Day 1 of the #Trust30 Project, inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. Click here for my project archives.
I’ve 15 minutes left to live and suddenly I feel sad. I’ve wanted this moment ever since that girl put a gun to Wendy’s head and pulled the trigger. I’m heartbroken that I have lived the remainder of my life in the shadow of such a horrible moment. Refusing to be in the present, always thinking that things would be easier, better, happier for all involved if I were also marked by a headstone.
In Prague there is a graveyard filled with open graves. My husband joked that I should climb in one for a photo. He never knew that a grave has been the most comfortable of places I could have ever imagined myself.
Not this nomadic life. Not my Third Culture Childhood.
Oh fuck, man, this is grim.
Here’s where I mirror my self from October 28, 2000, begging the woman with a gun in our faces to spare our lives. Please don’t hurt anybody!
Please, please, please, I don’t want to die. I want to finish all these projects I’ve started. I want to take more photos of weird and creepy things and write odd poetry about them. I want to meet Johhny Depp and Tim Burton. My Edward Scissorhands tattoo is not here yet. I want to know what happens to all my American Monsters. From Los Angeles to Prague! And afterwards! What happens!? I need to be here!
And my novel about Marilyn Monroe, how different the world would be if she had been able to whistleblow on the entire Kennedy family!
These are the stories I will tell if I can have some more time.
Please not yet, please don’t put me back in the passenger seat of the car where my life changed irrevocably and I started wishing for the end of my world.
Oh shit, man, it’s fucking here and I don’t want it.
It’s really hard to write through tears. Try it. You have time to do whatever you want. Don’t follow my example. The dwelling on the past, the wishing things could be different, that I don’t deserve this life. I do. I did. You do.
This is the last photograph of me. I’m sitting at my computer. Listening to the soundtrack of Where The Wild Things Are. Arcade Fire. Wake Up. Here I am. Finally awake.
I have 9 minutes before I must say goodbye to this life I grudgingly participated in. From childhood.
Did you know that I never make decisions? I don’t tell anyone this. I just leave things up to The Creator, or Goddesses, stories, fairies, spirits, partners, family. I can’t even remember the last thing that I wanted to do just for me. Not because God or Signs told me to.
Shouldn’t I have at least one of those memories?
Oh please don’t make me beg for moments. I want one of those memories. Just one. I promise if you give me more time I will make not just one, but dozens of those. Please!
Fuck it.
Nevermind.
This is the moment I’ve wanted, waited for ever since Wendy died in my arms, every moment someone I loved betrayed me, my response to every conflict.
Five minutes and counting.
Running through my head is Ripley with Newt in her arms, running against the clock and a monster mama. Tick Tick Tick Tock, Lola with her red hair running to change the past. Donnie Darko laughing in his bed.
The moment I first saw my husband, the true love of my life. My mother, telling me I am so special and that my place in life is to write. My husband encouraging me publish my first book , supporting me through my hair-tearing frustration, my screams, holding me on the anniversary of Wendy’s death. Five years, my husband, my rock, the one I fear I never did everything I ever could have done for.
Steve, I love you so much. You and your farts and Jackass and holding your hand and cuddles and tattoos and coming home drunk sharing the iPod listening to MGMT and being so in love and you never gave up on me and you stayed through everything I love you I love you I love you I love you.
