A Christmas Memory

Tuesday December 25th, 2007 - Lake Villa, IL

I’m not going to lie. Today was a rough one. Christmas is traditionally a tough time for me and this one was brutal. Most of the day I didn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t spend it all sleeping but when I did sleep I had all kinds of weird dreams that woke me up again. I read a little and thought a lot and all kinds of images were flying in and out of my head.

If I ever do take my own life chances are it will be during the Christmas holiday. Back in 1994 I remember having my roommate’s .38 revolver to my head on Christmas Eve. I was feeling really low just like I am now and was in a similar situation. I had just gotten my car stolen with about $5000 worth of old baseball cards I had just bought and I was just angry at the world. It was Christmas and all those ugly memories came flooding back like now.

I was by myself because my roommates were with their families so I sat down and wrote a long letter to my father saying how much he hurt all of us in the family. I guess I did it as much for me as I did for him but it felt good to get it all out on paper. I thought about it as I wrote and decided that therapy was expensive but stamps are cheap so I mailed it to him.

Then I really thought about it and decided whether I wanted to live or not. I decided not so I got the pistol out and put it to my head. That’s a pretty serious time to say the least. If you haven’t experienced it it’s quite an attention getter. Staring at a gun is very serious for the one staring and it doesn’t matter who’s pointing it. I was anything but in a fun mode.

I remembered back when I worked at a frozen custard stand when I was in high school. There was a robbery attempt and someone pointed a gun at me and I never forgot for that brief second how everything else faded away and all I could think of was the gun barrel. It really scared me then but I wasn’t scared in the same way when I was pointing it myself.

I was scared in other ways. It’s very hard to put into words but that’s how I felt. I have had two near fatal car accidents and both of them allowed me to have a split second before impact to have a final thought. Both times I didn’t have any fear as odd as that sounds. It’s more like a feeling of waiting for a carnival ride to start. I wondered ‘What’s THIS like?’

I remember writing a suicide note for my roommates and trying to make it funny. One of the lines I remember writing on it is ‘So THIS is what happens when the Packers lose.’ All of us were huge Packer fans and that was perfect for the situation. I also wrote. ‘Sorry for the mess. Please take it out of my rent money’ and ‘You can flip a coin for my stereo.’

I remember going out in the alley because I didn’t want to leave a mess in the house. We were sharing my one roommate’s couch and he just bought it so I didn’t want to splatter it with my skull fragments. I looked around in the darkness to make sure I was alone. I was.

I remember crying because I was just so frustrated and hurting. Why did life come to the point of this? I tried to be a nice person but things just kept blowing up time after time so I wanted the pain to end. I remember taking a breath and trying to squeeze the trigger hard.

For whatever reason the gun did not go off. Talk about an emotional rush. I squeezed it only once because getting to that point of actually pulling the trigger is not easy. It was an emotional moment to get there and I wasn’t going to just stand there and use my skull in a game of skeet shooting. I remember standing there by myself shaking for several minutes.

I went back in the house and put my roommate’s gun away and sat there on the couch. I was worn out mentally and fell asleep right there. I was awakened by a roommate walking in the door. It wasn’t the one with the gun and I never brought it up. It was too painful for me to rehash then but it isn’t now. I am writing about it hoping that it will help someone.

The people who know what this kind of pain is like don’t normally have anyone to share it with. Too many people who have NO clue of how much it hurts take it upon themselves to be self appointed therapists and offer brilliant advice like ‘Just get over it’ or ‘Trust the Lord to help you through.’ I love that. This always comes from idiots with a trust fund.

My friend Max called me tonight and we talked for over two hours. He knows how it is and can feel all of my pain. He has his own problems and I feel his pain too. We went back and forth about a lot of things and it was very therapeutic for us both. His wife doesn’t get it and thankfully his kids don’t either. He’s done a fantastic job of breaking that chain. His kids are great and they had a wonderful Christmas but Max said he is still haunted like me.

My comedian friend Will C. from Kansas City has to deal with it too. I’m sure thousands of others fight it as well and have nobody to share it with. It’s like a mother discussing the pain of child birth. Unless someone goes through it they can’t relate and have nothing they can offer in the credibility department. I am writing this to hopefully help someone else.

I have discussed things like this on the radio from time to time and it ALWAYS gets the most sincere calls from people who are touched by it. The true heroes of life suck it up for the long run and keep plugging away. But that pain is still in there and it needs to get out. Talking about it with someone who understands and has been there is a very helpful thing.

I felt a lot like I did in 1994 today. I am really hurting from getting my computer stolen. I feel used and abused and wiped out. I worked so hard for so long to get to this point and now I feel like I just slid back down the mountain and am going to have to start all over. It was already hard but now it’s even harder and I’m sure not getting any younger either. I’m trying to stay positive but in reality I am sitting in quite a spot right now. I need a break.

I did crawl out of bed to watch some great specials on PBS about old time comedians. It was very interesting and I sat for hours and watched about Groucho Marx and Jack Benny and Jackie Gleason and Vaudeville. Those guys worked hard too and I learned that Jack Benny didn’t make his first appearance on TV until he was 56. That was sure news to me.

Those guys paid their dues but so have I. I guess I’m not able to see what my payoff will be after all these years of struggle. Having a family would be fantastic but I don’t know if I will ever get that. And that’s the kind of thing that makes me think about eating a bullet.