R-2

It is very near three decades that I have spent in this vessel, wrought from energy condensed into matter, aggregated over aeons into this sinew, into this flesh and metal and aqueous form, with its largely praised eyes and its lauded strength and its appalling flexibility and its litheness and its swiftness and its fortitude. Thirty years, this month. I made parents of my parents, and grandparents of my grands. Aunts of my aunts and uncles of my uncles. A cousin of my cousin. Thirty years. There has been no decade devoid of some personal calamity, of some experiences from which I am recovering. There has been no decade in which I have known external peacetime; the country has been at war my whole life, and I feel its effects, though nowhere near the fervour with which those experiencing the war at their doorsteps do. It colours society without colouring my walls. I’ve experienced the transition from landlines to cellular; from desktop to laptop to tablet; the digitisation of the world.

Though the species persists in changing its interfaces, the species itself remains the same.

One of my coworkers earned a promotion which landed her in another office in another state; I wished her a happy birthday, as hers is over the weekend. She messaged me back, excited that I would remember it, and expressed her affection. Another coworker’s child is this upcoming Tuesday, and how her face lit up talking about the plans she and her husband have made for this lovely youth! How her voice rose in pitch and volume as she explained all the things her daughter was looking forward to! And the stories shared back and forth as I walked with a couple of my other coworkers, how warm and comforting it was to relate to one another beneath the soon-to-be-springtime sun! How restorative!

The species itself remains the same, at its core. Storytelling as we survive the struggle.

There are the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves and others; the stories we tell others about ourselves and others. There are those who focus on different aspects of these stories – some prefer to detail the environment, the setting; others the characters; others the dialogue. There are those who tell narratives, those who illustrate.

Thirty years, and storytelling has remained my primary obsession. There is a family story about how I, at three years old, pointed out with great frustration that I was the only person in the household who was illiterate. Every time I come across people speaking a language I haven’t learned, I get frustrated that I have not learned it, and thus cannot understand the nuances nor the context of whatever is being discussed. I was twelve or thirteen when I stopped playing with toys, for I realised that I enjoyed the story aspect more than moving the characters about. I thanked them for their adventures, for our times together, and cried as I put them away, realising that I would likely never play with them as extensively as I had for years, realising that they might feel dejected and unwanted. Because characters have always felt as real to me as the ones who wrote them.

I remember when I had my first epiphany about death – that it exists – in the backseat of my mother’s car. She would affirm that there were dizzying amounts of revelations had in that backseat about the nature of the world, of the cosmos as a whole. I was five when I realised death was possible, when I cognitively shook its hand for the first time. I was coming out of a dream and returning to wakefulness when I found myself stuck in a vast, black space, endless, with nothing but space and myself and emptiness all around. I realised I had come to the end of the dream, that there was nothing left. I had come to the end of my story. And I realised, upon waking up, that there would be a time when I no longer awoke into this lifetime, that this story, as all stories, would end.

Of my beginning there is a comforting level of historical data one might gather. The spacetime is well-defined. There are witnesses who largely agree about the events leading up to my first extra-womb appearance, and those moments thereafter. Some disparities must be afforded, of course, for no one shall in totality ever experience the same event as anyone else. A dozen stories derived from the same event.

Of my end, however, there is no data whatsoever. Conjecture, hypothesis, but no data.

I believe most who know me would agree that my curiosity is satiable, despite its vastness. They might not recognise the former, but most would agree on the latter. I love listening to people, learning about them, about the world all around. One witness to my birth asserts that I looked into people’s eyes after I was born, as if I recognised them, as if I knew. I cannot say I have ever truly stopped thinking, even for a moment; even in situations common to me, I find myself pondering and wondering. There are endless stimuli in the world, and I try to engage with as many as feasibly possible. This does, admittedly, become exhausting, occasionally – often – overwhelming. The need to retreat to a quiet space is not ever far on the horizon from me. But I love it all, I truly do. I love the world. I love the people in it, of all species. I love its stories. I don’t want to know everything, but I want to learn whatever I can.

This is, perhaps, one of my traits which has gotten me to thirty years. There were many times when I have actively sought and wanted my life to terminate. Many times I have tried. There is historical data on that – much of it subtle and implicit, but energy always leaves its marks on the material. I realised a few years ago, however, that it wasn’t myself I wished to end, it was my experiences; I did not seek an immediate termination to my story overall, but yearned to escape the struggles and strains of my story in that moment.

My thirty years have not been easy. Many of the comforts afforded even friends of mine are comforts I have not and may never know. I say that without envy – of the sins, envy has always been my least favourite, the one I have rarely felt; why want another’s life when I have my own? Why have anyone else’s story but mine? I couldn’t have it anyway, even if I assumed their identity. I often jest that I am too proud to ever be envious – though... the jest might be in tone more than truth. I have been homeless. I have survived domestic violence. I have had to choose between food and bills, between sleep and income. Many of my dearest friends know pieces of my story, but I haven’t had it in me to tell them all of it. I love them, every one of them, wholeheartedly, and trust them with my very soul. I could not tell them while I went through it. I preferred to bring them laughter, to listen to their woes and worries, to gather their stories, hold them close, keep them in my heart as one does wood in a furnace. They were struggling; I could be there for them.

I read a book recently, recommended to me by both a coworker and a dear friend, which remarked upon the tendency of consistently traumatised children to forego their own existence, to not see themselves as real – to not see themselves. You can follow through my poetry a similar thread. I have spent much of my life asleep – perhaps “unawake” is the better term. Wilfully and intentionally ignoring my needs, my wants, dulling my hopes and dreams. Punishing myself whenever I dreamt too big. For a long time I had an unspoken rule that I wouldn’t allow myself happiness until my friends had theirs, that I would be in service to them and all my loved ones to help them find their mirthful ends, and only when they were satisfied would I pursue my own. A clever deception, to frame it thus to one who loves so intensely to be helpful. An endless snare, a goal moving ever onwards. Allowed me to punish myself for anything selfish, even if necessary for survival. Allowed me to punish myself for exposing myself to the hurt which accompanies a missed goal. If I never share my heart, it can never be broken. If I never disturb the universe, maybe it shan’t ever disturb me.

But harbours are meant for ships, not the other way around.

I wrote a poem two Decembers ago, roundabout forty pages long, called This Glorious Day. I wrote it through the entirety of that month, looking inside at all the carnage my inner wars had wrought. For the first in twenty-five years, I found peace therein, a stillness, and rather than run from it, rather than drum Ares’ rhythms, I meandered. Allowed myself to walk through it all, eyes open. Observing rather than obfuscating. I unearthed and unsealed the casualties of those wars; I still am, in earnest, and likely will be for decades. There are better ways to lay former selves to rest. There is justice to be found for many of them, murdered victims of turmoil and trauma. And, like the ending of my story, like the happiness and joy and sorrow and woe and other passions accompanying a full and vibrant life, like my strife and my peace, I shall find it.