I’ve been writing my goodbyes for a long time. They’ve never been quite right. They start out with gratitude and subtle apology but I get lost after that. I don’t feel grateful or sorrowful. I don’t feel much beyond the negative spectrums anymore. I’ll get brief bursts, like sun bursts through the clouds, but they are gone often while still happening. I have lived for myself but it was empty. I have lived for others and repeatedly failed in it. I have lived in transition while searching for solutions and believing that there must be another way.
Day after day it gets harder to breathe. I have been living by rote for more than 20 years and I don’t remember before that. I can’t recall not being this drain on energy. I have been so blessed whether by design or chance. I have so much that others do not. It doesn’t make any difference either way. I have had some security and I have lived on the good will and sufferance of others. I have many who love me.
Coming from a religious upbringing, I have sought the divine or other from my upbringing and other places. It is just some quirks, I realize, that hold me here. A few chemicals balanced just so, some different synaptic wiring than those of more sun-drenched lives. I have tried chemicals to fix it. I resisted for years but I finally gave in and tried and tried.
Years ago, I tried to die and failed. I was young and did not know what to do as well as I believed. So, of course, I went into a medical field. I learned to help people by learning what hurts them and why. I’ve not suffered from a lack of method for a very long time. I had hope, then. I had hoped that I might discover a way to join those in the sun. I wanted to look back into the dark and have survived it. I don’t really know why I felt that way anymore. I can’t imagine wanting to continue this cycle but have it grow worse with age as I lose myself physically, and likely mentally, and die.
I think I’m almost done. Good-byes have been coming more frequently lately more easily. They are not even close to perfect, not even close. I am starting to believe I will never get there but I may just keep writing them. I can’t envision myself living in the future at all. I used to have at least another step planned. I can’t see another step to take. I am just completing the motion of the previous step. Either I will trip and fall- looking pretty likely- or I will reach the landing. The lights are out and I can’t see any more.
Since no one could ever see them otherwise, I will post a few of my more recent outpourings. I don’t care if anyone reads them. I didn’t edit them. I didn’t try to make them perfect. I, mostly, didn’t even use punctuation. They are as they came out.
Where have the clocks gone?
Where have the clocks gone?
Before, there were clocks.
Clock repair men and cuckoo birds
Gongs and dings, commemorative watches
Anniversary clocks
Keys to wind up time
Whenever it ran out
Ever present marks of the hour
From clock towers and grandfather clocks
Each of the time pieces ticking
We held them in our hand
Or checked them on the wall
Or enshrined them on mantles
They provided a beat to life
And when time pressed close
There was the tick tick tick
Now there are no ticks
But those I exhibit
Time presses just as close
But there are not words to
Convey it
We no longer have our time pieces
To tick for us
To wind down and so remind us
That time is short
And self is fleeting
And life is winding down
And so inure us
For a time
Empty Places
‘May god stand between you and harm in all the empty places where you must walk’
Thank you for your time and care
Though thank you does not start to share
The multitude of blessings I have known
Because, with you, my life has grown
It was in the empty places I fell astray
No god to guard or hand to stay
Me. I could not find the words to heal
The wrong inside me that you couldn’t feel
And how it festered, I pray you’ll never know
In those empty places we all have known.
The sickness crushed the will to live
The joy of friendship and self-forgive-
Ness. You couldn’t help me though you tried
When all was grey or when I cried
There was no way just platitudes
No, it was not just a poor attitude.
I lived on and on despite the pain
But worse and worse with growing shame
And the dark became all I could feel
Just distractions and torture wheels
In despair, it was that I chose this way
But waited years until today.
I gave it time and much debate
I tried new things for all our sakes
I tried and cried. I lived
And I died.
As we all will eventually.
Farewell
Even when you listen
I see it in your eyes
Your thoughts are quite distant
My words are no surprise
Even when I try to tell you
The words are stuck inside
walled by expected recriminations
And my self-flagellated hide
Well, time is getting shorter
I’ve turned the hourglass
The sands are loud and stinging
As they open my chosen path
My heart is dull and heavy
My hopes are neatly mown
My house is precisely ordered
The garden duly sown
The open door stands ready
I’ve laid out a guesting table
I’ve dug the deepest hole I can
Noosed and hung the cable
Farewell all, good night my dears
Soon sweetly may we rest
How e’re long or short our choices led
To have met you, I was blessed.
4 comments
I’m not sure if there is such a thing as a perfect goodbye..
I relate to the sunburst feeling, though right now my baseline is more neutral than miserable.
And I relate to the blessings, luck depsite a lot.
Isn’t the entirity of life based on those synapses? Personality, preference. I wish it was easier to rewire certain patterns. I wish it was easier to find a way and reason, clear guidance instead of those platitudes.
I admire your career choice, that desire to help others.
I’m not entirely sure if once we experience this end of things, fully living in the light is possible. Fact remains things can get better, and the weight can lessen, even if it doesn’t go fully away. That’s something, at least. Often I’ve found its just enough for another step.
One foot in front of the other does have merits as a survival method til things get a little brighter.. not seeing a future doesn’t make one impossible to reach, the cycle usually does come up again even if it’s tiresome at times. I know that from experience.
Good luck out there.
I too have always had a hard time with my goodbyes. But I think it’s because there is always more to be said. Even when our emotions seem to flat lined it never fails that there is the slightest blip. I’m sorry you are hurting </3 I can't say I know your exact pain or sadness, since even when we are all drowning with rolls of the waves our depression and lives throw at us, but I empathize with your longing to find happiness. My best advice is to take it day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, second by second. When the waves are hitting me to a suffocating degree I watch the clock and watch the time tick by. Every second/minute/hour that passes is a small and sometimes painful victory. Maybe try and hold on for the meer promise of even a glimmer of sunshine.
Hi Almond801,
I found this page when I was looking for help myself.
I found that I could empathize with so much of what you’re feeling. I, too, am afraid of growing older and more and more ill and worn down from my depression. I’m almost 37, and I shudder when I think of how many more decades of life I might have to survive until I can die. I’m not young, but I’m not really old yet. Too much time left for me … but also so much time passed so quickly and I am not young anymore, and I feel sadness at the loss of my youth and of opportunities I didn’t seize a hold of and others that I simply never had.
I also like to write poetry. It’s one of my great loves. Your writing is wonderful! Have you ever published it? You have much to give to the world. Please don’t leave it yet. I know it’s scary, and life might seem long, but don’t give up yet.
You’re singing my song with your words.