I realized this before today. Not sure when, specifically. If I had to guess it was between bouts of extraordinarily painful vomiting. I've been out of action since Saturday morning, and it wasn't until last night that it all stopped.
But I do recall hovering over the bathroom sink, washing my mouth out, looking into my reflection. Red-faced, sweating, exhausted, I realized something that I couldn't put into words until now, today.
I'm still weak. Shaky. My vision blacks out if I stand up too quickly. But I'm alive.
I know this post is going to make me seem crazy. I understand that, but the clues were always there. For a while in 2020 I could have sworn I died, but no one else noticed, not even me. Then, when my grandma died and I lost another toe, I thought I'd accidentally slipped into a parallel universe. The feeling was stronger when I got out of detox.
But I was wrong about that. I think I'm on the right track now. Because I do believe in parallel universes. Don't worry, my cheese isn't sliding that far off the cracker. "Believe" is little-b, not BIG-B. But if I believe in parallel universes, I have to wonder why.
I believe that there is One Perfect Universe where everything goes right, and no one ever loses. Everyone lives their perfect life.
And the revelation I felt while sopping puke from my chapped and bleeding lips, was that I was not living in that universe. We all try to live the perfect life, but we don't all succeed. Does anyone? Except in that One Universe? All these other universes? Those are us trying. Every decision ever made births a new universe, and that's how we got all those others.
We all start out in the One Perfect Universe, and we make terrible decisions that make us stray from the path. I can think of so many times I screwed the pooch not just for myself but for others. How many people have I let down over the course of the years? I'm not a greedy man, for example, but the impulse is there. It's my job to make sure that impulse never wins.
But it did win on a few occasions. Because I'm not perfect, and I fucked up my timeline pretty horribly. Not as badly as it could have been, but still. I haven't had a drink in seemingly ages, and yet I'm still having these stomach problems that I was told would cease if I ever quit drinking. Guess that didn't happen. My rotten raw vicious streak of shit luck continues into the setting fucking sun.
It's a soul destroyer of a revelation, and I stopped functioning for a little bit. I had to put my head down and think about the fucking horrors of my life and all the dangerous situations I've been in that are shockingly stupid and 100% avoidable if I'd just made the right decisions. Things I could have done to be a better person. A better son. A better brother. Yeah, I have a lot to make up to my brothers. I was not the best big brother they could have had.
Paralyzed, I asked God for a favor. I know a lot of good people who would do me a favor, but none of them are equipped for one of this magnitude. And you know me, I'm an atheist, so talking to God is not something I do. But I was desperate.
Like I said, I'm not a greedy man, but the impulse is there. And I begged for a very greedy favor. I wasn't in that One Perfect Universe at the time, but I think I really strayed from the path during that first year of college. I begged God to send me back to that time right here, right now, with all the knowledge I possess now so I can do better next time.
Then I realized the consequences of asking something like that. What if doing so kills this timeline off? What if all the good things I've done and all the great people I've met cease to exist because I asked for this carelessly greedy thing? Could I sacrifice everything that happened between 1996 and now just for a second chance?
Then I thought, what if I don't do this out of greed? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized I could save people. I could warn friends from doing things that would end badly for them. I could warn them about when they would die so they could stop it from happening. I could save my mom. Warn my dad. I started thinking, eh, fuck my stepdad, but without him I wouldn't have three of my brothers. And then I started getting grandiose. Did nearly 3,000 people need to die on 9/11/01? What if I could find a way to prevent Covid and the 2016 election? What if I could find a way to prevent corporations from being declared as people with First Amendment rights to buy up residential property and bump up the rents beyond all imagination?
I would do those things, or try, but let's not get a big head. What went beforeth the fall? But there were people near and dear to me that I couldn't save if I merely went back to 1996. They were already damaged goods. I would have to go back farther and save them from the get-go. Shit, I didn't want to live through high school and most of my childhood again, and I certainly didn't want to relive my fucking stepfather, but if something like this were to happen, I couldn't just use it to help myself. I have way too much to make up to the world. I've done a lot of awful things. I try to be the best person I can be at all times. I strive for excellence every day. But I still fall short of the mark.
But there's that greedy impulse. I thought of living without any of these fucking illnesses that have plagued me for more than a decade. Diabetes? Next time out, I'll listen to Grandma. Caffeine Free Diet Coke really isn't that bad. I'd still be in shape. I'd have a better head on my shoulders. I'd make better plans. That early in college? I could still study a few classes that would bore the shit out of me but would give me better opportunities. Holy shit, I even thought I saw myself getting married and having kids and the whole American Dream rolled up into a neat red-white-and-blue hobo bindle.
Yeah, it's crazy talk, and I'm almost certain I'm wrong. But for about two hours today it felt so right, like nothing I'd ever felt before. But there is no God, and there (probably) aren't parallel universes. It's my imagination running away with me.
But with just a little hope I amended my heavenly request: "When I die, please send me back. I know I can get it right this time."
That's all folderol. The real revelation is that I'm a loser in this existence. This is a fight I've already lost, and there's no way to go back and fix it. What does that mean going forward? The struggle continues. Sure, I'm going to lose this go at life, but goddammit, I'm going to make this the most successful fucking failure that I can. The deck is stacked against me, but I've come pretty far for a loser, and I'm not going to quit until the world rakes the back of my throat for my final breath.
Because the poet was right. "I've been down so goddam long that it looks like up to me."
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