Letters to Breathe » To God

Blues is Dead

admin — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:38:39 +0000

I’ve been writing emails to my first and only love for about five years. She almost never responds and never has anything to say, and I mean that literally. And here I am, trying to make her see, and maybe she does. She is at least sympathetic, she at least lets me write and doesn’t misinterpret me, as far as I’m allowed to know. Maybe it’s perfect because all I want is someone who doesn’t have any opinions of their own. That’s what I’m afraid of, because then there’s no hope for me and she’s known it the entire time. It’s a milder form of pity, and nothing more, and there’s nothing more that I can demand, because there’s nothing she can do and I’ve already explained that I’m afraid I might kill myself. There was nothing she could do. But that was years ago.
But that’s always the fear I have with suicide is that it wouldn’t really be my decision. It wouldn’t be me, it wouldn’t be anyone anybody knows, it would just be hands and legs and a body and the tip of my nose. What does Wittgenstein say, the “atmospheric” approach to consciousness, I think, but that’s really what it’s like sometimes, just to float in an atmosphere, where there are hands and legs and a body and the tip of a nose. A whole inaccessible world. Sometimes maybe they do it out of spite, to get a message across, and that’s one thing. Sometimes curiosity, sometimes to end suffering. But this isn’t an option for me because I can’t imagine an end to color or space or time–I no longer believe that there is a spaceless, timeless, colorless. So I can’t kill myself, or I could but death is impossible.
I’ve been away from my home for some time. Everyone is connected, and there are always new ways to connect and communicate. And none of them work. Anonymous letters is the only alternative to an ex-girlfriend. I have plenty of friends but I can’t say what I want to them. I have an ex-girlfriend who in theory lets me say what I want but there are many things I’d never say to her again. It’s infuriating. I can click a button, a like button, and do more for myself than to have a thought. I went to Europe on a student loan, graduated, and now I’m rotting in America waiting for a relative’s wedding. I sleep in her guest room and all they do is watch tv. They live in a suburb of a college town but never leave the house. The television is always on and I’m always drinking. I try to start a band, to play my music, but it’s been too long since anyone has believed in me. I see a double chin forming, I hate the way I look. I lose hope that I can go out and find a person to even talk about the weather with. Everyone catches me off guard. I try to sleep and I can’t even think of a woman I have a crush on, to imagine to lay next to. I have a guitar and a backpack with a few books and some clothes. All of my Charley Patton is on a computer in another state and I don’t have any money to buy new songs. I have to borrow money from my mother. I need a job but I have to wait until the wedding is over to move to a city and find one. I lost my drivers license in Europe so I won’t have the proper two forms of identification until I don’t know when. They’re feeding me food and liquor and I can’t complain. The worst part about all of it is that I have no reason to complain about anything in my life, other than that I have feelings and thoughts and nobody wants to hear them. And here I have family and friends, and still, I have the audacity to say nobody will listen to me. But I will go to their open mic night, on Wednesday, and hit on whoever will have me, and play until my fingers bleed, and sweat and smoke and have all the confidence in the world. Then I’ll wake up fat.

Dear God

tdomf_f02d5 — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 15:43:49 +0000

I have lied and cheated my way thru life, with hardly a thought for anyone else. I’m selfish beyond belief. I have cheated on both of my husbands, I have lied to my sister, and everyone close to me. I have stolen from my sister, mother and mother-in-law. I wish my family would disappear most days. I hate most people in general and prefer the company of my dogs. I’m ashamed of my husband when he says something dumb. I’m just vain, selfish, and not a nice person. I throw fits, I scream when I don’t get my way. But it has finally caught up with me. I’m depressed most days, I cry, feel like I’m going crazy. My body is disentegrating. I hurt all over, I don’t sleep, my guts are a mess. Payback is hell, and I’m living it. But I deserve it. All I can say is I’m sorry. Truly sorry for who I am.

