too close for comfort

it seems like a long time since i last wrote; i was busy being dead.

for a while i was on the damnable death-dealing demon drug and it was too painful for words but i tried to tell about it anyway. it stabilized my mood pretty well, but it stabilized it at "i feel as depressed as ever, hopeless and half-dead" and in addition it stole all my energy and most of my soul.

and then i felt better.

and then worse.

better.

worse.

every time i feel worse, i feel a little MORE worse than the time before and today i feel like i'm on the inexorable slow-dance spiral to hell with no hope of a return ticket.

last friday i took off for the adirondacks and a place i know and love. there were geocaches to be found, but i felt like i should come home and go to a saturday church supper. i'd never been to one, and all of a sudden i really wanted to go.

so i came home. it was all right. the weather was bad, but dinner was good. so was the company.

and sunday morning bright and early i bounce out of bed and think: "i will pack my bags again and after church i'll go out caching."

and i do.

but i get as far as bristol (get your own darn map) and i get a feeling that i should go back home, maybe work on a new song that's kind of forming in my brain.

but do i listen?

no, i do not. i take my precious pocket query and all my gear and i head to bennington, where i look for but cannot find an easy cache by a duck pond. i pirate somebody's open network long enough to send czarniecki an email and i manage to go visit before i head on up to my campsite up on kelley's stand.

overnight it snows. it's not an important detail, but it's a grey day, and it keeps snowing. a lot. and i can feel the crash coming on and all of a sudden i don't want to find any geocaches. i am up on monument circle and i have not started to cry yet and a woman with deep beautiful eyes comes up out of nowhere and asks me if i'm all right and if i need help.

i am not all right, i confess, but i reject her offer of help. i take a moment to pirate an open network and send out some emails: Barbara, Flyingfisher, Tharagleb.

a little while later and all in the same minute three emails come in, and they all begin with the words "find a church and go in". i do not. Flyingfisher calls me to suggest it more forcefully. i do not, will not.

an email comes in from a friend i have not spoken to in a while, just checking on me.

after a while the crying subsides. i decide to hunt some caches whether i feel like it or not.

in fact, i do manage to find a few stages of a multi, but then my resolve evaporates and i can't get the energy to get out of my car to walk the 340 feet to one of clippy's caches, so i know i'm not doing so well and i decide to come home.

i only get as far as east middlebury before the crying comes again, harder and harder and i know i'm really losing my mind and in bristol i stop at the roadside and i call Flyingfisher; i don't know why, since about ten minutes into the conversation she is tedious and i wish i hadn't called.

by this time every car that pulls past is in my mind "them" come to get me. it doesn't matter who "they" are. i had slipped very far from Who I Am into being something else, something ugly. i accuse Flyingfisher of some things, i tell her some other things.

i am prepared to commit suicide by cop, a well-known phenomenon and a dreaded one among law enforcement officers:

an unarmed person at a traffic stop emerges from the car and charges the officer, giving the impression of being armed and dangerous, forcing the officer to shoot, usually at close range, and often to kill.

it is cruel and i am not above it. at this point i am not above running down pedestrians, or jumping fully clothed into the river, letting my friend Flyingfisher overhear it on my phone which i have still not hung up.

that whole day will be to her great credit and to my everlasting shame. i have very few real regrets in my life. that kind of cruelty to loved ones is right at the top of the list.

so here's the recap:

i am stunningly, painfully out of my head, paranoid, delusional, and twisted. something much harder, much more deadly had taken the place of my true heart.

and i'm out on the road. alone.

and i won't tell Flyingfisher where i am, other than to say that i am in bristol somewhere. at some point because i have told her where i am, i move the car a couple of times, changing direction twice.

something in me breaks and i don't want to be that cruel, cold person. i think i may return to it, but for the moment i apologize to Flyingfisher. i tell her the truth about where i am. i agreee to talk to Barbara.

this means that Flyingfisher has called my pastor.

i am angry.

it comes out that she has also called my mother, and my friends.

they are out looking for me. this complicates things.

and who else? will the police be looking for me? will they be warned not to shoot?

God has been sending me advice and offers of help all day and i have been rejecting it.

but all of a sudden i get it into my head that if i can go into the church (which is on my way home), if Barbara will meet me there, i will come in quietly.

so she meets me there. she leaves me alone in the sanctuary for a little while.

what i do not know yet is that at this point i have been found by one of my friends out hunting. crashco is certain to see that i am at the church and he goes home, leaving me to Barbara's care.

after a while she sees me home.

when i wake in the morning i write this song.

i had a lot to say about hope and healing and about the certainty that God's plans for me do not include suicide.

i had a couple of good days, but i keep getting slammed up and down and farther down and i don't know that i have anything left.