A Rude Awakening: Reality Sets In

Not happily, but most surely, I receive a phone call before 7:00. I did not recognize the number, so… back to sleep. *beep, beep, beep* A message, fine. She locked herself out of her truck, and is at this place, could I come and help her? No! I want to sleep in today. I worked hard this week, I am tired, and am really tired. *sigh* That voice, why did God make women’s pleas so… plaintive? *needle, needle, needle* Fine, I am up and at it. Well, in theory. All I have to do is move the one leg, perhaps the other will follow suit? God, why did you let me work out this much and get this tired? Oh, right, because I wanted it and prayed for it. I hate it when you are right. The right leg is closer, to the edge, but I sleep on my right side. So, either I must move my left leg as a starter to the left or right. Either I will roll out of bed, or back step the left leg so that I might, eventually, should I deign, move the right leg out so I can *sslliiddee* out of bed. Neither nor sounds better. Ok, eventually something happens and I end up sitting on the edge of my bed, butt cheeks firmly grasping that edge in the hopes of more sleep. What an ass. How long did that take, 5, 10, 15 minutes? I have no way of figuring things out yet.

I put some stuff on and head to the door, very unhappy with my sleep stealer. She gave me her key precisely because she ran out of AAA usage and so for this very reason. She needs testosterone treatments, it will smarten her up, help with memory, you know, guy stuff. *poke, poke, poke* So, I head to the door, then I think about it. I will be going into some public place. I head back in, take a look in the mirror, then put on other stuff. Now I am ready, I head out. Urhm, no. This will not quite work either, I am still asleep. One more refit and off I go. I arrive where she said she would be. No she. Oh, right the other place. Living in “twin cities” is a bit of a nuisance, especially during sleep time. So, I drive more, and arrive right on time. Well, as close as it gets. She offers me a coffee, I accept, I try to be civil, we chit-chat, and then I head out. I was probably not nice if I was not horrid.

By the time I get home, I am almost awake. The coffee and the drive helped. I guess I am up for the day. Surfing, the web anyway. I find myself at Bane’s and see something I had forgotten about. A song that meant a great deal to me at one time. It still does, but the context has changed. A Guns N’ Roses song was found there, a song that came out just as I was going under. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, it was there as if for me. It helped me understand, through time, what had happened to me, if not why. I had sunk into a coma, within flesh, within mind, shut off from a world I could no longer touch, feel, hear, smell, taste, see, or otherwise sense. My nerves were burned, my psyche shattered, all the remained was an automated weapons system. Nasty, but only if activated by people of malware content. I wore a permanent 1000 yard stare, no longer looking for heaven, I was there… in a cocoon of native painkillers, natural psychotropics, and organic healiotropics, the junk they pushed was useless and irrelevant except that it helped keep the bill payers happy. I liked it there, as far as I understood things. My hands felt just like two balloons, permanently I thought.

And, for a long time, that is just how it was. Eating Draino and waiting 12 hours to visit a hospital and a trigger pull on a 12 gauge lodged against the top of my mouth had failed to do their intended work, so, there I sat, pain free and elsewhere. Loverly, really, only… something was calling. What? Whispers, seemingly, but from who or what? Family? Friends? Professionals? Angels? God? It reminded me, though in a deeper way on a much deeper level of the call this morning. “Get up, I need you”. Who? Where were they? What did they need? So, as today, I had to figure out which “leg” to move, then which first, then which was which, even if I am still not sure about the real or virtual events, the first leg moved, the thought process, the order of all the things. I had to dress, redress, and do it again ad nauseum. Getting going and waking up was learning how to live again.

I have had to go through all the stages of life, birth, childhood, teen years, and then adulthood. But I knew nothing of adulthood, it had been so long ago and I had only been learning what that was about. To catch up to my age group would take much work, and I am even still not near there. I react more like a 25 year old might be expected to but I inhabit the body of a seasoned life vet. The outside world sees an old man, but I am only just a man. It has been decades, nearly, since being suicidal. But it has taken decades for “A Rude Awakening” to be to the point where I am on my way to where I feel I have been called. I think that is where I am approaching. Or is it another wrong place? I will keep looking and seeking, if it happens to be the wrong place.

But, at Bane’s, listening to that song, I realized something further. As I said, I am no longer in Painfreeville. I am, if weak and wobbly, on my own two feet in no uncertain terms. I am out of the au naturale drug factory and happy place, but I also cannot count on coma numbness, a fresh dose of happy stuff at the first sign(s) of serious pain, loss, or chaos, and no extra extra at the fun sippy cup of nothingness. My accidental transcendental lease is up. Sounds all happy until the realization comes that the coma is what kept me from suicide for the decades after my attempted shotgun gargle, my last ‘incident’. I am out of the little room, I am awake from the coma, and I am standing, functioning, and living, perhaps thriving. Can I take a “death in the family”? Can I handle a “bullet with butterfly wings”? Can I remain standing, just standing? To say I do not realize that I am still on a razor’s edge with a thin steel ribbon on my shoes keeping me from splitting like a log if I sidle left or right a bit too much, looking down a 1000’ gorge one way, and into a wall-to-wall 80 mph traffic highway the other would not be correct. Others, most of you, are just used to it. You might see it as standing on a slight sidewalk, near a sometimes busy if lazy highway, with a deep ditch the other way. But you are used to it. I just woke up, after 20 years, an old frightened man who has never seen regular cars go more than 40 or 50… Or, I just did not remember them being so fast?

Still, I was glad she called. I was pleased to listen to that song. I want to thank them both. It hit me today, if not where I am supposed to be (?), if still getting all the neurons, glial cells, and ganglion to fire rightly, well, and regularly, if dubious historically in my recovery, I have awaken and I am alive. I am even almost human. Three deaths and three very close calls will make it so I can never quite be fully alive again, I am simply too familiar (and comfortable) with the other side (if there is spiritual life there, it is different, inorganic I should say, at least until our resurrection). But, I am doing all these things many take for granted, pushing further to try and catch up to where I should/could/would be (?) and perhaps beyond, and still… able to help one little worried voice from a recorded message while half asleep and confused. I might even think, if that is all I really ever can do, I might be able to let that suffice.

I so much wish to thank her for the bother that woke me. Do you need someone to hold your key?