The fear - or lack of fear - of Death.

Death is the great equalizer.  No one ever escapes it.  While some know when the time is near, no one in general, knows when it's going to happen.  Most people don't like to think about it, but not me.  I think about it all the time.  I've lost several friends through the years.  My brain is really split when I think about it.

My friend Carl, had just turned 35 and was taking one of his roommates out for a drive at night so he could smoke a cigarette.  It was November and bitterly cold outside.  Carl didn't smoke but his friend did.  I had spoken to him earlier that night.  Western North Dakota at night was a dangerous place, especially in 2014.  The oilfields brought 24/7 traffic and work to the region and there was millions of dollars to be made.  So on a cold night, my dear friend Carl was struck and killed instantly by a speeding truck driver.  The passenger, who Carl took for a smoke, survived.  I think about Carl a lot.  He was a helluva guitar player.  Way better than I'll ever be.  At 35.  What a terrible loss.  Carl had a lot of life left to live.  He was just getting started.

One month later I lost my own father.  For those who have lost a parent - it's devastating.  I was there by his side when it happened.  I think about my dad everyday and I can remember vividly all the events of that day and those that followed.  My dad, did not fear death.  He had very strong religious beliefs and death was just another part of life.

In my current state and head space, I think about my own death.  Often.  I don't fear it.  Not necessarily for religious reasons, but it's not one of those things I can't even talk about.  I know its real and will happen one day to me.  There's been several times in my life when I've looked at the choice of ending my own.  I can vividly see it.  It's violent yet peaceful at the same time.  I can feel the weight of a gun in my hand.  I carried them for years in the military.  I can feel the cold steel and how my hand warms the grips.  I can feel the spring tension and quality of the build as I load it.  I can feel it against my temple and the hard ring of the barrel as its pushed against my skin.  The 3 or 4 pounds of trigger pull.  The loud crack.  When I was with my father at the end of his life, I held his hand.  He was on a machine and his body was still working.  My hand was sweaty in his hand.  When the time came and as the minutes passed afterward, I remember how quickly his body cooled.  I wonder how quickly the handle of the gun will cool from my hand.  Will I still have a grip on it?  I wonder how quickly I'll cool... In some versions of it, I can see the red blood against the stark white snow… And other versions, I can feel the back of my head on the hard concrete.  To most people that sounds terrible, but for me, that seems peaceful.

I know a lot of people say it's the "easy way out" or "weak".  Maybe so.  Maybe not.  I just know that at times, everything seems to be too much.  Too heavy.  This is what I think about though.  I'm not bothered by it.  This isn't a play by play.  It's a thought I think about and see in my head.  I've often said I could drive to work tomorrow and be killed or live on for a few more years.   Seems like everyone has cancer or diabetes these days too...  You never know.  Some people will say "Don't think like that" or "How dare you".... Who am I to judge?  Who are YOU to judge?  This is my blog, not yours.  It's not even for you - it's my thoughts.  I'd be lying to myself if I didn't put down my own true thoughts.

When I was a kid, I used to drive through the cemeteries in Milton, Connersville and in Cambridge City Indiana.  I found and still find a lot of peace there.  I always read the headstones and think about the people there.  A farmer.  A husband.  A dentist.  A bus driver.  A mayor.  I'm sure people who at one time were or at least thought they were - important - either to themselves or someone.  Maybe a lot of people - maybe a few - maybe no one.  But just like that - they are gone and forgotten.  Dates and a dash.  You wonder if they are remembered or missed... Did they matter to someone... I wonder the same about me....

In the military you always have to have a will and a power of attorney completed.  Mine always said that I wanted to be buried under a tree in the Milton Cemetery.  I like the idea of being under a big shade tree.  Like a maple or an oak.  Here in the last couple of years, I've rethought about it and now I think I wouldn't mind being cremated and having my ashes spread over the waters at the International Peace Garden here in North Dakota.  Even if I'm not living here, they can always cart me back up there.  Start on the Canadian side.  I've always liked it better anyway.

