Catastrophist

A part of me imagines everything blowing up and imagines any one I care about dying.

I have no relationships.

I know a lot of people, but don’t really know anyone.

Nobody knows my intentions or what drives me.

Nobody knows my day-to-day struggles.

Nobody knows my grief.

Nobody could understand what happens in the mind of a catastrophist.

My grief is from seeing everyone I know die a horrible death in my mind and I imagine the funeral. I would go. Would I say something? What would I say? This has happened with everyone I’ve cared for since Cindy died in a car accident in 2002 and my life changed when I spoke at the funeral.

When I think of my death, it comes as a gift, a release, a conviction of the mindset that I wouldn’t ever grow old. It’s some quick, minor miscalculation by the world of some violent force and I’m free.

Free of being molested. Free of being in love and being robbed of that feeling by a violent accident. Free of the decisions I made in Iraq, free of the people I shot, and free of the part I had to play in that war.

Free of wondering what kind of person I am or how my own brother would take his own life without calling me first.

Free as a baby that had never lived a life but a part of me craves that blind innocence. Ever since Cindy died and I walked down the middle of the highway at night, hoping for a pair of headlights to veer my way. I have viewed death as the easy path, and the harder path is taken by the living. Since Cindy died I’ve been more comfortable with death than life and those close-to-death parts are where I’ve felt the most alive.

That part where you hit the corner of the trail too fast and fly off the bike, but you spot your landing in mid air and shoulder roll off the trail. That’s when your heart pounds in your ears and your brain is working so fast that everything is slow motion, and you thrive in this realm. But you're not a fighter pilot, you're a dad, your life is important to other people, and how you live affects them.

My inner villain does not want glory or recognition or support, but wants to work and accomplish things 18 hours a day and views calling a friend to check on them as a waste of this precious productive time. So I plan 19 hours of things into every 18 hour day until I don’t remember how to be comfortable. This is sympathetic dominance and I’ll get into this much more later.

I’m building a new mindset in my 40s. I’ve survived a lot of bad things, and it’s ok to be comfortable sometimes.