Pt. 3 - Imaginary Friends

8/18/15

In less than 48 hours, I will be on a plane headed to Frankfurt, Germany. It is 7 AM on the 18th of August, 2015. I have taken a concoction of drugs (in very moderate dosage)--hydroxyzne, melatonin, marijuana, alcohol-- in an attempt to fall asleep before noon. I have spent most of the day sleeping, as this week was very busy, but moreso because there are days when I feel so down and depressed that consciousness itself feels like an unbearable burden. 

I write this only because I feel like I should write something; soon I will leave for a foreign country, with little planning or preparation, and the events leading up to this trip have me in a state where I can hardly remind myself to eat once per day. I have tried very hard of late to improve my lot in life, to go out of my way for people to make their lives better in any way I can, but there are times where I feel nothing but sadness and disappointment every time I reach out to someone. 

I do not have the best relationship with my father--there have been times, months/years at a stretch, where we have not talked or seen each other. It seems whenever I suffer a particularly hard setback in life, he will help me through it... but when I try to maintain any kind of closeness, he becomes distant and withdrawn. It is not worth getting into specifics, but this has certainly been the case lately; today, when I went to visit him and say goodbye before leaving for my trip, he would not look at me or speak directly to me. 

Recently, a close friend of his died of cancer. She was a good woman, and the few times I met her I thought very highly of her. I cannot explain why, but ever since she's passed, he acts resentful and sullen towards me. I asked him if he needed any help in his shop--he builds things and repairs cars/motorcycles in his free time--to which he declined, then went back to drilling holes in a piece of metal. I tried to talk to him, to say that I loved him and hoped we could see each other again after I returned from Europe, and he turned his back to me and would not say a word. I left his house and cried in my car for a couple of minutes before driving home.

This is just an anecdotal story and really doesn't tie in to the thoughts that bring me to write in my word processor at this hour (now, closer to 8 A.M.). I know for a fact that I've read too much Philip K. Dick in the last few months (in addition to enduring a crippling depression), but I have become obsessed with the notion that this entire life is illusory, that the people we encounter in this sad, malaise realm are nothing more than figments of a sad, crazed universal consciousness. 

Individually, we go through life seeking approval, affection, and verification from others, and yet we are socially and collectively so far removed from each other that we can't even agree on civil rights issues or whether or not it's wrong for the police to kill unarmed civilians. I feel like everyone I've ever met is just an illusion (and I to them, more than likely), and eventually we are all destined for the same fate--to become just a memory someone else has, soon to be forgotten. 

My father, some of my closest friends, former bandmates, the first woman I ever loved, all share the same characteristic: at one point they played vital roles in my life, only to become as distant to me as any stranger is to another. There have been months, years of my life where I literally could not imagine life without these people, and then the hand of fate--or destiny, or time, or whatever--slowly splits that part of you off, never to be connected in the same way again. 

I'd say life isn't fair, but I really don't think life is anything more than a ballistic, synaptic burst of energy, programmed to fire as part of an elemental process, made to expend itself, and destined to end in a flash--quickly, obscurely, and without a trace of its existence.