uncles?
I was focused on the immediate. What the most gut wrenching loss would feel like. I used to obsess about it actually. I was a morbid little kid.
I didn’t experience death until I was a close to my teens. I was confused mainly and didn’t get it.
By the time my grandparents did die I was already in the process of desensitizing myself to any semblance of feelings. Fuck those things.
I remember thinking it was a bummer. Not letting myself cry and trying to just move on.
A friend of mine hung himself unexpectedly in high school. I lost my shit on that one. Crying and cursing.
I dropped out that following summer and started on my journey into self-destruction, tuning out and turning off.
Any explosion of feelings would lead to confusion and then acting out. Killing off the part of my brain that processed Death’s presence, or any other sort of pain for that matter.
There were a handful of deaths between the kid I knew hanging from a rope and the one that happened a few months before I cleaned up.
In those 11 years I had managed to turn myself into a steel god damn robot. But this one threw me.
A friend of mine, a close friend. One of the few people on my list I truly gave a fuck about and always wanted to know, died unexpectedly.
He had cleaned up, put down the bottle; little under six months later, his liver failed in his sleep.
It was Palm Sunday. I was sitting at my computer when a mutual friend reached out and told me.
I fell of of the chair and collapsed onto the floor. Speechless, then sobbing uncontrollably.
Because of my drug problem, I didn’t have the money to fly back for the funeral, which just made it worse. I drank and snorted myself into oblivion. Landing myself in the hospital, the loony bin and jail.
Like I said, surprise attack deaths and I don’t bode well. My subconscious kicks my self-preservation demon into gear. And that little fuck tears everything up.
Now that I’m sober and the demon has been locked away; processing feelings and dealing with death has been a different experience.
It’s been two years since Warren died and the very thought of him passing still makes me cry. Even if it’s just a few tears; it’s unavoidable. I don’t know if it will ever sit right with me. One of the members of my inner circle is missing.
It was his birthday yesterday. I went up to my roof, under the cloak of the full moon, emptied out a container of his favorite MAC makeup pigment into the wind, (he was a fantastic performer and makeup artist), and told him how I was doing. Sobbing like a baby. The guttural kind of cry that only comes when one is truly a mess.
Death was on the roof with me. Patting me on the back. Half smiling. At least I was processing.
So I asked her, what’s better? To grieve and get over it, block it out or just keep feeling like shit about it?
She didn’t have an answer so I just wiped my swollen face on the sleeve of my hoodie and headed back in. I was cold.
But what the fuck is the right reaction? Are we supposed to not give a fuck after the funeral? Is it acceptable to remain haunted years after the fact?
Because there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.
As far as my handling out of the blue deaths, I think I’m doing better with how I conduct myself.
My favorite Aunt I had growing up recently committed suicide. Being older, sick and having an ongoing drug problem, she decided to ingest every pill and drug in her house.
Leaving everyone left to clean up the mess.
It caught me off guard. Left me feeling sick, angry and sad. I felt awful that she had to go through that feeling of wanting to die. I spent years in that place, and it’s wretched.
I didn’t however feel the need to kill my feelings. I was oddly fine with processing them. I didn’t like it, but I knew it was something I had to do.
Nobody likes the dentist but you have to show face and sit and deal with it so your teeth don’t fall our of your head. Just like death, you have to face it in order to not loose all of your marbles.
Going back to my preoccupation of what I would do from when I was a kid; I imagined her passing being horrendous.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pleasant, but I didn’t find myself in a pile on the floor either.
Like I said, you never know with death; how you’re going to handle her visits.
You don’t know until it happens and you never know how it will effect you after.
All of this was brought to my attention due to my late night, roof-top, crying jag. How different it all was and how I had absolutely no control over my feelings towards it.
I figure I’ll just keep processing the feelings as they come. Allowing myself to cry. Keep the feeling shredding demon in his cage and quit trying to figure out how I’ll feel in the future.
Because who the fuck really knows and I’m a terrible fortune teller.
Buy Hi, Have You Met Me? on Amazon today! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B009W1M
Check out the blog on it's home site @
www.hihaveyoumetme.com for previous writings and more.
Don’t forget to stalk me further at https://twitter.com/#!/hihaveyoumetme orhttp://www.facebook.com/authorkatemonahan
We always know that we’ll see her again. We never quite know when and most of the time it’s not welcomed.
She’s the face you don’t want to see at the party. Sorrow, anxiety, regret, relief, guilt or nothing; all come to the surface. No feeling, now that sometimes is worse. Because we think that we should have some semblance of feeling.