Dear God, why do you do this?

admin — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:30:01 +0000

I will never understand why you decide to take people away, or why some of those people are so young. Recently you took away a friends two year old little boy, Bryson, he fell into a pool, why didn’t you stop it, why didn’t you use your power to alert his mommy to the problem? Why have you chosen to take him, leaving behind so many people that loved him? And leaving a mother and a big brother that will almost certainly feel guilty for something that could have happened to anyone? How unfair. You have taken from me as well, you took my baby girl Ashley Nicole when she was just two months old. The doctors called it SIDS, I call it crap, there was no reason for it, I was a GOOD mother, I loved her so much, yet you took her from me with no warning, while you leave children with mothers and family that abuse them, that don’t deserve the gift of a child. Why me? Why Shellie?

I used to have no doubt you existed, but ever since the loss of my baby girl I have lost that faith, more than anything I hope you don’t exist, I know I may go to hell for saying that, but you know- if you are really there and you decide to send me to hell for feeling the way I do, or decide to send anyone that kills themselves because they just can’t find the strength to go on anymore, if you really do just send people to hell for that, then I don’t want to be in your heaven. I can’t imagine a god that would send people to hell for being conflicted, if you are all powerful then you know what is in my heart, you know I try so very hard to believe in you, to trust you, to have faith, but I see things happen like the loss of Bryson, and all the other children and families suffering so much loss that I just can’t get to a point where I feel you are really there.

If you are not really there than all of the loss in the world, all of the pain and hardships, the abuse and neglect, everything just happens, no ‘reason’ no excuses. After my daughter died people would say things to try to make me feel better, but they didn’t. Things like “I know how you feel, I had a miscarriage last year”- no one could ever KNOW how I feel, not even if they had their child for exactly the same amount of time that I did, not if they had the same situation… Just like I could NEVER begin to think that I know how anyone feels when they loose someone. People meant well but it was just too much, I was too angry… at you. Then people would try to make excuses for you and why it happened, the most hurtful one was from a person I barely knew, all she knew was that my husband and I did not get along at all and I wanted to leave, she decided to say that you took Ashley because it would be hard for me to leave him with two children. Really? How is that appropriate? But you allow people to say these things.

All the cruelty in the world directed at people who just need support is so sad. The fact that you allow people that act like this to go on without a bit of guilt for emotionally abusing a grieving mother. For saying things to that mother that already has a shit load of unnecessary guilt that outright accuse her of letting it happen, or saying it happened because she was neglectful. As a mother to a very precious 15 moth old girl, I KNOW it is all to easy to loose track of them in a matter of minutes. Experts and doctors say you need to let your child have freedom, don’t hover over them all day to smother them and hinder their emotional growth. So we try to let them play, we thing everything is safe but even the best child proofing job has it’s flaws. There is always the possibility of something happening no matter how careful you are. But then we do just that, let them play in what we assume is a completely save environment, god forbid something terrible happens and then everyone chastises the parents for not being more careful.

I just don’t understand your reasoning, if there is any, and I doubt I ever will. It is a sick world out there right now, full of corruption and murder, and hate. I don’t want to believe in a god that will allow these things to continue to happen. A god that will punish people for things we will never know, and a god that lets the bad people reap the rewards while the people that try so hard to live life the right way have to sit back and watch the drug dealing crack headed neighbors come home with a new car or boat every week, while you struggle to work your two jobs and barely get by. Why you decided to have our car break down on the way to our anniversary dinner, costing $700 to repair, when we can least afford it. Why you took my baby, Shellie’s baby, and so many other sons and daughters.

Writers Note:
For more information about Bryson you can read this post about what happened, or this post with a update and a list of several other posts from Shellie’s friends. There is also a series of wordless Wednesday pictures dedicated to Bryson Ross, the mom blogging community gathered together and each took a picture lighting a candle in his memory. It is a beautiful project and I am sad to say I missed out on it because my camera was not at home that day. Thanks to all that have been supporting Shellie at this time, and to those that have been against her, karma is a bitch, you will have to answer to this one day, maybe to God, maybe just to some random accident you have that will surely show you what you have done. It is sickening to see people acting this way- especially mothers.