Dancing with the Black Dog and Learning to Live for the Future

Part One, Knowing When to Say When 

There is no mystery that December has the uncanny way of pulling me into depression until the first days of January. By then Im usually filled with the desperate anxiety of a caged animal released from its holding, as I run through the days with forced optimism and perceived notions of time being limited. This takes many forms. Returning to the gym after a stressful hiatus of gatherings and the end of the world in the form of closed businesses and empty streets. A drop in stress as sleep is regained to their desired amount and even the streets where I roam become a normalized silence, not in guilt, but of exhausted relief of another seasons end. January is where I get to hit the year as hard as I can to ensure I get away from the lingering death of a dying year.

And yet, January also haunts me as I feel the relaxing tendrils of its predecessor release me to harsh epidermal markings. In my late Thirties, I began to reclaim my efforts with runs as I usually either hit the street in the coldest of cold, the dampest of wet, or if even possible in LA, the hottest of hot, although we have been getting muggy weather that has made our Summers unbearable and some worried about a future Floridian nightmare of humidity and stupidity. 

And yet, it was some 5 years ago I began to see it. Perhaps it was due to the celebrations and smoking shisha a bit too aggressively, as if that is a thing, or that my workouts were finally pushing me past a point that my body can heal from. Either way, I began to cough up blood.  Not as in films where the protagonist gets struck with the force of a falling elephant and yet must continue on in pain. This was more of a cough up of something in the back of my throat. Just clearing what is left after sleep in order to speak and not drive others into disgust. Nothing dramatically deep or effort taking, but just a simple cough as the sink turn that color of crimson that you do not see in everyday life. That color that tells you exactly what it is and where it came from. That color that is almost filled with life and it reminds you of what true blood can do even if you think you are desensitized to it all. 

The feeling of dread and horror takes you. Not words I misuse here considering that awesome can describe a sandwich with no irony these days. Despite word erosion, I mean dread and horror that has been mastered throughout evolutionary times simply reminding you that you were the descendants of mammals that were just a bit too weirded out and started to bolt as those who didn't aid the evolutionary progress of another. That primitive fear of something not right and you are running out of time. 

Having been infected with tuberculosis at the young age of 16, I've learned to not renege of going for an XRay. Immediately without eating or preparing for the day, I returned to my university for one. Even graduating in the Fall allowed me to carry on my underutilized promise of healthcare that my fees usually went towards. In the matter of a day, I received my XRay and while in a room of masked individuals I was told that I was fine. That there are no culture growths and my lungs look healthy and strong. And yet, I questioned why would I spit up blood and to the calming response of those trained in offering the worst of information they simply told me that nothing is wrong. All my tests are fine and perhaps I should keep vigilant as I have been before. I was even complimented on my health and diligence of it. 

This would happen twice more only to realize that I suffered from a nasal infection that wasn't prominent, but is what cause me to understand that my butterfly was the origin of humor instead of my lungs. I've since received meds and now make it a yearly habit of taking the flu shot, something I recommend greatly, yet Im not here to promote proactive health. I'm here to plead my case to something lingering my thoughts, even before Turkey was cooked and bells were jingled. 

I've explained to my nausea what life was in my youth with TB. How it made me resemble those unfortunate souls who survived genocide in Europe after the last fascist regime was finally halted. Im not fond of my image back then and I can say I even avoided looking in mirrors until now. I can even understand why I hit the Pile as hard as I can, amassing as much muscle as a Forty Three-year-old can and why I always run at my highest heart rate even if it is as close to physical death as I can put myself through. Im from the school of proactive preparation rather than reactionary. I am not allotted such a luxury as a reaction. To explain once more the issue of TB, TB is an opportunistic infection. It is never killed off, but slumbers in one's DNA until the host's health begins to falter just a bit. Then it begins to replicate and reform aiding the demise of the host and releasing itself usually in an aerosol cough of the host as they suffocate on their own fluids. No, you read it right, the host....I can drown to death. I can suffocate in gasping breath where my O2 lung capacity is decimated and not able to continue to keep me alive and I will drown in my own fluids. I will one day, if not lucky, drown to death and infect others. This means the moment my health deteriorates not only will I be condemned to this horrid death, but I may even pass it along with someone else. 

Ask me again why Im so antisocial.

Im not joking......

Part Two, Why Are You Doing This To Yourself

So....
Yea.....
I just wanted to know....
*sigh* Go ahead.
Are you gay?
No.
Um.....are you sure?
Yes.
Its ok to be gay.
I know that.
Not even shunned that much anymore.
Right.
But are you?
No.
......not even Bi?
No. 
You're attracted to women?
Yes.
I mean, sexually?
Yes.
As in you want to have sex with them? You are attracted....

