May 21st 2017
email from me
I wrote this a week ago and put it on facebook.
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WHY HAVE I BEEN SO UPSET? Colin is gone. He means quite a lot to me:
(I wrote this all out, because I don’t want to have to keep explaining the situation. This is heavily filtered so that few can read it. Either you knew Colin, or you posted and expressed concern for me, or I feel you’re someone who has the kind of life experience that will allow you to be understanding, or you are one of the few people I interact with in real life so I’m telling you in case I break into tears spontaneously and start chain smoking.)
There are very personal tidbits in here, so keep that in mind. But some of you seem interested in what is going on with me, so here it is.
My senior year of high school, I briefly dated a boy named Colin. We’d been part of the same friend group for a few years; the small scruffy band of “freaks” in our conservative rural/suburban town. Neither of us drove at that point, so we never saw each other outside of school, and ended up doing little more than talking on the phone a lot. Walking through the woods behind school after marching band practice, I ended up fooling around with my previous boyfriend for whom I’d been stupidly longing. I felt terribly guilty about it, so I broke up with Colin without real explanation. Months later, I platonically went to the senior prom with the same ex-boyfriend, but the post prom party ended up taking place over a series of days at my house (my mom and step-dad left for Italy while I was at the prom), and Colin was amongst my many friends that were there, regardless of prom attendance. I got stoned for the first time. The day after the prom Colin and I ended up in bed together, and immediately started dating again. I’d only had sex once before, so Colin became my first real sexual partner, and it was pretty goddamn fantastic.
I started college, but Colin was a year younger than me. I stayed at his parents’ house every weekend. We were ridiculously in love. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the same ex-boyfriend tried to hook up with me again once I was unavailable. I deflected his advances, and told Colin about it. Colin immediately figured out that I’d fooled around with my ex the first time Colin and I been dating, and was why I’d broken things off. He didn’t even ask me, he just knew it. The situation started a rift in the friend group, and I so desperately wanted to have stability. I ended up breaking things off with Colin, and I broke his heart. When I broke up with him, he collapsed to the floor and I literally carried him to bed and tucked him in. He was a mess. I still loved him, I was just young and stupid, and blind to the bold shittiness of my ex.
My grades tanked, I couldn’t concentrate, I went suddenly crosseyed (I may have had a small stroke?), and I dropped out of school shortly after, thinking I was literally going crazy. I lived with my mom until she kicked me out, and I started crashing at my friend’s parents’ house. About six months after our breakup, I decided to move to San Francisco. A week before I was to leave, I had a dream with Colin in it. I woke up and couldn’t shake it, and told my friend the dream. He spoke to his mom, a nurse at the local hospital, and then told me that he knew what my dream meant. Colin had been brought into the ER the night before having overdosed (on pills, I think?). I immediately sent Colin my teddy bear. A week later, stopped to visit him on my way to the airport so that I could retrieve my bear, not thinking how shitty it was that I brought my current friend-with-benefits with me who was seeing me off.
It wasn’t until years later that I even considered the idea that my looming departure might have played a role in what may have been a suicide attempt. I do not excel at awareness of how I effect others, it would seem. Especially when it comes to Colin.
About a year later, I was back in NJ, now living with my Aunt. I ended up pregnant from a dude who treated me like shit. I crashed with Colin at his folks’ place to go to a test the next morning for my impending abortion. “I’m proud of you. Well, y’know, half proud.” he said with a grin. We slept in his bed together, cuddling. He never judged.
We were still friends, and still party people, and still fell into bed together from time to time. (Once, we went to a Pigface show and it was so crazy with energy we just started making out spontaneously.)
Soon Colin was living in NYC with friends. He told me he had a crush on a girl he worked with because of how much she reminded him of me, so he set me up with her. He got me my first ever girlfriend, and in doing so, my first apartment in NYC.
Colin was all heart.
He started to have difficulty in New York with too much partying, so he moved back home with his folks. I’d not heard from him for a few months, and suddenly he was on my mind, so I decided to call him. Turns out that after months of being clean he’d scored some dope on a whim, shot up, and OD’d the night before I called. He was discovered by his mother who woke from a dream in the middle of the night and felt something was wrong (or maybe I’m confusing it with the first time he OD’d?).
I, too, seem to know when Colin is in trouble. I think of him.
His family had decided to send him to a rehab facility in LA for 14 months. He was just kinda ripped from our lives.
He stayed in LA for a while after rehab, then was crashing with one of his now separated folks outside of NJ. Whenever he’d visit NYC, we’d invariably end up in each other’s arms. It wasn’t until a late-night chat explaining my history with Colin to a heartbroken co-worker (in one of those revealing confessional conversations that you have with your co-workers because they are utterly unconnected to the rest of your life) that my co-worker informed me that I was likely really fucking with Colin’s head. It was only then that it even occurred to me that I could be causing Colin emotional harm.
And yet….
Colin ended up moving to Kansas City. Days before he left for Kansas, he stayed with me, and once again we dove into each other. The kind of physical reunion that starts with watching a movie, turns into a head on a shoulder, and then transforms into imperceptibly small secret movements in ultra slow motion with seething passion (obscured from the dude you live with); and the next day you go out to buy condoms together and are holding hands and giddy about what’s about to happen now that you’ve got the apartment to yourselves – and what happens is awesome.