Or we turn our back to her. Not acknowledging that she’s entered the room. Or we welcome her. To take someone we love, hate or even ourselves.
She’s unpredictable. Not good, not evil and the reaction is never guaranteed.
I remember as a child, a small one; wondering how I would feel when my grandparents died, or the family dog. Would I cry, throw up? I didn’t want to do any of those things. What about my parents or aunts and uncles?
I was focused on the immediate. What the most gut wrenching loss would feel like. I used to obsess about it actually. I was a morbid little kid.
I didn’t experience death until I was a close to my teens. I was confused mainly and didn’t get it.
By the time my grandparents did die I was already in the process of desensitizing myself to any semblance of feelings. Fuck those things.
I remember thinking it was a bummer. Not letting myself cry and trying to just move on.
A friend of mine hung himself unexpectedly in high school. I lost my shit on that one. Crying and cursing.
I dropped out that following summer and started on my journey into self-destruction, tuning out and turning off.
Any explosion of feelings would lead to confusion and then acting out. Killing off the part of my brain that processed Death’s presence, or any other sort of pain for that matter.
There were a handful of deaths between the kid I knew hanging from a rope and the one that happened a few months before I cleaned up.
In those 11 years I had managed to turn myself into a steel god damn robot. But this one threw me.
A friend of mine, a close friend. One of the few people on my list I truly gave a fuck about and always wanted to know, died unexpectedly.
He had cleaned up, put down the bottle; little under six months later, his liver failed in his sleep.
It was Palm Sunday. I was sitting at my computer when a mutual friend reached out and told me.
I fell of of the chair and collapsed onto the floor. Speechless, then sobbing uncontrollably.
Because of my drug problem, I didn’t have the money to fly back for the funeral, which just made it worse. I drank and snorted myself into oblivion. Landing myself in the hospital, the loony bin and jail.
Like I said, surprise attack deaths and I don’t bode well. My subconscious kicks my self-preservation demon into gear. And that little fuck tears everything up.
Now that I’m sober and the demon has been locked away; processing feelings and dealing with death has been a different experience.
It’s been two years since Warren died and the very thought of him passing still makes me cry. Even if it’s just a few tears; it’s unavoidable. I don’t know if it will ever sit right with me. One of the members of my inner circle is missing.
It was his birthday yesterday. I went up to my roof, under the cloak of the full moon, emptied out a container of his favorite MAC makeup pigment into the wind, (he was a fantastic performer and makeup artist), and told him how I was doing. Sobbing like a baby. The guttural kind of cry that only comes when one is truly a mess.
Death was on the roof with me. Patting me on the back. Half smiling. At least I was processing.
So I asked her, what’s better? To grieve and get over it, block it out or just keep feeling like shit about it?
She didn’t have an answer so I just wiped my swollen face on the sleeve of my hoodie and headed back in. I was cold.
But what the fuck is the right reaction? Are we supposed to not give a fuck after the funeral? Is it acceptable to remain haunted years after the fact?
Because there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about it.
As far as my handling out of the blue deaths, I think I’m doing better with how I conduct myself.
My favorite Aunt I had growing up recently committed suicide. Being older, sick and having an ongoing drug problem, she decided to ingest every pill and drug in her house.
Leaving everyone left to clean up the mess.
It caught me off guard. Left me feeling sick, angry and sad. I felt awful that she had to go through that feeling of wanting to die. I spent years in that place, and it’s wretched.
I didn’t however feel the need to kill my feelings. I was oddly fine with processing them. I didn’t like it, but I knew it was something I had to do.
Nobody likes the dentist but you have to show face and sit and deal with it so your teeth don’t fall our of your head. Just like death, you have to face it in order to not loose all of your marbles.
Going back to my preoccupation of what I would do from when I was a kid; I imagined her passing being horrendous.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t pleasant, but I didn’t find myself in a pile on the floor either.
Like I said, you never know with death; how you’re going to handle her visits.
You don’t know until it happens and you never know how it will effect you after.
All of this was brought to my attention due to my late night, roof-top, crying jag. How different it all was and how I had absolutely no control over my feelings towards it.
I figure I’ll just keep processing the feelings as they come. Allowing myself to cry. Keep the feeling shredding demon in his cage and quit trying to figure out how I’ll feel in the future.
Because who the fuck really knows and I’m a terrible fortune teller.
Buy Hi, Have You Met Me? on Amazon today! http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B009W1M
Check out the blog on it's home site @
www.hihaveyoumetme.com for previous writings and more.
Don’t forget to stalk me further at https://twitter.com/#!/hihaveyoumetme orhttp://www.facebook.com/authorkatemonahan