[At this point, I can tell you're a bit unnerved at this. This is a close friend having that important talk with me either because they have some attraction towards me, someone asked if I was available and they didn't want to steer them wrong, or somehow my celibacy is just a bit too unnerving for them and they just want me to kick down the door of whatever closet Im in so that they can sleep well at night, I know Im a fucking monster. I know YOU care, but I thought that last time I explained myself, usually in drunked state where I can let my sorror out you would have gotten it. Im in therapy for a fucking reason, but hey, here we go again.

.....also, fucking side note...if Whater her face is fucking interested tell her.... HER....HER...I like pussy, alright....Im a CIS male and I love the vag....shit.....*sigh* just have her have a conversation with me. Give her my text and tell her to just have coffee. As in talk. Shit this high school shit is still in my life in my Forties......fuck me....]

.....Ok, should we just cut to the bone. Im getting tired and I don't want my buzz to go to sadness.....AGAIN.
It's just, me and *name redacted* were talking and we are kind of worried for you.
That Im going to die alone and that no one will take care of me?
Well, not exactly that way.......but yea.
I've been taking care of others since I was 15. I married early for whatever stupid reason you can come up, I married early. I was divorced at 21. I raised my children as best as I could until 2007. Since then I take care of myself. Sometimes miserably. Other times quite nicely. Either way, I'm used to living alone, even while staying with others.
Do you miss it....living with someone?
.....yes...yes I do, but the relationship I was in with my ex-wife was beyond toxic as you already know. The majority of relationships have always been toxic. I never beat a woman or abuse her verbally, but for some reason or another they either cheat or leave. I used to question why or if my behavior is what caused it. Sometimes I question and other times I wonder, especially when to this fucking day there is usually someone looking for me. Someone who still wants to know where the fuck I am so that they can apologize and beg me to return. It's sad. I sickening on my part and I just know that somehow I can understand why it happens. How a great friendship or affectionate potential goes south.
But there was that one woman, the one in the office.
Yea.....well. Every now and then I get hit hard. I see someone I become infatuated with and even have a crush. Im too old to have crushes. Shit, I was too old when I was 12. Either way, it's a nice moment where I actually give in to the pheromones and just enjoy the feeling. But it never goes on from there.
Why.....why would you do that to yourself?
I don't know. *lies*

[But I do. Or at least I do now.]

If I had my way, I would like to be in a relationship. I would like to be monogamous. And yet, I have the strongest notion that Im more than damaged goods. I'm perishable. And I say this with as much therapy as I had, you can't have a future when you have a foot in the grave. Yes, I do see myself this way. Yes, it motivates me to do as much as I can and to correct things that I can. but in truth, it's a heavy load. It's a hard thing to do since I know there is always a day that I have to leave. There will be a day where I have to abandon you. No, not die. Abandon. There will be a day where I will have to excuse myself and go far away and die. I don't know if I will have to take my own life, but it's on the table. I would like to die of old age, but the odds of that are not good. I don't have the luxury to have people at my deathbed. I have the luxury of dying in an isolated ICU where heavily protected individuals have to dispose of the threat and process my remains carefully. I don't have that luxury. If I age until my body can not maintain itself, then I have to die this way.

I don't want that.

So the option is always on the table. If I want to die the way I want to either death has to come beforehand or I have to take the initiative. I have to end my life before the bacterial bomb in my chest goes off. And that means suicide. 

There. I said it.

Im always dancing with the Black Dog]

Part Three, Dancing with the Black Dog and Living for Today

My ex-wife and I had a though back when we were young and stupid. 

Live for Today

This was back when I loved her immensely. Before the abuse. Before the atrocities, she would commit to our children in the name of religion and ghod. Before she would leave scars on us all that would not heal without some painful effort. I loved her. And yet early 90s interracial dating was not the most accepted thing. Half of our effort to remain a couple was fighting against our families and society we never realized that maybe we were not compatible. I learned so many years then that someone may be desirable, even fuckable, but you don't want them in your bed. Some people should remain, friends, even if most think you'd hit it off. Best to keep a legendary friend than to make an enemy in your bed.

That is as best as I can see my ex-wife. If I ignore the fact she is as comforting as a hurricane.

And not just a year into marriage and a daughter born do I realize that I have been infected with TB. I've already explained that ticking time clock and I don't want to give it any more thought. I have to continue today and I rather not fall back into depressions.

Hence my point. 

There are those who live for today and those who live for the future. I'm not the latter, but I'm trying. I don't have much of a future. Those of your closest to me know that I have a lot against me. Its why you're so proud of me and what a few years confiding to someone what I would rather eat broken glass than to tell you. I'll admit I carry a heavyweight, but if you work out with it, it feels like nothing. I'm your heaviest friend. Im the one who you can't be around for too long because I start to make you think of the hard questions and no one likes to think about. The questions I had to answer in my teens. 

