Stealing Water from the Fountain of Youth

Living alone, you have to fight delusional thinking. Community, other people, do not necessarily provide truth, but they do offer perspective. They remind you to sort through the options, making you less likely to latch onto a single dysfunctional idea and tie your emotions to it.

Solitude, in intervals, does bring clarity and health. But extended solitude is a black hole: the criminal justice system uses solitary confinement as a punishment for a reason.

I cannot compare my time back on the hill as solitary confinement. But as one who speaks as one alone, I maintain that God exiled me here. He is merciful, he is loving, he is kind, he is good. And he exiled me.

If this was even about me. He knew my grandma needed help getting through the first 6 months, and maybe I was just the most available body to do the helping. Maybe. Maybe more, maybe less. Speculation and interpretation. I'm a curious human who likes playing the victim. Indeed, the role of victim is one all 3 selves - the id, ego, and even the moralistic superego - can employ at the same time. It's a huge trap because it feels so good on every level.

The only thing I will ever undeservedly get from God is grace. I am a victim of nothing but steadfast loving kindness. I am extremely blessed to have gotten this time with my grandma. It is an extreme blessing that my reasons for leaving are 1)  her spunk has returned and 2) college calls. They are both such good things.

Seasons change. Just ask the preacher-poet who wrote Ecclesiastes.

On one of the occasions when I verbalized my sadness about leaving her, one of my grandma's responses is that she did not want to steal my youth, that I should go live.

Of course I didn't, but I wanted to say, what youth? My faraway friends and I? sure we dance to loud music, raise our glasses and sing with the radio like we just had our heart broke for the first time, and make funny faces as we take selfies, and bop around town and the world like we are unstoppable—

—But we are only acting. We can't even act alone: we leapfrog each other into euphoria. Happiness and craziness come in gradations as we encourage each other higher, harness the spirit of groupthink.

Our youth was never stolen. Our youth was never ours. We are stealing it, smuggling it across the border, reveling in an ecstasy that we know will never last for more than a few hours or days; weeks if we get very lucky.

It's not that the euphoria is forbidden. It's that to whom much is given, much is expected. There is no time for youth because there is so much to prepare for.

There is no time for youth because we look into each other's tired eyes and see flickering candle flames: we are delicate, mortal (please, be my wind-shield). In the privacy of cars, bedrooms, kitchens, rose gardens, we voice our questions together. We are distraught together. People we love are hurting, the institutions that form society are crumbly, and it breaks our hearts harder than first love gone wrong, deeper. Can we really get through life without making the same mistakes? We have already made some of them.

We break together. We trust God together. We find comfort and, of all things, a little dignity.

Together.

Together.

Together.

Together.

Together.

Together.

I can't speak for them, but it is how I thrive.

And Soonest Our Best Men with Thee do Go

The title is a line from "Death Be Not Proud," by John Donne, which is (perhaps rather predictably?) my favorite poem. However, though I've thought about it a lot, I've never quite understood that line until just now. Now, which is when it is brutishly true. Because it feels like death (the "thee," above) claims "our best men" the "soonest." But not just "feels like"...it really does.

In the span of nine months three of my friends have died. The third was just on Friday night (a car accident out in L.A. ). But all three of them had so much potential, had so much ahead of them, had so so so many people who loved them. All three of them had this way of connecting with people, could make you feel so at ease. All three had smiles that they used a lot. All three were in their twenties.

They were our best men, and death claimed them the soonest.

It's tempting to say, "It's just not right." Especially when you see how hurt the people are who are left behind...

It is tempting to say a lot of things. And think a lot of things.

Of anything that happens, experiencing the death of a friend makes me think the most. Particularly when you don't know which kingdom ruled over their life. It really causes you to reevaluate the way you are living, and what you believe.

Reevaluating isn't a bad thing. Nick and Sue came over on Saturday evening, and we were talking about that. Nick mentioned that one verse about the heart of the wise being in the house of mourning, as opposed to the house of celebration; with the result that I now understand that verse a lot better.

So, from this death I have learned two things: the meaning of a line in my favorite poem, and the meaning of a verse. 

However, it in no way justifies the death. I would rather suffer my ignorance than see friends die.