That was almost exactly ten years ago, but I remember it perfectly.
When he last visited NYC, I was living on the Jersey shore. I was upset that I wasn’t invited to hang with the rest of the NYC crew, and that he’d planned on having me as a separate alone visit, which I assumed was so we could once again have a sexy time. I was vaguely involved with someone at the time, and I didn’t know how to engage with Colin while I wasn’t available. I avoided Colin’s visit. I really regret that.
We still spoke on the phone and online from time to time regularly. In fact, by the end of 2010, we were planning for me to have a long term visit to Kansas once he got his own place, have me sit in on some of his classes, and possibly move there. I think my applying for Disability got in the way, or maybe it was his financial ability to move? Regardless, now more than ever, I wish I had gone.
About four years ago, I was driving home from New Mexico with a friend, and I tried to visit him on our way through Kansas. He was then seeing someone, and this time he was the one who avoided my visit.
We seemed to stay out of each other’s orbit when in a relationship we were afraid to jeopardize, I guess. He’d gone to college at 29, got his goddamn Masters, and was pursuing a doctorate.
It’s no surprise then that I hadn’t really talked much to him for the past four years. A handful internet chats here and there. But either he or I were involved, and I figured we both tried to stay out of each other’s way. Our online chats seemed distant.
A few weeks ago I’d messaged him on facebook. I’d been thinking of him lately. I told him Depeche Mode always made me think of him and smile. I offered him a place to crash with my boyfriend and I if he ever wanted to move back to the area. He declined my offer.
The past week or so, he’d been posting a lot about Ramona on facebook. I kind of assumed it was a girlfriend, and stayed out of it. Turns out Ramona was his cat. He wrote:
“In case no one caught it. My baby kitty Ramona has gone missing. I can’t begin to get into what her presence and the deep psychological well being I have attached to her. But I am not well. I will not go anywhere without her. She’s the last bit of what I can even recognize as Colin I have had left in the world for years. So with her gone. So is Colin.”
Colin had named her after the girl in “Scott Pilgrim vs the World”, a movie he’d been rather preoccupied with for years. When I realized Ramona’s identity as feline earlier this week, it suddenly struck me that his love of that film might have to do with me. I was literally the girl with pink hair when we dated, and I know that I’d had a series of exes he felt overshadowed by, because he told me the last time we were together.
Colin was in my thoughts, and I should have reached out to him. Instead, I just kinda creeped on his facebook profile. A lot. Thinking about him, remembering times I had with him, listening to songs that reminded me of him that still make my solar plexus ache, missing him.
Thursday night I went to sleep thinking: “Colin was the best boyfriend I ever had. I should probably let him know that” and “I should send him one of the Xiu Xiu albums I bought.”
I drifted off to sleep remembering that last time we were in each other’s arms, remembering it vividly, thinking about how much he meant to me, and finally realizing… wistfully thinking about how great it would be if we could end up together again (for good), how much he had loved me, and how much I still loved him. (Not the most noble of thoughts when sleeping beside your current boyfriend, I realize, but that’s that truth.)
My thoughts were that specific and longing on the subject of Colin.
A few hours later, Colin OD’d, and this time he didn’t get saved in time. Strangely, my boyfriend woke up choking and gasping for air at the same time that Colin stopped breathing. I slept through it. I’d taken sleeping pills.
I should have fucking known. Colin was in my head. More and more, he was in my head – even before he was upset about his cat. I should have done something. I should have called or written. I should have appreciated him.
I’ve been crying a lot.
I drank a fifth of jack daniels Friday and smoked almost an entire pack of cigarettes. Or was it Saturday? I got another bottle of whiskey yesterday and drank half of it. I’m hung over.
He was such a good person. So sweet, so sensitive, so smart. He deserved better. I’m not handling this well.
He was so starved for love and acceptance. And I could have given that to him. I should have. I wanted to. I was just too late.
I didn’t even bother to respond to his posts about his fucking cat.
I keep listening to this song. Colin made the best mixtapes, ask anyone. He put this song on a mixtape for me when we were a couple, and I’d listen to it at work and get all fluttery feeling.
Now it just makes me sob about missed opportunity. Missed years of mutual support. Of total understanding and adoration and passion.
I’m so fucking heartbroken and angry. I’ve bent over backwards offering help to shit-heads, giving encouragement and hope to people that step all over me. Had I given Colin a fraction of that effort and care, I have no doubt he’d be alive right now.
No fucking doubt.
Fuck.
I can’t get that fucking song out of my head and it keeps making me cry. I found a letter Colin wrote to me when we were dating and he fucking quotes that song in it.
My boyfriend is being really sweet, and not getting annoyed at my level of personal filth and getting drunk and crying all the time, but I am so heartbroken over Colin I’m having difficulty interacting with him. I don’t know how to explain this to him.
I talked to my ancient friend-with-benefits, and he thinks there’s no doubt that I was Colin’s Ramona, and that Colin’s first hospitalization was OBVIOUSLY related to my move to California. So…. I’m not just making all this horrible shit up, I guess? It’s real, and I get to know that I continually fucked up the sweetest guy I ever knew, I ever loved, so I could pine over assholes who treated me like shit for years.