Lonely.  Alone.  Lonesome.  Three descriptive words all derived from the word "lone."  To be alone.  To feel lonely.  To be lonesome.  In life, you travel alone on your own journey.  Yes, you meet others who often travel with you on the trip, but they are on their own journey too.  You're just passengers in the same car.  But in the end, at some point, death is waiting for us all.  And you'll be buried alone.  It's not a scary thing to me.

Chilly house and Quiet Days...

My house is quiet.  The kind of quiet that makes most people a little uncomfortable.  I can hear every sound.  Every noise.  The neighbor’s car doors opening and closing.  The garage doors.  Up and down.  When the tinnitus isn’t ringing too badly in my ears, I can hear each clock in my house ticking away.  I don’t really remember the last time I turned my television on.  I hear each time the refrigerator runs.  When the freezer drops new ice.  I’ve always been able to hear the trains rumbling away on the tracks behind my house, but for a long time I just tuned it out.  But now it sounds like a cannon going off.  Even the sound of my fingers typing away on my laptop make a sound that I don’t know if I ever listened to before but I can hear it now.  Tonight I can hear the Minot High School Homecoming football game at the high school directly behind my house.  I can clearly make out what the announcer is saying with each announcement and play and I can only imagine how loud it is there.  The sound carries.  It floats out like a thick fog and covers my house.  

It’s cold inside my house.  I guess I’m having trouble coming to terms and admitting to myself that the summer is over and turning the heat on in the evening is a reasonable option now.  I was away in Indiana for a week and the trees were all still very green and it was in the 80’s and low 90’s still.  I arrived late into the evening here in Minot and I couldn’t see the trees.  What a shock to see that within the week I was gone, ALL of them have turned yellow, orange and gold.  Change.  Rapid change.  I wonder how long I can hold out before I turn the heat on…

It’s the time of year when Christmas trees and decorations are out in stores mixed in with the Halloween costumes & candy with Thanksgiving scarecrows and turkeys in pilgrim hats.  Why does it already feel like the year is over and winter is getting ready to sit on my chest?  Before you know it – 2017. 

I think too much.  I read into things.  I don’t vocalize and when I do, it’s vomited out without cohesion that somehow only I can understand which frustrates those around me.  I’m tired.  I’m tired of hurting people.  I’m tired of being hurt.  I’m tired of allowing myself to be hurt and putting myself in positions where I am.   I want to be left alone while desperately wanting companionship.  I have lived for the past 23 years with my life in boxes – boxes with contents that never mixed.  Home.  Work.  Music.  Indiana.  Personal.  Relationships.  Family.  Friends.  All boxes.  Spinning plates on poles.  Attempting to keep multiple boats with holes and cracks afloat while pouring buckets and pails of rushing water out of each of them.  Sometimes into them.  Often times into them.  I was good at it for a while but like trying to extend your arms while holding a penny on your fingertips for an hour – even for money – it’s not possible.  Even though it’s a penny, it weighs too much.  You’d rather chop off your arm than hold that penny up another second longer.

I drive around a lot.  Sometimes I can’t stand to be here so I stay out.  It gets to be too much.  I don’t mind driving.  There was a time when I would spend hours building a playlist to drive somewhere, then blast it the whole way.  These days, like at home, the ride is quiet.  Not that I don’t listen to things or music, because I do.  I’ll always love music.  The meaning of it changes and I’m forced to change.  I hear songs differently now than I used to.  Sometimes songs I’ve know my whole life.  I’m not sure if its time or life experience that changes the interpretation of things but the turn of a phrase can change everything to me.  I drive a lot.  I drive down familiar streets.  I look into big picture windows or kitchen windows of the houses when I drive by and wonder about the people and families living there.  What their stories are.  I think about people I once knew.  I wonder if they do the same thing…. Maybe it’s just me.  Like I said, I drive a lot.

There are many things that are very vivid to me.  People.  Places.  Smells.  Sounds.   It can be and often is sensory overload.  Maybe that’s why things are quiet here.  I’ve already heard too much.  Seen too much.   Felt too much.   So much that I feel numb like I’m living the Pink Floyd song – comfortably numb.  I can understand why people numb themselves with drugs and alcohol… or religion…. cats… hording…  I’m not passing judgement.  Who am I to judge?  I get it.  Life is hard and fast.  So much of my life has been spent chasing things.  Dates.  Goals.  Work.  People.  Things.  I’m tired.   

