Acceptance

“You can’t turn off that you’re dead
You just deal with it…”
-Armor for Sleep

When I first created this blog, my goal was to chronicle my resurrection.  It wasn't intended to be a documentation of my death.  Sure, writing about being dead was going to be a natural part of my journey but it wasn't supposed to be the main focus.  In fact, I was hoping I'd be alive by now, that maybe there would be some positive changes, that things would be better in a year's time.  Well, it's been a year since I started writing here and nothing has changed.  In fact, things have only gotten worse.

There's been a lot of conflict arising within me lately.  I'm trying to deal with the fact that everything around me is crumbling while simultaneously coming to terms with the notion that there's nothing I can do to fix it.  When I was alive, I was an optimist.  That might seem hard to believe considering how negative I was, even back when I was breathing.  Yet, despite my misanthropic attitude, there was a spot of hope, a glimmer of idealistic positivity that dwelled within me.  Even when I died, that idealistic positivity didn't.  It was probably the only characteristic that crossed over with me in death.  Unfortunately, death dwindled that away over this past year, as if it were cutting the final thread that held me to life.  Now, I don't have hope anymore.  Everything I can imagine, from my future to the people I'm surrounded by to love to faith, is stooped in the dark ink of cynicism.

You know those trite messages that people always vomit out to propagate positivity?  The ones that go something like "You can be anything you want" or "Your dreams really can come true!"  That's garbage.  Yes, dreams do come true...for some people.  For others, they will never have the money, talent or connections that will allow them to do what they've always wished they could.  The hardest part about life, and death, is acceptance.  We have to accept there will always be certain things we cannot do, certain tasks we cannot accomplish and certain talents that will never be acknowledged.

As for me, life was always hard to accept.  I was a happy baby but most babies are pretty happy, I suppose, as long as their bellies are full and their diapers are empty.  I grew up and grew out of my parent's small-minded tendencies and leaned on my peers to push me in the correct direction.  I followed everyone else's lead while ignoring my own path.  I swayed from myself which caused conflict.  I allowed the world inside of me, to penetrate my passion and singe my self-esteem.  I swam to the surface of superficiality and waded in those waters for many years.  Yet, I wasn't as beautiful as those around me.  I had to work twice as hard to be half as attractive.  The harder I worked, the dumber I looked.  Sadness slipped through shortly after and was something else I had to battle.  My family was foreign and no one cared about my problems so I turned to food and became overweight, which only highlighted the hatred I had for myself.  I pulled away from people because I wasn't good enough.  I couldn't accept who I was so I put on a mask and pretended to be this other person for so long that when it came time for me to really express the true Brannon, I couldn't because I was already too entangled with those who only knew my facade.  It was hard accepting that I would never be good-looking.  It was hard to accept I was not wanted by girls.  It was hard to accept that I wasn't wanted by anyone.  It was hard to accept that college wasn't going to save me like I thought it would.

And death is hard to accept, too, especially when I haven't done anything to justify my time on Earth.  I'm twenty-four years old and I'm dead.  I'm useless.  I have nothing to offer anyone.  And it's hard to realize that.  It's hard to let go of all that potential that I can no longer utilize.  Maybe I could have been a great artist but I wasted it on depression.  Maybe I could have been a good writer but apathy ate up my talent.  Maybe I could have been a great animator if only I would have tried harder.  And I can see all that promise washing away, spiraling down the drain.  There won't be a hugely successful film franchise or series of novels.  There's only the decaying headstone of a loser who lost it all over the span of three years because he was weak.  And that's the hardest aspect of all to accept.  I am to blame for my death.  This is partially my fault.  As much as I've blamed every thing and every one else, I also have to accept some responsibility.  I wasn't strong enough to handle everything and so I allowed myself to give up.  Do you know how hard it is to wake up every day to a miserable existence and know that it all could have been different if only you would have made difference choices?  That's the way I feel every time I open my eyes and go to my soul-sucking job and have to be smothered by closed-minded morons.  All the pain, the tears, the frustration never had to happen.  None of it ever had to touch me. 

Death is a drug.  Once you've had your first hit, once you find it swimming in your veins, you realize it will always be a part of you.  You're addicted to the atrophy and you hate it and crave it all at the same time.  You can fight it every day, scrape by as much as you can but if you slip up just once, let your guard down just slightly, you relapse into rotting once more.  And I'm just a junkie, juggling life and death each day, usually failing and falling into the dirt again and again.  I try to be with the living and I feel uncomfortable.  I try to accept my condition and that doesn't sit well with me, either.  I go back and forth, going outside to put on a fresh face for humanity and then come home and sink back into the dirty bathwater of my body.  I'm constantly fighting to be alive again but I just can't so I allow myself to go back to that dark part of me.  It's like taking a small dose of something, just enough to ease the aches, to dull the withdrawals momentarily.  In the end, it doesn't help but to draw out my death all the more.  There's an irreparable damage that will always be with me, something I can temporarily mask but something I cannot heal.