It was always so effortless with him, but I got it in my head that you knew it was real when it hurt – when you shouldn’t, but you couldn’t help yourself. Just being happy wasn’t enough. I wanted EXPERIENCE more than I trusted I’d have found such perfect love and acceptance so early on. I didn’t know how valuable those things were, nor how rare.
He was isolated and alone and he lost his Ramona, and with her, his last shred of himself. I could have helped. Even if I couldn’t change anything, I should have been there.
My chest physically hurts. I’m having a lot of problems getting my head around this. The timing is just cruel. It’s like I got the shitty alternative ending to When Harry Met Sally, where after years of watching Sally dick around with shitheads, Harry slowly lost faith in life, love, and all of humanity, and Sally shows up with a sudden epiphany of his romantic worth to her just in time to see him die with a needle in his arm over a lost cat.
A cat named Sally.
Yesterday I spoke to Colin’s good friend who was crashing with him. Colin had shot up and was passed out for over an hour, and the paramedics weren’t called until Colin stopped breathing. The paramedics evidently said that he’d have been able to be saved if not for some heart valve damage that had happened during “a previous suicide attempt.”
So. I might have literally broken his heart those many years ago.
I am not ok.
It hurts.
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A few days after that, I realized….. that the many hits I was getting to my site over the years was Colin. There were so many I thought it was a bot. But Overland Park is right outside Kansas City. I didn’t know. I didn’t fucking know. Jesus fucking christ.
I broke into hysterical sobs.
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Since then, it hasn’t gotten any easier. I don’t think I’ve ever been this upset about something.
<Boyfriend> started getting tired of my crying and sorrow over Colin’s death by day four. He is basically incapable of concealing his feelings. He can’t conceal a goddamn thing. I’d been trying really really hard not to cry, because he was clearly irritated at it. I broke down while trying to make dinner, and he was comforting for a bit, but conversation then turned into a heated debate which ended in him yelling at me. He told me repeatedly that I was being “indulgent” with my sadness and was angry at me for feeling I may have been able to avert the situation leading to Colin’s death had I been more present in Colin’s life, and was angrily asking me “Why you? Why is it your responsibility?!”
As he left the kitchen, he added “what about his parents?!” to imply that THEY were the ones upon whose shoulders Colin’s addiction and salvation lay.
His parents?! His fucking goddamn parents?! They are such sweet people and great parents.
It inspired in me such a cold fury that the painful aching in my chest that had not budged for over a week was suddenly coated in a thick shell of ice.
I haven’t cried since. I’m just cold.
As a result, my guts are a mess and food is just running through me now. Fun times.
I’m also trying to get through Twin Peaks, with which I already had really rough associations due to that friend of mine killing herself a few weeks after her 14th birthday due to guilt for having caused my mother to kick me out two days prior. She’d been OBSESSED with Twin Peaks, and I ended up with her Twin Peaks soundtrack.
Colin was also friends with her.
I was postponing a re-watch of the series, because I kept getting too upset and nervous about it, but the new series is almost upon us, so I’m forcing myself through it so <Boyfriend> and I can watch the new series.
It’s making for some serious emotional flashbacks and it’s like I’m 16 all over again, only this time I don’t have any close friends, and I’m not allowed to cry, and instead of my first girl crush, it’s my first real boyfriend.
I’ve not been included in any gatherings with any of the NYC friends Colin and I shared. They didn’t even contact me to tell me he’d died.
A good mutual friend of Colin’s in London was also cut out from the NYC crew, so…. they didn’t call her to tell her Colin died either.
Colin’s memorial is two weeks from today in the south end of NJ. <Boyfriend> will be working, and didn’t offer to go with me, (which I am probably happy about?) but did offer to rent me a car, or Uber or something so I could get down there. I’m going to go to the funeral alone, and I’m afraid I’m going to lose my shit. I don’t know how I’m going to handle seeing his parents. His sisters.
I’ve been facebook chatting with the woman Colin dated a year after we broke up, a sweet girl a few years younger than I, who now lives in Florida. It’s nice to have someone to talk to who agrees that Colin was the sweetest boyfriend a person could ask for, and just… such a loving person. She’s heartbroken by it as well. She’d only just talked to him a few weeks ago.
Aside from occassional chats with drunk crying Florida girl, and random chain smoking skype sessions with drunk crying London girl, I’m on my own with this.
It’s eating me away.
I can’t listen to music. Colin first exposed me into most of my favorite bands. Watching Twin Peaks … it’s just filled with drugs and needles and young love, and I can’t stop thinking that Colin and I still saw in each other in that pure youthful teenage love, and that’s gone from my life forever now.
I don’t… I don’t have anyone who knows how to talk to me anymore.
All I do is smoke cigarettes and bury it all.
Everything I find out about his last two relationships eats me away. They slowly destroyed him. I should have been there. I wish I’d been there. I wish he knew I cared for him.
I honestly have no doubt that he’d have been OK if he knew I still cared about him, that I still loved him, and thought we could end up together again.
Why the fuck didn’t I know it myself before the NIGHT he died. What the fuck?! What was the point of that?! Why did I have to have that fucking epiphany at the most pointless and painful time possible?!
