I just finished a new song. It's ridiculous to talk about it since it won't be released for another year, but I love this song so much. It's a song about cutting, which, unfortunately, I know a little bit about. Now, to be sure, I've known people who've had extensive issues with cutting. I dated a girl with more scars than I could count. We talked about it at length. She dealt with more than I could bear. My experience with it is not on the same level and I'm not trying to compare but I can relate, in a different sort of way. The reasons behind a person being in the mindset to do such a thing are varied. I do not pretend to understand all, or even any, beyond my own. And, I realize my reasons were not very common. They were an outlier and therefore I'm not trying to compare my experience to others. As I've mentioned, I've intimately known more than a couple people who have struggled with far worse issues. I'm merely trying to say that I understand this issue more than most. I've both internally and externally dealt with it. I wish I hadn't (no one should) but the seed has been sown. I can't undo my four scars, and I don't particularly care to. I hold on to them to remind myself of what I can become. It's not pleasant but it's not meant to be. I relish the reminders of harder times. They make me strive for the good times, regardless of how few and far between they are. I try to keep the memories strong to keep myself on the right path. Someday, I might tell the whole story, which is long and boring, at least to me, but for now I'll keep it simple: I struggled with creating a dissociative disorder for myself. I didn't think I was real. Or, I didn't think the world around me was real. I vacillated between those two realities; no doubt influenced by the intake of pain killers, Xanax and copious amounts of alcohol. Also, the amount of self-hate and depression. Moving to Portland was the single most tragic thing that ever happened to me, which, I know sounds ridiculous but it's true. I was immediately depressed upon arriving but tried to associated those feelings with leaving New York City. No city was ever going to live up to NYC, so I was just experiencing a normal drop off. Not so. I knew more than I could realize. Sure, I started a band, made some albums, some music videos, enjoyed minor success and met my wife here, but the toll it's taken on me is irreparable. I'll never be the same. Frankly, I'm surprised my insides have only given out once with the amount of shit I've ingested to try and get by or enjoy myself or life. Life hasn't been very enjoyable aside from getting married. I've loved getting married but part of the reason is that I finally get to leave. You see, my wife didn't feel comfortable moving with me before marriage, which is understandable given how shitty and undependable I can be. But, Portland is the city in which I tried to murder myself, cut myself to establish the fact that I am a real being and thought about death multiple times per day. It's not a place I will look back upon fondly. I tried to kill myself once in Seattle too, but have nothing but good things to say about Seattle. That is not the case for Portland. If Portland were destroyed by a nuclear bomb, I would not only be OK, I would rejoice. I have Asperger's so I don't really care about any of the people I don't know that would have died, and selfishly would love to see this place burned to the ground. Good things may have happened as a result of this place, but the damage it's done to me and my well-being will never be rectified. I will live with the literal and figurative scars forever. I don't expect to outrun them. I don't expect to get over them. I don't expect to live happily alongside them, though I'm trying; especially now that I'm married. Marriage for me was almost as much about self-preservation as it was about love. I needed something to unselfishly live for. Which is selfish as fuck, I suppose, saying it out loud. My wife is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I felt guilty marrying her knowing full well I might kill myself. I probably won't anymore, as she's unbearably wonderful and amazing and brilliant and beautiful, but I can't guarantee I won't. I might do it by mistake. There's only so much a liver can take, and all the drugs, alcohol and pills haven't helped. Despite a massive cutback, the damage may have been done. Although I feel like I might live forever given my not-give-a-fuck attitude, but maybe I'm wrong. I haven't been wrong hardly ever, but it's possible I guess. I hope Kanye is doing alright... I know he's taken a lot of shit for his SNL comments (which weren't aired, so he was right, black people do have to keep their thoughts to themselves...) which are semi-justified but not wholly. He's not completely wrong on anything, he just didn't articulate his thoughts in a way that non-Kanye people would understand. I get it...
Oh yeah, and happy Columbus/murdering, raping and enslaving indigenous people day. Maybe that's why I'm so down tonight... Fuck that Italian asshole.
(dictated but not read)