Yet, there's something else crawling around inside of me, something that's been slowly digging its way to the surface of my awareness.  Another conflict, small in scale yet strong in scope.  It's something that's a bit crazy, something that goes against all that I've believed for the past year.  What if, by some chance, I'm not really dead at all?  Maybe I'm just now coming to the realization that I was never truly alive in the first place, that I was more like a human facsimile, something that looked and breathed like a person but wasn't quite entirely.  I was just existing.  And when I realized that I wasn't what I thought I was, I went straight to my corpse conclusion because what else could I be?  Perhaps I've simply mistaken existing for being dead?  I mean, I still feel.  I still hurt.  My nerves are not frozen in formaldehyde.  My lungs are not soaked in cement.  Everything still works.  It's only working in a downward spiral.  But, does that necessarily mean death?  Maybe it just means brokenness.  I suppose there's a needle thin line between existence and death, a line that I've been slicing my feet on over the past year.  Maybe existence is dangling between joy and disappointment and excitement and despair, touching all feelings but never embracing any of them.  It's a numbness that's close to death but not quite death itself.

This possible revelation isn't necessarily a good thing, nothing to celebrate or feel good about.  Dead or not, I'm still here, still in this miserable muck of a life that I've poured over myself.  Maybe I'm not far from death, after all.  Maybe I'm only alive because of the sheer exhaustion that death brings.  It's hard being a carcass.  Maybe my laziness is the only thing keeping me breathing.  If that's the case, besides being pathetic, is it worth it to just breathe, to sit in place and wait for my heart to pump out its last bits of blood?  If I'm not dead, maybe I should be.  Maybe I'm not deserving of the oxygen I breathe, the blood I bleed or the life I lead?  There were times when I'd sit and wait for the finality of my death and times when I thought I would take that finality into my own hands, times when I thought maybe I'd just finish the process.  After all, what was I waiting around for?  What was there to learn but the cruelty of life, the afterlife and the people who filled both worlds?  I already knew that well enough.

I guess you could say I'm having a bit of an identity crisis.  Am I the monster I convinced myself I was years ago and now am I the dead monster that I have believed myself to be for a year now?  Or am I just confusing being depressed with being dead?  As hard as it is to be dead, being alive isn't a great alternative.  So, maybe I should just stop trying to figure it out or fight it.  I'm obviously getting nowhere.  Just accept who I am and what I am.  Yes, accepting yourself and your situation is one of the hardest things we do.  It's a process that can take years, maybe even a lifetime.  As for me, it's taken me a little over my lifetime to come to terms with myself.  Acceptance invites clarity.  And when you stop struggling to hold onto the idealism that you have embedded in your brain, when you cut away that corpse on your back that's been holding you down for so long, you are free to feel better about yourself and your situation.  It doesn't make the situation any better but once you embrace it, it's a bit easier to swallow rather than spending your time choking on it.  No, I will never be what I've always dreamed of being.  It sucks, yes, but at least I won't have to waste so much time clamoring for recognition, for satisfaction.

Acceptance may be hard but it does come easier when you die because when you die, nothing really matters anymore.  Your looks, your money, your sadness, your joy all goes the way of the grave in time.  You realize that all the effort you put into being becomes pointless at the point of expiration.  Of course, I suppose you should try to make the best of your life while you still have one so that when you're dead, you won't have to regret so much like I did.  All the good things will disappear but so will all of the bad.  There's a certain sense of peace with that knowledge.  Know that your struggles won't chase you in true death.  Know that all the pain and the hurt will wash away.  But, so will you and everything you've ever done or said or felt.  You will be erased and forgotten.  We all can't leave a lasting legacy like the great artists and entertainers before us.  Some of us will live on through our art, our words or our music but the grim fact is that most of us will rot away without reaching anyone.  We are born and then we grow up in insignificance and then we die.  All the while, the world will spin on, unaware.  We will leave nothing behind.  No indelible impression.  No scarlet scar.  Just always fading.  We are something and then we are nothing.  I realize now that I am nothing, that I have been emptied out and wiped clean and now I'm just floating in an endless line, waiting for my turn to be grafted onto the great void.

And I think I'm okay with that.

Showbread
"The Sky (Nervosa Version)"

When I was small you might have thought of me
You might have spread apart the fat webs in your heart
But there was never anything inside of me
I'm just dried mud casing that cracks and comes apart
And now I'm being crushed beneath your feet
And all the mud is disappearing into me
You're rising up like fire while the memories halt
Don't look down to see me or you will become a pillar of salt

You'll never see my face

You are a song to sing
I am the dust and ash
You are the queen of clean
I am the world's trash

There is no candy center in the middle of the world

When I was small you might remember me
You might have drained the black oil from my heart
String me up and hang me upside down
And let the wild animals tear me apart