My Dearest J

  My dearest J,

 On hot summer days I sit outside under the sun sail and dream about being on the ocean under a real sail. When I was little we lived on a boat for what seems in my mind like an eternity but knowing my parents and their propensity towards death it was probably only a couple months. I remember standing on the dock in my puffy down jacket while my parents argued in the cabin. I remember my mom putting me up there and saying, “We’ll be right inside. You know not to stare at the water, right? Don’t stare at the water, honey because you WILL fall in.”. I shook my head in confirmation that I understood but much like now I was stubborn and I didn’t see how that would even be possible. She went to have an argument and I planted myself firmly on the dock, hand on post and started staring. I don’t actually know how long I was there for, between the complications of the concept of childhood time and the meditative few moments you have before the ripples actually pull you into the depths, there’s no telling but I fell. It was fabulous. What felt like a beautiful swan dive I’m sure was more of a face plant/belly flop to the water. When my parents heard it they came out to see their daughter face first, big puffy coat filled with air floating like a tiny buoy in the water next to the sailboat. Being totally freaked out and in what may be the only truly parental move my father ever made, he dove in and rescued me. I vaguely remember being passed off to my mother on deck and then getting yelled at. 

  My parents were very serious people. I have no doubt in my mind that I would have laughed after the kid would have been safe. I do that, I laugh at really inappropriate things and usually at really inappropriate times...loudly. Sometimes other people laugh too, sometimes I’m the asshole. It’s really 50/50 if I’m honest. 

  When my grandfather had heart surgery we were all terrified. He was old and the procedure was risky. When my stepdad came home we were talking about it. He was telling me they were going to have to crack his ribs open. I remember him pausing for a moment and looking at me, crinkling his nose and in a deep growly voice he said, “Like a lobsta”. It was just how we dealt with things of that nature. 

  My thoughts and feelings about life and death are filled with acceptance, fear, wanting, understanding and a million other emotions on any given day at any given moment. I, like you, have lived enough to have seen both of those and I understand how closely intertwined they are. I’ve decided the reason I probably haven’t actually offed myself yet is that I still laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. I laugh at the fact that I am still here to tell stories and share love and do the things that apparently (I don’t believe this but some do) only I can do. Mostly it’s felt like I was just here to screw around but every now and again something happens and I think, “Fuck. I guess I have to do something to change the chain of events that that are about to unleash themselves like starved, rabid dogs on some poor innocent who would be forever fucked if I don’t wrangle the pack.” 

  I’ve also been alive long enough to know when I am capable of handling a situation or not. In the time of Covid I’m unable to physically do much. My life consists of being at home and watching the world burn. This week I had a friend tell me he was diagnosed with schizophrenia along with a side of delusions, I had one friend diagnosed with cancer and I had one friend go to the sentencing hearing of her father for raping her as a child and I fucking called the police on a friend who was 2 states away. 

  

  For the record: I have never in my entire life, guns pointed to my head, having my life threatened, watching people over dose, getting the suicide call, houses getting robbed, cars getting stolen, bikes getting stolen, I have never, NEVER, called the cops on someone. 

I just show up. 

  This moment in history is like no other. This moment has caused an inability to move that I’ve never felt before. My mother taught me that freedom was a car. You could escape any situation with a couple hundred bucks and a vehicle, turns out freedom is surviving a pandemic but the cost is watching all my friends die. 

  Suicide isn’t something I’ll generally interfere with. I don’t believe it’s anyone else’s business. The sentiment is always about how selfish it is and somehow we should feel shame about being selfish which is total bullshit and not a philosophy I’ll ever stand behind. If you have thought deeply enough about it and you’re willing to pull the proverbial (or literal) trigger than I will never, would never hold judgement against someone for that. You are a woman who knows what death looks like because you’ve stared into her beautiful eyes and have been flirting with her most of your life. If I were to lose you to you, I would understand, forgive and mourn. I love you and your pain is my pain but so is your relief. 

  A few days ago I received a message from you while I was trying to create an invoice on the fly for a gig that didn’t go badly but freaked me out none the less. I knew that if you were telling me you wanted to talk to me and then falling back it meant you were not okay, then you actually said, “I’m not okay.”

  

   This is a drive all night straight to my friend kind of situation. This is drop everything and steal the credit card because I’ve got to get to her situation. This is a fucking Covid situation. This is watching my friend fall apart from a distance and not being able to be with her to hold her and cry with her and cook to feed her soul. This is fucking awful and at the moment feels endless. 

  The next thought was N. This child has gone through so much in his short time here with us. He’s been a part of some terrible things and is most recently recovering from discovering his own joys of self destruction. He’s so broken already and has so much more to go that there’s still time to heal or at the very least has time to turn his scars into laughter. 

  I elected to make the call. All the cards on the table and a pocket full of helplessness I did something I’ve never done before, I did (in my opinion) one of the worst things you can do to another person, I called the police. I had to play nice and act like I’m not an avid hater of all things authoritarian and potentially put you in danger because fucking cops and I fucked up the invoice because fucking panic. 

  I’ve come to the conclusion that that’s why you chose me consciously or not. You know who I am and you know I’m not slow about my reactions or patient with slacking emotionally or otherwise. You also know that the one thing that will always make me step in is a child. Even if that child is “almost” an adult. 

  When I was 16 one of my best friends found his father hung from the bathroom rafter. It didn’t just scar him, it changed his entire life. He came to my house that night, grabbed his girlfriend and after beating the shit out of her in my front yard, he threw her into his car and they squealed off into the night. He was never the same after that. I’ve heard stories about him, but you know the stereotypes you know what people turn into he wasn’t an exception to that rule. 

  I didn’t call to stop you, I called so N wouldn’t be the one to suffer finding you. So he wouldn’t have to watch you get wheeled out on a stretcher and try to figure out how to cope with that for the rest of what’s left of his short life that gets actively shorter with every trauma. I’m not sorry. I do love you. 

Love you,

-A Girl