06 October 2007

Life After Death

I'm not quite positive of its origin, but it's there. It could be sexual abuse, it could be depression, it could be adoption. It could be the lethal combination of all three, a delicate strata of tragic circumstances. Given my penchant for reading and re-reading books on adoption (and then re-reading them again to make sure that I didn't myself write them), I'm pretty sure it is adoption.

It's that inescapable and seemingly inexplicable purgatory: Existence.

Do I or don't I?

I spend hours of days looking in the mirror and seeing right past. That's not me. I don't look like that. I don't know who that is. I don't know from whence came those lips (even though I've spent equalled hours of equalled nights pressing them to my wrists in hopes of validation). I am just as perplexed by these eyes, seeing all and nothing.

Evey once in a while though, something hits. I am startled and mildly angered by this unexpected intrusion, the unpardonable trespass of the reminder that Oh wait, I am real. I do have a mother. I did come from somewhere. I was thrust out in a different era under a different name.

But from whom?
But from where?

I am an unsolved syllogism. I am Then Q. There is no If P.

This happens to me intermittently and without warning. I remember that I am real and something combusts, burns, and frightens me. I feel nothing. I am completely numb save for a burning and intensive pain, searing and branding the indelibility of non memory into my presence, into me.

This is where suicide comes in.

How could I die unless I existed in the first place?

5 comments:

elizabeth said...

Sometimes, especially recently, the only thing that keeps me alive is the thought of seeing Paris again.

suz said...

i wanted to comment on the usual amazing quality of your writing but somehow that seems horribly wrong considering the content.
thus, i have nothing to offer but a hug and a wish that you are okay and will continue to be so.

Doughnut said...

You very much exist and I am glad you do! The good, the bad and the ugly memories and feelings makes us who we are. How can one know a non-memory unless imagined?

Still Born said...

That's so profound.

Unknown said...

I know, and it is such a profound part of us, at the same time so unquantifiable, you can't explain to the non-adopted how literally shaking the lack of genetic connection is.