Writing just to "say hey". I wish I could say that today was better than yesterday. The good news is that it wasn't worse, and I did watch a funny movie tonight, "A Slight Case Of Murder" (1938) starring Edward G. Robinson. Great title, eh? Especially for a comedy. I'm not gonna review the movie, on account of I'm feeling kind of wiped out. Depression sucks. Boy does it ever.
There are two conditions I would never wish on anyone - one is dementia, which has gotta be one of the very worst things that can happen to a person, and the other one is depression, where you feel like you are trapped and falling down a black hole and you can't reverse it. You can only wait for it to reverse itself, and in my case that usually takes a few days.
It is important to point out - and I have done so before - that I do not have any type of clinical depression. I don't have a chemical imbalance, and my depression is not chronic. Well, I guess it is in a sense, because it is related entirely to long term loneliness, and to long term frustration over a serious and unresolved issue. So in that sense, it is chronic, because I have been alone for such a long time and I have been dealing with this Issue for such a long time. In these circumstances, a person is bound to get depressed from time to time. But my state-of-mind throughout the years has been pretty well balanced, I must say. Otherwise I would not have been able to pursue the hobbies I enjoy (hiking, photography, reading, etc) and I would certainly not have been able to work as a caregiver. I would not have had the necessary focus and energy that are required. Depression saps you of focus and energy, and in those who are truly "chronically depressed" (likely a bullshit medical term for something the medical profession doesn't understand), the state of depression can pop up unbidden, at any time, because it has to do, at least in part, with a hormonal/chemical imbalance.
My depression, as reported many times before, just has to do very simply with getting older and still being single, and feeling alone, and worrying that it will always be this way.
Most days I can just find enough interesting things to read, or I can go through my work routine and "get through the day" with a job well done, but it isn't getting any easier as I approach 60.
I am getting to the point where I don't even look forward to concerts that much anymore, because I will be going by myself, and I have no one to share the experience with, and so it just seems a chore.
I don't want things to be this way. I have known the Vibrance Of Life, and I want to feel it again. But it's not gonna happen for me until I have someone to share my life with. Being alone sucks.
And on top of that, to be dealing with this monumental and nearly incomprehensible 1989 situation - once again all alone - just compounds things. It makes me feel like "I've just got me", but the problem with that feeling is that there is no reservoir to draw from. We are each other's reservoirs; No Man Is An Island, and when a person feels isolated long-term, like for thirty years, his own personal reservoir of resilience runs dry.
I believe - and actually I am certain - that what happened to me in 1989 was a unique event in American history, and that is why it seemingly cannot be talked about. I understand that it freaks people out, and I did not mean to malign Lillian in my blog from last night. I was present and witnessed what happened to her at Northridge Hospital and also at the Wilbur Wash. I know it hasn't been easy for her either, and she may have had to deal with other factors that have prompted her silence all of these years. But still, there is no doubt whatsoever that she knows more than I do about what happened and why. And so, she has not had to deal with the incredible frustration of not knowing, as I have.
Lillian is married now, and "living her life" per se, and has moved forward in some fashion and more power to her in that regard.
But I have not been so lucky as to be able to move forward, because what happened to me has not only not been talked about or discussed - it has never even been acknowledged.
Think about it : somebody like Travis Walton, the famous UFO abduction guy? He is well known, everybody knows his story, which is incredibly weird and scary. It's been talked about, there was a book and a movie. And there are stories even weirder than Travis Walton's, believe it or not. I know because I've read them. Try reading about the Skinwalker Ranch, for example.
But the thing is that.....all of those things can be talked about, and written about, until everyone knows about them.
But for some strange reason, What Happened In Northridge in September 1989 cannot even be acknowledged, let alone talked about or discussed.
When my memory came back in 1994/95, and I mentioned my first confused stirrings to Lillian, it's like she snapped and became a different person. That alerted me to how serious the situation was. Lillian knew more than I did. For a time, it was understood by her and others around me that I had total amnesia, and so the problem of my knowledge was at bay.
But then I remembered, and everything changed, and I became a Pariah. It's a form of Blaming The Victim. "He remembered, that motherfucker, and now I am in danger".
I would say to those who felt that way : "try to imagine what it has been like to be me".
You have no idea.
Conversely, for the others, it is one thing to pretend that something never happened. Imagine a gang of people who killed somebody and got away with it. They can then proceed, slowly but surely, to pretend that the killing never happened because they never got caught; nobody was prosecuted; nobody found out who did it; and they never acknowledged the crime amongst themselves. Some in the gang might feel guilt, the major sociopaths would not, but what must it be like to try to live your life, knowing you are on the fucked-up criminal end of the situation, and that you have gotten off Scott Fucking Free? What must that be like for a person with a conscience?
As hard as it has been for me, I would rather be me than to be a person on the other side of the secret.
Their day is coming, the day when they will have to step up to the plate and tell the truth.
The government of America will one day have to tell the truth as well. That day is coming, too.
Regardless of what happens to me, or how my life turns out, or how I feel......
That day is coming.
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