The fucking timing of this couldn’t break my heart more. I’m so fucking shattered. I hate myself so fucking much.
So fucking much.
I haven’t finished re-watching Twin Peaks yet, but knowing that the new season is starting tonight is literally making me feel like I’m going to vomit.
email from STefan
I will read this. But, I have parents trying to drag to a wake now, which I’m not going to. And where I live now, is a block away from the hall where I went to my first girlfriend’s wake after having her mom tell me she just found her after not reading all the simple pleas for talking she was asking of me. I was too busy killing myself as usual. And the pictures of us. You know how it is. Youre first real connection…in most important ways, we were inseparable And wore each others ripped stockings And I wore her lipstick.. And all that shit…important times. I started reading what you wrote, and…I’m telling you….I really get it…I really do. She was cremated and I was talking to her mom while the tiny box of ashes was between us. Not fuckin easy. We all have important chapters in out lives. People like me and you just dipped in and out of darker spaces than most. I’m trying to fend off really stupid suicidal ideations myself. Which I only have during withdrawals. My body quivering, weak…dreaming of a needle. It’s So fucked. I’ve seen the death, I’ve been revived with the narcan shot, and defibrillator to my heart once. You just…die…and keep going. So, I know how sick I am. And how deep the shit you feel is. But, I know it’s cause of the pain mostly…,I’ll bring the email up on the larger tv computer to finish reading it a little later. I have too much Shit going on to respectfully give it the attention I’d like to. All this stuff, while going thru drug withdrawal shaking in a tub. Feeling awful I can’t be there for you. This is a really dark time for me. I can see your going thru so, I should be there regardless. The best thing I can do is try to clean myself back up. For you…for or I people that actually care. My eyes are so welled up with constant salty fuckin tears I can’t see the phone screen. They burn the shit out of my eyes. I keep having that opiate deprived yawn tat hurts the jaw and squeezes out the tears.
I don’t know why I’m still here. The shit I’ve gotten myself into, seen, done, avoided. I never got a chance to really tell you what I’ve been doing these last few years. It’s been, Christ. Not good. Took me months to detach myself from it. And I’m on the last legs of it all Now. If I can get over this.
We’ll get together soon, and I’ll be an ear to listen to All you need to talk about. And I’ll read it all later.
I’m trying….
email from me
I wouldn’t have bothered you with my crap right now if not for the fact that you went through the death of your ex in similar circumstances.
I wish I could delude myself into believing in an afterlife.
There’s no rush with reading all my crap. I’ve got to work on the podcast, find more Colin stuff on my hard drives, and then torture myself by watching most of season two of Twin Peaks, so I’ll be busy.
Your description of your highschool girlfriend is pretty similar. I scanned in all my Colin stuff. https://www.flickr.com/photos/rachaelnoel/albums/72157681687910260
I just ate a bunch of bread to calm my guts down. I feel like I’m going to vomit or puke.
The only thing that’s keeping me from suicide these days is my nihilistic atheism. If I actually thought there was something after death, I’d have leapt off a tall building by now.
I’m not sure how much more life I can take, y’know?
email from Stefan
Yes, I do know. And we seem to align in our reasons for only being able to peak around the corner of suicide street. I am so fixated on the technicality of everything. Just being hear by chance. Being what we are. Just happening to be a collection of cells of a species whos ability to be cognizant of its existence is also a reason that so many think they’re special and have some cloud party “up”( whatever that means to whoever is standing where) in the sky, which also I’m sure which layer of the atmosphere that’s on. I really think once you see the lifeless face of a dead baby in your arms, or a friend who’s just done too much in a shooting gallery, I can’t help but to be sure we’re just fertilizer when it’s over. Lights fuckin out.
I’m not doing myself any favors by listening to experimental Psychology, Sam Harris, and biology audio books as I go about my bleak days. It’s just handing down everything. I feel like I wanna believe like I did When I was 13. Ya know…like when you were still on the fence about ghosts and mystical shit. You were getting just smart enough to dismiss anything close to Santa Claus, religion, and any other clear beliefs based on your geological landscape you just happened to be raised in, but still open ( meaning uneducated I guess) enough to explore the unknown. As we probably did with our first relationships. I’m sure you have stories of convincing yourselves you were having joint experiences you know now seemed so real because of how awe struck you felt, but in retrospect, you know was emotionally charged, hormonally charged, or just…intense moments in growing up. And we both research so much about how faulty our senses are, and pair that with how hyper creative we both are, all of the chapters in our lives feel so important and intense.
I put a lot of stock in the years we kept each other grounded. Or maybe the word is, comforted. We were both coming from a v chapter were we kind of both, just had it with things enough to care less about huge friend circles. Yet, we were fine with just spending time together once we started considering we obviously got along like gangbusters for quite a stretch. Things happen, emotions run there course and hurt, next chapters come in. And time goes by enough for us to still be able to reach out, as friends…and talk about shit.
And we just happen to be in sync with our materialistic views and hard stances on that we’re just here…for the time we’re here. It could all end with one drop of dishwashing detergent causing me to slip and crack my head.
