Jabaja: Part I

It's been a while since my first post - four months, to be exact - which was a manifestation of the grim and not-so-sober encumbrance of "life without Larry." Much has changed since then. For better or for worse, change is the only thing that's stayed consistent in my life and I am only just recently learning how much I value that change - despite the mental and emotional endurance it so brazenly demands of me.

A majority of these changes, I've noticed, are introspective. I've shed an old self and become a stranger that I have no choice but to get intimately acquainted with in order to survive the next phase of my life. I will be trapped in a familiar body with this foreign heart and this expanded mind for an undetermined length of time. In four months I have re-materialized into a being I've never met within a body I'm not sure is capable of handling it.

To make some sense out of any of this, and in what may very well be a futile attempt at finding my true north, I fear I may need to unleash the truths that have led me here.

--

I couldn't tell you the exact day or moment I realized I felt a little better. It was such a subtle progression that I think I may have been "okay" for quite some time before it was recognizable to me. When I did finally realize it, I hugged it tight and began to take full advantage of the fruits it would bare for me, living everyday as if it would be the last time I'd ever taste them.

Relief is fickle. It's reappearance is unanticipated and its length of stay, equivocal. This makes for an interesting tightrope walk between the fear of it's inevitable departure and the suspense of when that departure will occur on one side, and allowing yourself to simply let go and enjoy its presence on the other - while both stakes shift precariously in the loose dirt of your emotional mountains as you wobble between the two.

This particular bout happens to be the most protracted for me. It's no longer fleeting and I've been able to rest at ease for some time without fear of its abandonment. That doesn't negate the looming certainty that this gift will, eventually, retreat. I imagine as the days grow shorter, so will its desire to remain present. Something I've become accustomed to and have accepted as an inevitable fiscal fate. All I can do is prepare my mind as best I can for the battles to come that take place in the dark.

Despite harvesting the joys of this temporary haze, I've managed to succumb to old demons in my repetitive and typical fashion. Though, I'm being met with unwavering resistance from one person in particular which has left me quite perturbed. This individual has shamelessly, and irritatingly, cemented his occupancy in my day-to-day - by choice.

This first-world ordeal has caused me quite a bit of strife, as I'd been forced to develop an intimate relationship with my solidarity and transcended co-dependency with shockingly vigorous strides. I've not only become comfortable with my singularity, but viciously protective of it. Anyone I've perceived as a threat to my new lifestyle, which has brought safety and solace, has been swiftly and savagely removed from it.

I've stared impossible choices dead in the eye before. Hunter S. Thompson once shed light on the reality of procrastinating decision-making: “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

There is no doubt in my mind I can force him out. My life's work has become about pushing the limits and testing boundaries of humans. We all have a threshold for shit; I just make you brutally aware of it. But even I have a ceiling for nefariousness. Sometimes it has to stop being about finding the limit and simply about knowing that there is one. Knowing that they, in fact, have a weakness. Discovering the truth you were looking for: that they are human.

But I digress. The choices that lie before me are going to be the first dominoes to fall in what will become the intricate pattern that is woven into the remainder of my days. My thoughts on this are complex, to say the least.

You see, when Larry died he took with him the last reason I had to maintain control of the direction of my life. He was my oxygen, and I was his heart. Without my air to breathe, it made no sense to me to keep beating. So, I stopped.

I stopped caring. I quit showing up. I released my grasp on the delicate threads that would unravel without my tender grip on their frayed ends. I relinquished any control I thought I'd had on my life, truly believing that if I did, it would release me from duty to keep rising with the sun. I thought, eventually, I would burn out like a dimming star and fade away like dust into the universe. That my particles would disintegrate into cosmic energy and they would find their way to wherever Larry was.

But he had other plans for me.

I continued to rise reluctantly, but that's about all I did: the bare minimum. My dream of a magical Irish-goodbye was not allowed to be realized, and I scoff at this daily, though I know he's out there laughing at me because he knows something I don't. He was always a pretentious little brat.

But seeds have been planted for a colossal adventure. They've hitched a ride on the east winds and came to rest at the feet I press into the fragile ground I stoically sink into day after day. I've been forced to a crossroads and every decision I make must be as meticulous as it is absurd because what is about to unfold is ineffable. My defiance will only yield defeat if I do not move quickly.

But I cannot choose a path forward before reconciling the past and confronting the truths that have created me.

It's time to dissect everyone I've ever been, and choose who I want to be now. I know that person needs to be smart, strong, and vigilant but I still cling to hatred, resentment and fear.

I've only ever had one dream: save the world.

But who can save the world if they can't even save themselves?