Even the way I love you is to protect you. I've always been a Dad, some of my happiest years. I'm used to giving you that support you need and to spoil you when I can and to give unconditional love is not as hard when its all you can give. And yes, some of you want more. I cant. Or at least I cant now or even ever. I know, I suck, but you have me willing to die in your corner. I'm probably a bad fuck at this point considering the decade of celibacy, but we can have tea and laugh and I can tell you I love you and know that I do in every way. Except for that one. 

Sorry.

And yes, in other conditions I'd would have jumped at the opportunity and then some. Come on, you know what I do at an opportunity and only some of those stories are true. Some. What Im saying is, yes I'm totally fucking onto you, but one of us have to think of the future of the other and just....not fuck someone over. Even when you love them. 

Even when you love them. 

I don't have a future. I'm working against that, but its the most core thought I have. I don't have one. I have to cheat and hustle to get what I have now, but I have to look at it as a realist so at least I know what I'm up against. Its what in part makes me wonder why women leave. I can't allow myself to give them a future so they seek it elsewhere. The irony is that I might outlive you all, but the reality is that I will always see myself as something dangerous and broken. Something that should have never been allowed to walk freely or to become a risk. I have to see myself that way because someone who didn't even take the time to think about their actions got me infected and just now I realize that its what has shaped my life and relationships with others. How can you allow yourself to be vulnerable to someone when that can be a health risk. Yes, I isolate myself and I live in a safe quarantined distance and even those of you who have broken me down to the point where Im either too open or trusting or just drunk realize that this has been crushing me as of late. It's nice to feel like people and not as the walking dead from time to time, but it is not my normal. I have to live for today and maybe seed a future I may never reap.

It sucks. 

I have to dance with the Black Dog. I have to wear my pin and remind myself that I'm only a moment away from taking my life if things go wrong. I have to tell myself that I have to give what I can and do as much good as possible all the while keeping my distance from you. I rather leave you with stories than with grief. I don't have much choice in either, but its what I can do. So I joke. I plan of a funeral that will make others envy. I plan of a circus event to show how I felt and now that its over to hope that the survivors who know me will leave me to their memories rather than their grief. Its empowering as much as it is devastatingly depressing.....well, to you. Some of us have to carry the weight. I can either choose not to feel it as I get stronger or get crushed by it. 

Ce la vi, no?

Part 4, Carry On

So what do we do now? Now that I shared what has been chewing on me for so long what do we do now. As for you, nothing. You carry on. You do what you always have done and continue to annoy the fuck out of me by trying to connect and the such. You are not the issue or the problem. I am. I will continue to go to therapy, I will continue to work against time, and I will continue to resolve my fears and concerns so that I can make you and others happy. If I am lucky I can overcome this. If I am able to do so, I will live a long and happy life and do many things I can not believe possible. I've been doing well so far. I just wanted you to understand what I am going through and why Im such a miserable fuck. 

We will not talk about this and I will deny if this ever come to pass. I am holding enough and I do not need to know what I'm doing. I can either do what I can or I can put more thought behind it and that will only make me worse. I have to do what I can to make thing better for you. And maybe for me. Just know, I'm not being difficult to be. That no matter how much I want to be close to you and others that I can not. I have to think about the risk even when I don't want to. That's my life for the past few decades.  You either stagnate and die or you live until you cant. So I chose my death. I choose to push myself until I break. I choose to do what I can and when I cant I wait until I see my opportunity. I keep positive and tell you to fucking shit up when you feel the urge to tell me that you love me and you understand. Im past crying, or at least that is what I tell myself. Crying only take up my time. Yea yea, life sucks, but I can still steal the moment and get what I want, even if I know it may not go well. 

I will do and live the best I can until I can not. Then I will go. Alone and end it. So that I am not dangerous. 

And that is that. Best we had this talk if I fall off the world. Leave me some mystery instead of watching a dying biohazard between glass. You will never see me in tubes, I promise you that. I would not do that to you or me. 

I love you after all. Mystery is sometimes best. Leave me that, no?

I'm saying my goodbye now because I don't have the luxury to say it beforehand. I mean, you have issues if I Irish Goodbye your events, so here we go.

I love you. I have to go. Take care of each other. Be kind to yourself and others. Know what hills you want to die on and when to let go of the petty things. Always floss, say may I and thank you. And make sure the other person gets off twice before you call it. And if you have the chance to make an epic memory for someone else, do that! They'll love you for it. 

.......

Yea......this is good. 

*leaves to walk the dog*

3,496 words.