I really don’t know if we do ourselves a disservice by getting so spongy with research on these things…and would be better off letting a little magic in. But, I don’t feel honest if I was to. Possibilities. That’s fine. The unknown. That’s fine. I like that I know things are bigger than we can reach. And I like, that we know that.
I’m not sure why we’re still around, and why we probably will be for a long fuckin time. Maybe suffering in one form or another the whole way.
You ate the bread. I ate Half an Apple, and a cup of corn flakes. That’s the calories we could hold down today.
But, that’ll get us to tomorrow.
I’m so used to misery, it’s pretty alarming.
I’m sorry we’re here right now. I expect we’ll get better, before it gets worse. Even though I’ve been flipping that phrase for the last few days. Difference between the macro and micro scale in time I guess…depending how I want to slice it at the moment.
Blah.
I hate auto correct. You’d think it’d know the their, there, they’re, to,two,too, here,hear, than, then, and so on’s by now. What kind of shitty AI is this? I gotta see if I can turn it off. Its gotta be in settings…right?
May 22nd 2017
email from me
I’m really fucking tired of being the person to whom people remark: “How do you keep such a positive attitude after how much you’ve been through?” or “You’ve been through a lot” or “You know how hard life can be”
Like…. I got all these fucking girl scout badges I never wanted, and didn’t even realize I was earning. Now I’ve got this sash with all these symbols for all these fucking “accomplishments” but all I’ve really got is scars.
I keep trying to convince myself of non atheist outlooks. And I can’t. And it’s breaking my heart.
And not for me. I was never afraid of death for myself. Or for my Gramma, or my Aunt Mary. Yup, there’s stuff I never got to apologize for, and stuff I wish I had a chance to fix or repair, but that’s gone. Forever. And it sucks and it makes me sad to think about, but it not like this.
Not like Colin.
He died feeling alone and unloved. I know that. I know him. I know what drove him to his escapism. He was too kind, too sensitive, to romantic.
He was essentially Donny Darko. Like, when that movie came out, it was eerie how much it was exactly Colin. So I try to convince myself that he died because he knew that to live something terrible would happen. But that’s ridiculous and I don’t beleive it.
I’m not really making sense. I’m trying to keep myself from crying because I know I’ll be hysterical and I want <Boyfriend> to stay asleep so I can watch Twin Peaks by myself.
I filmed something with Bill Zebub yesterday. It was nice to take a break from being me.
Did you read my whole long Colin saga? I didn’t mention in there that I was who first introduced him to dope. Yup. Found it at the mall, bought it off the 14 year old that worked with me, and I was SO PROUD of myself to bring it over to Colin’s place for us all to try. Smart. Go me.
I can tell myself with some certainty that he’d have found his way to heroin on his own, but that doesn’t negate my role in his life. Within a year or so he was asking me to hold his spoon for him while his teenage sister was knocking on his bedroom door.
Twin Peaks is digging deep in me. It’s digging deep into my scars.
email from Stefan
I’ve killed people weaker than me. People who didn’t deserve it. People I cared about. Loved. I could’ve easily not have done what I’ve done. I could have saved people.
This is a grim world Rachael.
The whole, introducing dope to someone. Christ, you were a kid. My friend beats himself up about giving his brother the bag that killed him.
I’ve handed dope to a close friend, and finding out a week later after being mad they have been ignoring me after he, “favor” I did them. And they died that night. And My last words were, “careful with that”. “Don’t do what you saw me do”. Ugh. Be careful…geez. Like I was handing them a sparkler at a barbeque. I’m not proud of the 2 second caveats I used to give people before they followed me along with something I would always question, “I don’t think they Know the risk of death here. But, I don’t have time for this”. So, they do what they do.
I handed them the poison that killed them specifically.
I’ve shot up plenty of people. As they have me. But if they said stop, or no…I’d stop.
So, we’re not grim reapers.
Just from a world where shitty dark things are normal.
You cared about him. Loved him. You didn’t do anything harmful to him.
I’m not sure how desensitized to horrible shit I am cause of the last few years…well no, cause of my whole life. Everything you’re going thru is valid. But, you will move past this and see it differently.
You will.
I’ve literally been called a murderer.
I’m having a hard time hearing and talking about heroin. Spoons. Just reading those words are making my chest clamp up and my skin crawl. I’m telling you I’m ruined. And it’s my own fault.
I’m gonna have a smoke. I just made myself…I’m not what I did. But, I did it.
email from me
<Old Friend> gave Colin the bag that made him OD and his parents send him to an LA rehab.
When I called her to tell her about Colin dying, she sounded condescending. “Yup, that’s what happens…”
As though we didn’t spend so much of our youth hanging out with Colin together. Like he was just a sum of his drug use. As though being reminded that drug use exists is an imposition in her life.
As far as me moving past this and seeing things differently…. I’ve decided that to kill myself I need to be accomplished. Sort of like playing a good game of “Asshole” (drinking game), I’d never leave the table until I was president. It’s lame to leave the game while you are the asshole. One should only remove themselves when they have succeeded at their goals. So… I’ve got to accomplish what I need to do to feel I’ve succeeded in life before I can let myself bail on life itself. I need to know I did everything I could to make it bearable. So, I’ve got roughy five years. I’ll get my fucking spine surgery somehow, and I’ll create whatever big awesome work I feel like I have inside of me.
