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2002-03-07 - 11:45 p.m. today started in the morning which is unusual for me. 6 hours sleep, got up and cycled an hour to uni, talked to my supervisor for an hour, he told me that I could attend one of his undergrad classes if I liked but it was starting at 5 tonight, so I cycled home, spent three hours killing time in the pointless fashion I am so well versed at, then I cycled back out there, sat in class again which was a strange sort of homecoming, then met a friend and chatted for a while, then... ...actually, fuck that. I'm not going to enumerate everything I did today. Suffice it to say that it involved considerably more effort than I'm accustomed to spending, since I'm accustomed to doing virtually nothing all day every day. What a worthless slob I am. I thought I might write about something from my distant past here, on the bike ride home (total hours spent riding the bike today: 4) so anyway here it is. It's in the form of a letter to my mother; not that I have any plans of showing it to her. - Dear Mum, Do you remember that day, when I was eleven years old or so, maybe it was twelve, and we went to visit that castle somewhere in Europe? It was a great big old castle set in some beautiful valley, but it was a pretty boring place for us kids because it was basically a museum that you took a guided tour through, you know, "on our left is the blah blah blah, which is interesting because blah blah..." But at the end of the tour, they took us up to one of the battlements to admire the view. I walked up to the wall at the edge, and looked over, and I saw - long drop, no railing. I immediately thought, I could jump off here right now, and my stupid miserable life would be over forever and ever - all I have to do is take one little step... ...you came up and pulled me away and sent the rest of the family away and took me somewhere to talk to me. You knew what I was thinking. I didn't know how you could tell, but you could tell that I'd been thinking of killing myself. Do you remember what you said? Your words of comfort? Yes, that was sarcasm. Because you didn't ask me what was wrong or ask why I was so unhappy because you already knew exactly why but you didn't give a fuck, did you mum? You didn't want to know why I wanted to die because you didn't care to think about what using your children as a rubbish dump for all your unpleasant emotions meant for them, did you? Because we're not really people when we're little kids are we, we don't feel it when you punch us, do we? So what did you say, what words of comfort did you have for me mum? You don't remember? Well, here's what you said: you said that if I killed myself it would ruin dad's life. You were really angry at me for being so selfish, too, I recall, really bloody angry, not that that took much. Any excuse to kick the kids is a good one, right? You fucking bitch. You decided that the reason you would give me to live was that it would hurt my father to have me die. It's not much of a reason to live, is it mum? I mean, if that's what it comes down to, that killing yourself will make someone else feel bad? That's the only reason I should be alive, right? That's what you had to offer me, mum, guilt, just piled it up, didn't you. All your own guilt that you didn't want to face or deal with, I got it, my sisters got it, you gave it to us. Thanks for the present, mum. A present is always more special when you know it's going to last forever, isn't it? Well, that's all I wanted to say. You know, dad never showed that he cared about me one way or the other. Either he wasn't home or he was too busy to spend time with me or the other kids. He was a stranger to me, you know he still is, because I've never gotten any kind of human feeling from him, except anger, of course, he didn't miss out on his chance to let some of his own venom out, they're only that weak for a limited time, after all. Limited offer! Fifteen years only! After that, they're gonna be big enough to protect themselves, so take your chance while you can! You know, you only stopped hitting me once I started to get big? You act now like it was some kind of fucking change of heart but that requires a heart, doesn't it? It makes a lot more sense to see it as calculated self-interest, which fits in with every other decision you made with regard to me, wouldn't you say? Where was I? I guess I was just saying, that if the only reason to go on living is because it would hurt other people to do otherwise, then it's not much of a world, is it? It's not much of a life that you gave me, is it mum? - I thought that letting all that out would make me feel better. Um, don't take it too seriously, anybody that reads this - I'm just, you know, trying to work through my issues. I think there is more reason to live than just guilt, you know, now, but I just wanted to express my bitterness that that was all she gave me at the time. Anyway. - "Spanish Johnny drove in from the underworld last night With bruised arms and broken rhythm in a beat-up old Buick But dressed just like dynamite He tried sellin' his heart to the hard girls over on Easy Street But they sighed, Johnny it falls apart so easy And you know hearts these days are cheap" - Bruce Springsteen
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