You get to a point where you sink or swim.  Yeah - you can tread water and kick around for a while but it’s fatiguing and has no longevity.  I’m tired of kicking.  I’m not really sure what I know, but I do know that I can’t continue to do it anymore. 

Yellow Leaves

The trees have yellow in them.  A signal that summer is ending.  It starts as a friendly reminder.  “Hi there, change is happening….”  If you’d have asked me for the past 40 years of my life, which season was my favorite, without hesitation and probably before you could finish the sentence, I’d reply with a quick “autumn!” (Or fall).

There’s many reasons why I’ve consistently picked the fall of the year.  Some are obvious… The colors – the reds, oranges, yellows and browns.  The sheer beauty of it.  The smell of fallen leaves.  The sound of the crunch under your foot.  The chill in the air.  The early evenings when it’s still nice out but the slight hint of a chill is in the air.  Jacket weather.  The fall holidays.  Homecoming.  Halloween.  Thanksgiving.  Birthdays and Christmas.  As a kid it was the excitement of going back to school.  Seeing your friends again.  The plastic smell of Trapper Keepers, wooden pencils and questionable glue. Being busy and focused on the new task at hand.  The start of something new indoors as the natural world outside dies.

Winters are especially long in North Dakota.  It’s not so much the snow or the cold, although they too can be brutal – it’s the length of winter up here.  The darkness in the late afternoon.  The lack of blue sky.  I’ve found to be functional in my life, I need blue skies.  Late October until late April or mid-May.  Long.

If I were to try to explain the seasons in North Dakota, I’d say it’s like trying to make soup from a can when you don’t have any tools or appliances.  There’s the early hard struggle to get the damn thing open, followed by the audible condensed plop of a solid mass hitting the bowl.   Followed by a rush of water covering everything.  A quick, electrical explosion of heat out of nowhere that if not enjoyed immediately, will quickly cool just as quickly as it was heated.  Solidifying back into a cold mess resembling what it originally looked like when you struggled to open it the first time.  And since you must eat to stay alive – you repeat this process over again.  One complete trip around the sun, aka living in North Dakota.  Long winters that often times you have to dig out of… the spring flooding… the blast of summer sweat & mosquito stew…

Note:  Is it always bleak and unappealing?  No, of course not – but that’s not the point.  This is the nutshell definition and my perception at this moment which makes it my reality and not yours.  So there’s no need to correct me on my own opinion.  The trees are in fact yellowing….. Where was I…. oh yeah:
 
Then out of nowhere like a thief in the night, a strong wind will blow and the trees, thou mighty, stand no chance and will be stripped overnight.  Left bare from their beautiful coats of colors and left naked…. Naked for so much longer than they have to be.  Waiting for the doctor in the gown for longer than you should have to be.  Soon enough, I’ll be able to see things from my window with a different clarity.  A view that I don’t particularly care to see – everything & nothing.  In black and white.  No color to contrast the gray sky to the snow covered ground.  With one exception… The large red “M” from Minot High School on the hill behind my house.  A reminder of where I’m at.  What I’ve done.  Where I’ve been.  The letter M has followed me throughout my life. 

Milton.

Music.

Military.

Every real relationship I've had  - their names all begin with an M.

Minot Air Force Base

Minot High School

Minot, ND

Moving...

The seasons change.  I don’t like it.
Autumn is no longer my favorite season.  The end will come soon enough for all of us.  I, for one, haven’t been in a rush to get there.  The seasons have changed.  I have changed – in too many ways.

It’s not a pity party or a “woe is me” scenario.  This s my assessment of where I am at today.  Tomorrow I will get up, shower & dress, look out the window and stare at the trees for a while… loosing count attempting to count the yellow leaves… and then go to work like every other day.

Alive but not living.

The trees are starting to yellow.

The seasons are changing. 

And so am I.