The promise of release becomes my motivating factor, and I’m kept from making massive decisions while my life is shitty. Granted, my idea of a successful life is probably bar below the standards of most, but whatever.
Sorry about all the heroin talk. Twin Peaks is fucking with me in that regard as well.
email from Stefan
<Your Old Friend> talking like that is sad. I look at things concretely, but people lost…matters. It affects you, precisely because they do.
I don’t mean at all, ( to be clear) to sound like, “been there, done that, you’ll get over it” type shit. At all. I say that, because I relate to your pain. And because I know you. Ive seen you struggle, move up and down.
I really just simply mean you’ll not cry every day over it. You’re emotions will always be real, but you’ll experience things that push it back. It’s always I the file though. And maybe I’m wrong, but, I don’t think I am. And I’m careful to only speak on what I think I know to be true.
I OD’d 3 times. Once it was from something a friend gave me. I never brought it up. And they had to idea what drugs I did When. So, I just never had a reason to say it. Aside from the OD’s, I’ve been gotten hospitalized and had procedures done more than a few times now from shooting garbage. I value my life. But, addiction is such a demon possession type of disease…I struggle constant with why I go back.
And the thought of creating is really the crux of my…uhh…hope. Purpose. Goal. Something. So, I agree there. I don’t feel I’ve made my mark quiet in the way I want to. I have plans. Well..more plans.
Its amazing how just writing about this makes me tighten my ass, squeeze my legs together and get the chills and stomach flips. I will beat this this again, and move on like I have before. I have to think of myself as something different. I never quite feel connected to addicts in detoxes or rehabs. The way they’re so. “It is what it is”. The problem is, I always end up talking to the one other dude that plays an instrument, gets a bill hicks reference I make, or does something else, other than drugs”. Has experience in both worlds. Has…compassion. Is smart. I think Colin and I would’ve gotten along. I always try to seek out the person who looks out of place, or is there for the first time. And bring them a yoohoo and some candy. And just say something to try and make them laugh. Then, I’ll say…”Christ, you can laugh now, you’re gonna beat this. Just stay away from negative shit”. It’s a weird scene. It’s like a high school where everyone’s gagging, and shaking, complaining and grouping up”. Some are there by the courts, or trying to dodge their court date. Everyone’s different. I’ve ended up in them by my choice, as well as involuntary.
I don’t know where I was going But my intention was to have this point about you. I drifted off. I honestly am really…really struggling writing this stuff. But, I have hundreds of pages of my thoughts on this written for a book one day soon.
But, I don’t want you to hurt as much as you are. Even if while you’re reading, you’re thinking of one of my drift off rants. It’s maybe getting you’re mind off something else for a minute.
Alright…I just had a karate kick. I can’t those spasms. They sometimes make me laugh when I’m in my…”nothing if off limits to comedy mood”. But, it’s not right now. Ugh. This sucks.
email from me
I know that addiction and heroin is a big part of Colin’s downfall, but that’s not the bit that destroys me.
It’s the lost time. It’s the fucking certainty that I was significant enough to him that I’d have been able to change the direction of his life. It’s realizing mere HOURS before he died that I was actually ready to settle down and sit still and feel utterly contented being with someone who adored me and understood me completely, and that person was him.
It’s finding out that his last two relationships were extremes for which I was the middle ground.
It’s realizing the shit about his cat, and his many hits to my site.
It’s cataloging all the pointless crap I spent hours of my time doing, while Colin was slowly drowning.
It’s knowing that I put off contacting him and telling him how great he was, and so he died without knowing.
It’s thinking of all the loneliness I’ve suffered over the years, and realizing it could have been avoided if I just appreciated someone being that devoted to me and stuck with it.
I mocked it. I thought it was lame and pathetic for someone to care about me that completely. I didn’t realize then how rare it was to feel utterly unselfconsious around someone, utterly unafraid, without fear or suspicion. Without missing pieces. Completely trusting.
I don’t know that you read my whole Colin story. But please do. It’s less about heroin than my addendums would imply.
email from Stefan
Ah. Yeah. That puts it in perspective. That’s what you were saying by you remember me saying something similar.
Yeah, she sent me email after email( even in an ancient email too I forgot about) after me ignoring the,”can I please talk to you” “hey, I know it’s been a while, but, I just feel like we need to talk. I, really do.” “hey, I’m back in Lodi on the east coast, I’m two blocks down from your folks. Still at my parents, can you come by?”
I just kept saying to myself, “yeah yeah, LA didn’t work out so you’re bored back by your folks in Lodi. I got my my own problems.” I was ignoring the “can you come over”. Like, she was asking for my help. I thumb scrolled thru the emails on my phone as I went thru the day. For a few weeks. Then, it stopped for 2 weeks. Her mother told told me she was staying in the basement cause they weren’t talking. She OD’d. And it took her mother 2 weeks to open the door, go down and see why she hasn’t been hearing anything. She was dead, going thru that awful biological process as I sat shooting dope 2 blocks down for two weeks.
I was kind of pissed actually, <Chick Friend> was there, a few other friends came that knew her. And they were stoned, and giggling like goofballs. I get it. I was high there too. But, it’s amazing how heroin addicts can be socially composed on heroin, but we see lot smokers like they’re on acid or something. That’s a different issue.
