10

13APR2009

(walking from Alltel, toward my Jeep, in ___) .. that’s twice I’ve saved my life from suicide in the last two days ..
We’re on pass and everyone is with their families. I’m not set up for that. I’m set up for going places, like on deployments, or like NY,
I’m not set up for being home, because I don’t have one, not one with any people or relationships, I’m home wherever I’m standing, because it’s just me ..
K___ and his girlfriend drove me to my Jeep, on there way to their home, so for an hour I sat and conversed, listening to them with this same dynamic that Angelica described:
_I used to have a need to be with people who seemed to live a _normal life_ because mine was so warped. I have always been the way I am .. an exhorter.. and encourager. I'm the one everyone would come to for advice or a shoulder to lean on .. the one who is always there for everyone, always the strong one. The one they all think they just wouldn't know what to do without. In the end, nobody REALLY knows ME .. I effectively stay invisible yet connected to other people in a way that has helped me feel useful and safe .. as long as they needed ME, they weren't interested IN me and therefore, I could keep myself protected, hidden.. my secrets safe. But guess what? I have always been around lots of people, cheerful, happy to be there and all .. but ultimately lonely because in my inner reality, I was alone with myself, my secrets, my fears, my hurts .. _
.. As I listened to K__ and his girlfriend J__, their ease, I understood how many years I’ve never known, how many years I’d put myself through, and if it was right to have done that to myself ..
The feeling that lingered with me after they dropped me off, and I drove to the local alltel to get my phone cut off for deployment, was how I don’t belong anywhere, and never have ..
The same strong, deep feeling of being soaked with sadness came over me, and the same reason for killing myself when I was seven was remembered -- my body deserved human dignity, and I bargained for twenty five years when I was seven years old. After twenty five years without human dignity, I felt, at seven years old, that I could not ask my body to endure any more than that.
Coming out of the store, I remembered that I do belong, even if I’ve never felt it from another human being; only from the words I tell myself.