We begin with skin

Not comfortable in my own skin in spite of 40+ years of living, seeking to make a difference in that.  Catalysts include recent suicide of former partner, general sense of unhappiness and weariness, multiple aspects of my life in which I point to my own flaws and choices as rationale for hating myself.  We’ll do it month by month and hopefully I’ll have 20 entries per month; we’re starting with November, the month of Thanksgiving in this part of the world, in which I tackle Death.

JP killed himself a couple weeks ago.  For those of you not in the know, JP was my partner from 2005-2010, or thereabouts.  We were together for about five years.  He was a morbidly depressed musician, a Eugene native, with a huge functional family (for the most part) though his immediate family is a tad weird, like most families.  JP’s paternal grandfather had been a pharmacist in Springfield, an abusive husband and parent, and eventually committed suicide.  JP’s father was also abusive (though JP never went into great details, partly because I couldn’t handle hearing it) and also committed suicide.  This made JP box office gold, as I told him (so insensitively) for suicide, and indeed he spoke about it often.  He was on a complex cocktail of antidepressants which he switched up periodically; some days were better than others, for JP.

We’d been apart for almost two years when he killed himself.  He’d had a series of other girlfriends—it certainly wasn’t as if he couldn’t replace me—but I never felt like I’d made a mistake, breaking up with him.  I did love him—it is hard for me to write that, because it seems I don’t love many people that deeply, that truly, and it still seems strange to me that it was him I loved.  We’d only hooked up originally because of attraction.  We didn’t have much in common, didn’t have much to say to one another.  When we did talk about ideas, we argued.  It was a more shallow relationship than I’d have liked, but I can’t seem to sleep with friends: even now I admire couples who DO things together, go run or ski or craft or wine-taste or whatever.  I’ve never done hobbies with a partner.  I’ve only had two of them, anyway, and now only ex remains.

I drove by his house yesterday.  My heart thudded—literally thudded, I took a moment to reflect on how I love it when clichés work out in real life—as I turned down his street.  It was a fact, as Daisy might post on Facebook, that I didn’t believe he was dead.  It was a fact that his was the only corpse I’ve ever wanted to see—not out of morbidity or vengeance, but because I wanted to see him dead so I could believe him dead.  There were two cars in the driveway, and no police tape (why had I expected that?) marking where he’d shot himself (allegedly shot himself, whispered my stubborn subconscious; there’s no proof!)

 

I drove on.

Death is our November topic.