But, I only showed <old friend> the texts and emails…because I was getting them constantly while me and him were in Elmwood park or Fairlawn at he diner.
There’s more, but, after reading your initial email, I felt I should share more of the details of what exactly happened. Although, I think you’d more or less knew that.
We could go thru the exact same thing, and experience it completely different. Though, I don’t think we did. I beat myself up fairly well over it. It’s always convenient when you’re feeling guilty and you’re already an addict. You just use more.
Again, after reading everything you wrote again clearly, I don’t have to ask if you get what I dealt with, and Still do to a degree. That’s heavy shit you said. It’s, a Mother fucker. And I’m not being light. I just don’t have any words for certain things and am over looking thru a thesaurus.
I wasn’t trying to derail anything you were saying in the last email. I was just drifting cause of what Im dealing with.
I’m sorry Rachael. I’m here if you feel Like writing, just wanna vent. Or want feedback. Or not. Just tell me.
email from me
I just….
I wish I could believe in something.
But even if I did, it would seem stale. Like, even if there is an afterlife, then Colin would presumably be at peace, at one with the universe. That’s not what I’m after. I missed out on LIFE with Colin. Life with things like kisses and food and comfort and sex and comedy and passion,
I mean, it’s just…. like the last bit of purity is gone.
I don’t know if you listened to that Depeche Mode song I had a link to in the original email thing…. but it’s probably ridiculously cheesy and saccharine. It’s ridiculously romantic. But that’s how much he meant it, y’know? That song is what it felt like.
There’s those associations that you’ve got since you were young…. when you see people you knew as kids, you always see a kind of amalgomation of them throughout time. You still see and feel an entire past when you know someone that early in life. And you know the building blocks of what makes them THEM. And now that’s gone forever. I could have had it, but it’s gone.
I look back at old photos of me, and I was fat and had horrible style, but he thought I was beautiful.
He had too much heart
And people tell me that he had a support system, that nobody could stop him from doing drugs when that’s what he was after, and maybe this sounds egocentric, but they weren’t ME. They weren’t the girl he’d pined over for decades. You don’t control someone into being clean. You give them a reason that THEY want. You let them know that they are needed and wanted.
His problems were less about addiction itself, and always about escapism. He was too sensitive. He felt everything so much. He needed something to fully encompass him. When he was doing well, he got really into nutrition and working out and was going raw food for a while. For a stretch he was playing Warcraft all the time. Just something to keep him from the horrors of life.
And I know how much a person can influence your life, into the depths of doom, or throw you a ladder and help you climb on up.
I don’t know if I’m crying more for Colin or for myself. Colin spent the last seven years in bullshit struggle and feeling like shit. I had no idea. And if I did, I would have been able to do something. And he died hating himself.
I don’t know. I don’t fucking know.
I just don’t know how I can live with myself.
He never asked me for help, but he was bleeding in plain sight, and I just walked right over him.
It’s all related to the stuff from highschool as well, that I’m fucked up about. And Twin Peaks. I’m really on edge.
I’m buying packs of cigarettes for myself. It’s been I don’t know how many years since I bought myself packs of cigarettes.
I want to get stable and numb enough to just plow through life like a machine for a while and get stuff done. Because the frustration of Colin having spent the last ten years doing little more than starting college from scratch and trying to keep his head above water, only to die a year an a half before getting his PHD is not the kind of frustration I’d want to inspire from anyone else looking at my life path.
I wanna go out on top, dammit.
I’m sort of crying, and I just don’t even know what to say anymore.
emails from Stefan
Here’s where I give you a choice ( because you’re clearly spinning yourself in circles). Do you think you can handle what may seem harsh…but promise is nothing but honesty from my heart as a friend. One who is clutching a toilet and won’t hide what I think will help you.
Never mind email. We’ll talk soon. You can continue to write if you need to vent. But, I wanna respond to each sentence and its too much to do thru email the right way. I’ll see if I can take the car one night and drive us around to talk.
email from me
I’d rather harsh and honest.
email from STefan
I’ll give you harsh and honest…but, m gonna really try and get my roommates car one night. I’d rather drive around and talk.
I email some screenshots of the IM conversations between Colin and I on the topic of atheism and the afterlife.
May 23rd 2017
email from Stefan
Alright. I’ve got a good window into things. I appreciate you’re trust in sharing such private dialogue and all of your lengthy descriptions. I’m not sure if you’re posting these or not, I know you share you’re personal issues online as to get helpful feedback. Something I’m really able to do. But regardless, thanks for giving me as much as you have.
I can’t really say much. Other than, I got a lot stewing right now, and you’re very caught up in emotion. Rightly so. And it’s making you focus on certain things, and perhaps depriving yourself in seeing other things that may or may help you.
Well, like I said…we’ll talk with faces, or voices at least. My feedback is collecting on the shelf until then.
And, regardless of when that was written. You do have at least one friend.
email from me
Thank you.
email from Stefan
I meant “something I’m really not able to do.” I think you knew what I meant. But I really had it with the way this auto shit fights me. It won’t even let me write certain words. Like, I have to Fuckin commit to changing my sentence. Christ. I got a short fuse.
