Pandering Machine

I’m still in the beginning stages of trying to crawl out of a very bad place. I can’t even breathe a word of how bad. I’ve maintained just enough energy for work and socializing but beyond that it’s just been a pit of private hell and I can’t really uphold the functional facade anymore. I’m trying to roll up my sleeves, I know there are brighter days on the horizon, but between trying to take it easy on myself and outright disgust with the level of self advocacy required to even set foot in a therapist’s office precisely while feeling too low to function, it’s quite the takeout box of noodles (or should I say MAGGOTS) to extrapolate. But I’m here to remind you that someone’s public face can and often is worlds apart from whatever private struggles they face. I mean that for the charming abusive narcissists just as much for the suicidally depressed. I say this having lived through abusive relationships, alcoholism, suicides, and generally too many good friends gone far too soon. Check on your people. You don’t have to be their unpaid therapist. Just remind them you’re thinking about them. Make plans to grab a milkshake or something. Sometimes that’s all it takes, just your extending a hand to remind someone that they matter. Sometimes that’s their bridge to brighter days. And if you think you’re too much of a burden because you’re struggling—you’re probably hanging around with the wrong fucking people.

Last night, I dreamt that I was with Mike’s family in a much larger house than their own, in the countryside of northern New Mexico. We were emptying and cleaning the house up so they could sell it, but simultaneously preparing for a second wake on the one year anniversary of his passing. After we finished cleaning up a HUGE amount of people showed up, I mean hundreds, and somehow a huge constituence of the semi famous and standup comics and luminaries of every sort that were “fans” of Mike’s. It was like Big Fish where his bigger than life persona and stories that seemed too tall to be true actually came to life. Later in the evening people began leaving but a handful stayed to have a slumber party. I laid down on an air mattress with someone from left field that I’ve crushed on for years in real life, no words were spoken but it was clear she intended on comforting me after a hard day of emotional upheaval. We laid down and embraced and she began softly, repeatedly kissing my temple in a way that just seemed to melt away tears of pain and trauma. It felt like “home” in a way that nothing else had. It felt like I had needed it very badly. Like I’d gone too many years alone and forgotten what benevolent human touch felt like and just melted in her arms. It wasn’t overtly sexual, just soft and sweet. It filled my cup in a way that reminded me—everyone deserves to be loved. No matter if romantically, platonically, or otherwise. It’s a basic human need like food and shelter. Mike always filled my cup in a similar way; it was like a message beaming from “home” or the universe that I could lay down my guns and stop fighting so hard and just rest and laugh a little while. That I was safe to have some soup and be loved as I am without bounds. Give and receive hugs and laughter and feast on the present moment with those you care about most. I woke up crying and I wasn’t even sure about what. A mix of intense emotions. Grieving his absence. Grieving atrophied love. Grieving for his family and all the trails they’ve endured. Every traumatic event slowly strips away the bullshit until you have no real choice but to be a raw nerve of love, because that’s all there is.

Grief, especially when operating in the background, feels like having sustained a head injury. You might be past the sudden bouts of ugly crying and can show up to life caffeinated, alert, and outwardly functional, but just behind that it feels like half the pylons in your pier are rotting away beneath you. It churns away in the boiler room of your amygdala, but in a covert Klopek basement kind of manner that doesn’t necessarily blow out the front windows and marr the facade of general normalcy. You have trouble remembering, you lose track of time easily, you experience inexplicable fatigue, headaches, and loss of motivation to do the most basic, everyday things, let alone keep any kind of consistent schedule or routine. You feel like you’re operating on half the amount of cylinders, your very existence both physically and psychologically becomes clutter. You can’t think clearly and live in a perpetuum of foggy segues, hoping for it to clear and return to some kind of order that never comes.