I want to feel this hatred --
it's what I need to drag me through this.
As Long As That's True, Skin
"I hate this life." I don't think truer, more satisfying words ever passed through these fingers, these lips in the 28 years of raucous, roiling hell I have behind me. It's almost absurd when I think about it; now I have no idea why I have been denying it, but I truly hate this life. I hate it.
This afternoon, walking home, I was saying it over and over. There was a kind of exhilaration that was hard to deny as my words gathered speed, gained volume. "I hate this life, I hate this life," I was saying under my breath. Eventually, it drowned out the music I was listening to. I was walking to its beat. I hate this life, and that's the truth. In a mad, twisted way, saying it gives me strength.
I may not have hated this life as much as I do now, but I think I have only been building up to something more absolute, something more true. Something clearer:
My life has been mired in blame. Where I am now is the sum of thoughtless, reckless decisions. I'd always felt death lingered near for me, so every moment, every crossroad mattered less and less. I make a decision without much regard for anything, a decision I think might lead to a less painful dying -- and then I find I'm still alive, trying to deal with the consequences. Another thoughtless decision, I think to myself. Another reckless choice. Words justify my suffering, give shape to the hell I've conjured for myself.
Blame throbs sickly in my chest promptly enough -- a malevolent virus, at the same time a relieving tonic. Guilt follows. Then regret. Then, finally, shame. Always, an endless string of self-hatred -- blame, guilt, regret, shame. Blame, guilt, regret, shame. Another thoughtless decision, another reckless choice. Blame, guilt, regret, shame.
It took years. An entire decade. More than a decade. Blame, guilt, regret, shame. Thoughtless decisions, reckless choices. Blame, guilt, regret, shame. Tori Amos said, "The only way out is to go so far in." This life has been a succession of drowning, a circus of disappointments. Pretense, posturing, lie after lie after lie. And the clouds part. And the bells toll. Truer, more satisfying words have never been uttered: I HATE THIS LIFE.
SO GO AHEAD, UNIVERSE. Shame me. Show me your idiocy, your stark, radiant beauty. Show me how good you could be. How happenstance and meaningless encounters are given meaning, given flesh, given words like love and friendship and family and identity and bittersweet happiness because the Gods know we're desperate for purpose, for hope that there's something else, something MORE to strive for. That there's something behind the curtains of years, the vast expanse of space. Go ahead. Shame me. Show me what I can't have, all because I have found what in my heart is the absolute truth: that I hate this life and everything in it. Nothing can be clearer now.
