I don't have to tell anyone who's read this blog that I have a rather complicated relationship with god. I seem to swing violently from dewy eyed new age mysticism to church burning blasphemy. Chock this up to being raised in the wrong gender in a decidedly fag-bashy diocese of the Catholic Church. Being told in so many words that your true self belongs in hell, forever, by a bunch kiddy-diddling fuck-heads in backwards collars tends to leave a mark.
On the other hand, I was also raised by a devout and loving mother who seems to see angels all around her and believes with all her heart that they serve every creature, big or small or queer. I never shared her undaunting faith, like my chemist father, I've always been a little more skeptical, but goddammit if I didn't respect the absolute hell out of it and on more than a few occasions the power of my mother's faith has felt like a salvation on a desperately damned planet of false prophets and self-serving hate-mongers.
So, yeah, my relationship with spirituality is kind of complicated. At no time does this manic washing machine of existential cataclysm get more absurdly bipolar then in times of severe crisis. And wouldn't you know it, this week turned out to be a real fucking dumpster fire. I was suppose to take the week off and go to the Jersey shore with my folks and my brother, a trip we scrape together for and look forward to all year. But last week some snoozing twat ran over our momentary tranquility with a fucking car, literally.
My 59 year old father was out for his daily mourning run last Tuesday when, out of nowhere, he gets completely shit-housed by some overworked paper man asleep at the wheel. Broke both legs, a foot, his nose, carved up his face like a goddamn Christmas roast and left him in a pool of blood for my brother to find him. My father is the strong silent type, not very emotional, but he's the glue that holds the rest of the whack-jobs in this fucking family together. When he got creamed, we all got creamed.
I've already been fighting off a particularly nasty bout of depression and anxiety all month long and when my mother woke me to the news that my dad was in the emergency room, I went into a kind of spiritual split personality disorder. On one hand, I clutched a rosary in my fist like a closeted Republican at Mardi Gras, begging god to give us a fucking break. On the other hand, I was spitting bullets at Christ for being such a fucking cunt.
We work hard and suffer our asses off all year, hanging on to one goddamn week away from our miserable existence and you plaster our soft-spoken patriarch on some ass-wipes grill like a goddamn grasshopper? What the shit is your fucking problem, son of god? Cancer, Lyme disease, depression, Alzheimer's, gender dysphoria, and now fucking car crashes? What's next? Bubonic plague? You'd think we nailed you to that fucking cross ourselves. Give us a fucking break for once. Kind and loving god, my fat tranny ass.
This was where my already severely scarred brain was at when we went to see my father in the hospital. My brother was a goddamn trooper but me and my mother could barely keep our collective shit together. You'd think the car hit us, twice. But god speaks in weird accents when you least expect it. In this case it was through my black and blue father. This man of few words said two things from his hospital bed that blew my mind like an acid trip. He told us he felt bad for the bastard who hit him and he told us it was a miracle that it wasn't worse.
Perspective is a tricky bitch. Just when you think you've got it all figured out, you don't. I think maybe god, supposing such an entity exists, is pretty similar. If my crippled father can see the bright side through black blood bandages then maybe god isn't such a cunt after all. Maybe that very compassion is god and we all have a bit of her inside us. I don't know. But I thank god or whoever-the-fuck that my father is alive to gently show us our place with his strength.
Hold on there, dearest motherfuckers. Somethings out there, it's bigger than us, and together we're going to carry that weight.
Peace, Love, & Empathy- CH
Soundtrack; songs that influenced this post.
* A Deal With God by Kate Bush
* In Heaven by Japanese Breakfast
* Selfish Feelings by Christopher Owens
* Strange Condition by Pete Yorn
* Rejoice by Julien Baker
* There Is a Light That Never Goes Out by the Smiths
* On My Knees by Middle Kids
* It's Okay by Dead Moon
In loving memory of Anthony Bourdain, who taught me how to tell the truth until it hurts. Godspeed, you fantastic bastard. You won't be forgotten.
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