The Other Side of Comedy

...or, watch me while I burn redux

Hit a pig. Almost a decade and back to carless again. If it didn’t already feel like I was taking the all expenses paid ghost of Christmas past cruise, it sure does now. In the span of a fortnight I’ve had to come to terms with every sad sack crap feast I’ve spent the better part of my existence trying to avoid. Torched relationships, the feckless persona I’d cobbled up, mortality, the dream I couldn’t kill with the rest of me. No rest for the wicked or something like that right? Or maybe the inverse. Being hit with all this, maybe the real lesson was how I’ve been sleeping through life this whole time in the first place. So, eyes are open now. Guess it’s time to get to work.

I am alone. I was alone as far back as I can recall. I was the perpetual outcast. Spent most of my adolescence trying to create a family in place of the one that taught me only suffering. I don’t know that I hate them anymore. At the time, and so long after, I harbored such ill feelings for my tormentors. But without them, maybe I’d be happy. In my head, that sentence ended much more pleasantly. Guess I’m passenger still even as the attentive, observer. So what next hands? Where do we go from here?

I learned to compartmentalize. How to resist physical pain. To numb emotions. To fade into the background or draw all attention. To act. To take life. To create. I learned it all from them and so much more. It was necessity. I had to adapt. But even then I remained painfully aware that as close I could get to emulation, I’d never be one of them. Now this is where things diverge. If I were treated as a human being in the beginning, would I have developed such aversion to it as an adult? They were humans and they lied, stole, cheated, ridiculed, harmed, Me. Why would I ever want to be like them? Human.

I grew up idolizing heroes. They were the parents that weren’t absent. My growing disdain for my environment caused me to gravitate toward their mannerisms. I was as smart, as strong, as virtuous as my idols. The content children are fed really can make a huge difference. People would come to rely on me. Hurt people don’t hurt people. They do everything in their power to keep hurt away. They treat it as the plague it is. How easily it can infect others. Metastasize and become anger. Then wrath. Then on to the next victim. I’m sorry I failed you my friends. You were my family and not only did I fail you, I left you to pick up the pieces of the world without me. There goes that sacrifice mentality again. “Hero mentality” I recall uttering. Blaming myself for not being better. But why couldn’t they tell? I didn’t have a car. And the internet wasn’t a thing like it is now. Why did no one think it suspicious how I could find all these new and exciting places to convene? Why couldn’t they tell I ran away 100 times over, never got caught because I always came back. I was a child. A child spending all free time trying to escape.

I made it to college eventually. Didn’t go so well. No one seemed to notice then either. How I was falling behind everyone. My lowest point, at the time. and yet those acting skills I picked up in my youth kept no one the wiser. I wonder what ever happened to Yina. To Jessie. Go Redjackets. I don’t remember if I ever told anyone I was kicked out of college. Just like I never told them I went to hell. The dirt. Away From Ground. The expansion of WMWIB to WMWIU. Anne, are you still here? Even now, you’re still the last person I told I loved. So many posers. I’ve been taken advantage of a lot. Haven’t been able to accept that maybe I really just don’t belong here. That was the whole point of the dream. The one I was unable to let go of. It was a purpose to continue on. A call to action. A reason not to pull the trigger in the dirt. I lost a lot there. But I was already empty to begin with. The empty lamb.

Where did the time go? I look in the mirror and don’t recognize my surroundings. Why am I here? Why haven’t I ended things? It’s not like it matters if I do it now or keep to the schedule. Is this really the decision? Either I push through this pain and finally find a place I can belong or I cut my losses and take the long nap. How much pain must I endure before it’s acceptable to slip and slide? How long must it continue before I introduce toaster to bath? Maybe I should just move to Canada. Never hurts to get even further away from the demons that haunt me. “My life,” what a joke. I’m stifling the madness. I can feel it clawing its way out. The laughter. Or is it sadness? I’ve been so distracted at the thought of loss. The fresh bacon on my undercarriage can attest. To remove the crutch. Thanks for the push. I’m not important. I get that. It’s funny. My existence is hilarious. Let go, it repeats. Let it all go. I know what I am. I always have. Just have to truly accept it. I don’t belong with humanity. And the laughter finally escapes. Welcome back to the black. Like I said, time to get to work. Welcome to the other side of comedy.