By the way, It’s a fuckin miracle the corner store outside sells comics ten steps from my door. And they have dollar bin. I really don’t need comics accumulating right now. But I do need shit to read while trapped inside and buying comics here & there with the change in my pockets doesn’t make me feel that bad.
email from me
I can send you comics I downloaded if you want.
May 28th 2017
email from me
So Colin’s one good sober friend since highschool has been posting the music that he and Colin made together. Colin wrote the lyrics and sang, Jason did the music.
There’s three songs: https://soundcloud.com/jason-sullivan
The song Every Day I heard while Colin and I were dating. He wrote it while we were together. It’s all about how every day he’s afraid that I’d leave him, because I’d realize he’s no good for me, that he’s sorry for hurting me but he loves me.
Which… he literally didn’t do ANYTHING to hurt me ever. I was just too young and restless to be with someone that devoted.
That was already pretty difficult to listen to.
The third song, the one that starts with a rain storm, that was written in the year or so after we broke up. These are the lyrics:
Do me this favor, it’s not to much to ask.
Don’t ask any questions of the future or past.
Or even of the present, just let me forget.
I don’t need a reminder of what I can’t get.
And please don’t come near me, don’t knock on my door.
And if you should touch me, and I’d lose it for sure.
It’s bad enough to see you, or hear what you did.
And if you were to touch me, I’d feel so, feel so sick.
I still don’t see the problems, that made you walk out.
Never fought you for control, never tried to lock you out.
You asked me what I wanted, the wrong question you see.
The real real here is what you wanted from me.
And please don’t come near me, don’t knock on my door.
And if you should touch me, I’d lose it for sure.
It’s bad enough to see you, or hear what you did.
And if you were to touch me, I’d feel so sick.
And please don’t come near me, don’t knock on my door.
And if you should touch me, I’d lose it, lose it for sure.
I can’t help myself. I can’t eat anymore.
I continue to tell myself. I can manage without you.
As my mind recoils, I think I’m somewhere safe.
You never grasped the point, of how my heart was raped.
So…. just some more confirmation of how much I fucked with him. For years. I just toyed with his heart, when he did nothing but love me and be there for me, again and again.
I’m really losing my shit.
I can’t cry about it to <Boyfriend>.
When I try to just… conversationally explain to him when he comes home from work that I got upset earlier in my day and why, he just… doesn’t respond. He just wont talk to me about any of it.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to handle this or live with myself. I fucked with the guy who loved me more than anyone, and just didn’t even pay attention to anything in his life for years, just keeping him in my mind on the back burner, sleeping with him whenever he was convenient, not bothering to think about what it might have been doing to him emotionally.
And I realized his love of me, and the real value of that, the FUCKING NIGHT HE DIED. Why did it have to happen this way?!
I kept from crying for a while, but hearing Colin sing about how much I fucked him up is really breaking me.
Nobody who knew him can realistically tell me that he wasn’t pining for me for years. They try to minimize what effect I could have had on him, saying that he was loved by family and friends and he still went back to getting fucked up, but nobody even pretends that I wasn’t who he was wishing for. And honestly, I don’t believe that the love of family and friends is anything to compare to romantic love.
He fucking literally says in his Every Day song that I was what living was for.
Fuck.
email from Stefan
I just read the first paragraph. I’m sorry. I’ll get to this.
I just lost a friend who was like a brother to me. One of the very few people I used with that gave me a bed when my folks alienated me and I was living out of my bookbag. I can’t go to the funeral cause it’s in Rhode island and I just can’t do that right now. He wouldn’t give a Shit about a funeral anyway. I’m listening to a few things we’ve recorded, as we we’re in a Band together while I was playing one if the last shows at CBGBs before they closed.
I lost 3 people in the last few months alone. I’ve lost track of the losses at this point.
Also, my brother sent a TEXT saying he disowns the family. Because he’s being forced to finally live on his own for the first time in his 41 year life. My parents can’t afford the house anymore, largely because he’s not paid them rent in years. His rent could’ve paid their mortgage. So he’s disowning the family Because the 3 bedroom apartment my parents let him hide out in, taking advantage of them is now come to this.
I’m glad I live above a dance studio that’s currently for rent. I can play muy guitar all night or day.
I’ll read this when I square away some of these things.
I spent half the day, with my friends crying mother, then my own crying mother on the phone telling them to try and not be overcome by guilt. In my mom’s case. She doesn’t need anymore stress
I’m just a little worn out right now.
No-one is checking on me daily. Obviously because I’m not telling people weekdays going on. And trying to help whoever I can with their issues.
It’s just wearing me down and I don’t wanna be the next on the list. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t fear the possibility of death tomorrow. I’ve been able to always bounce back, maybe because if my luck, or because if my genes, when everyone around me bites the dust.
I forget sometimes that I could be next up at bat. I get a “hello”? By people sometimes. Then when I respond they just say. “I was just checking to see if you’re alright”. Meaning alive. I really hate that.
I’m, really tying to not lose it.
I hope you’re dealing with your issues best you can.
email from me
I’m sorry you lost a good friend.
Can’t they just kick him out and keep the house by renting out the apartment?
I’m glad you get to play music.
I’m not dealing with my issues very well.