Dying Young

Being here, at The Bridge, brings back a lot of memories.
Some good, some bad… some very bad – all of them important in my life; they made me who I am today.
I’ve lost and gained so much here.

Here where the sun would set, sinking into the water below and everything would turn beautiful for one glorious moment – until you turned from the sun and saw the unkempt condition of The Bridge, like most streets in my home town: Cracked concrete, rusty side railings, paint washed away from the rain and oh was it dirty.
Lost pennies that were so worn out it was no use pocketing them, and calling them lucky if you found them heads-up. They lay with trash, so they were trash.
Broken pop bottles, cigarette buds, beer cans and news papers blowing in the wind like tumble-weeds, - The streets were ugly and The Bridge was ugly. But they were familiar – and therefore beloved.
I especially remember one section of railing with the middle one, of the three rusted safety bars, missing. I would stand there sometimes and think about all the people from my past that had stood there too.
I would look down at the murky water body beneath The Bridge and think of all the people who may have ‘fallen in’ or just jumped off, wondering vaguely if their ghosts were still swimming around in the dark polluted water.
I would even start imagining pale, translucent, dull faces bobbing on the surface of the water, starring up at me, like they were trying to remember what I had meant to them while they were alive.
See, that’s the big thing about me; my imagination is really… vivid. I’m out of Control.

That’s what separated me from most of my friends. They weren’t very serious, and would never think before acting, which is why they always got into trouble. Okay, sure, I’d been in my fair share of trouble too, even with the cops on many occasions. And I could be loud and wild and stupid and crazy. But sometimes I would just stand back and observe the action, rather than be a part of it.
I would think about everything, absorb everyone else’s thoughts if they’d share them with me – and just let time move on without me some times. Before what happened (which I’m about to tell you) I used to pretend I owned time and that I had all the time in the world.
Boy was I wrong.

So maybe I’ll tell you now. About what exactly happened. And maybe if I do so, the ghosts in the water will remember, and maybe not miss life so much.
And why wouldn’t they? Well, you see the things I’m about to tell you aren’t all that… ‘Pleasant’.
But reality is never all that pleasant.
Reality.
It chooses the worst time to leap out at you – and you never expect it until it slaps you in the face.
Then what do you do?
You either get over it or you don’t.

So let me tell you about the year reality leapt out at me and took my already not-so-orderly life for a spin.
It might take a while for me to get this all out of my head. I‘ve buried it quiet deep inside my subconscious, you see.
You might read this and think “How awful!” – But it’s only reality, as harsh as it seems.

With that in mind, I want you to know how I got out of it, and how you can too if you’re in a bad place and spiraling down into a worse one like I was.
Some people don’t like reading about reality. They say it’s too sick. Too bold. Too influential.
Consider what I’m about to tell you a ‘Danger Ahead’ sign.
Reality is a bitch and she’s ready for you.
You’ll never be ready for her.
But if you read on you’ll know what to do after you’re hit.
That seems like a more noble reason to want to tell you my life story – but really, I just need to get it all out of my mind, off my chest and carry on with my life.

I want to be happy now.

So if you’re ready, just go for it, I’ll try to get everything right…