I do it every day

It’s not an exaggeration to say we’ve all narrowly avoided death. We have, in one way or another, whether literally or figuratively, dodged a bullet. Some of us have great tales to tell. For example, I know someone whose truck got hit by a train, flipped to the other set of tracks and got hit by another train. He is miraculously still with us. Some of us have simpler, quieter survival stories. I know many cancer survivors. Their struggles were heartbreaking and intense, but they were not as action-packed as my train track acquaintance.

Have I ever physically narrowly avoided death? Of course. There were the curves I rounded way too quickly on a Mississippi back road, when my car should have definitely rolled. There was the time I was nearly flattened by an eighteen wheeler that barrelled through a downhill red light. Even though I no longer follow any set religion, I still like to say I had angels those days. It helps me a lot in the dark times, thinking someone somewhere was looking out for me once.

It’s not uncommon for me to screech, “Oh my God, y’all, I just almost died!” Catastrophizing and hyperbolizing are things I do often and well. I know that seeing a spider or something equally mundane is not actually going to scare me to death, but what is living without a little theatrics?

Unfortunately, it is also not uncommon for me to spend long, introspective hours contemplating and planning suicide. I have a long list of reasons I should and different ideas for how I would carry it out, depending on where I am at the moment. If I ever act on my lowest low, it will not be an impulse act. I will know exactly what I am doing and why I am doing it. Don’t misunderstand, though, please. This is not a cry for help; it is merely a narrative from the point of view of a deeply flawed, perpetually drunken individual.

Death and I, we have a tricky relationship, and it is most certainly not a healthy one. It is illicit, intricate, intimate. I used to think Death was just the thing that took someone away--that it was the bullet, the disease, the oncoming car that effectually removed a person from the living. I know now just how wrong I was in that assessment.

I’ve seen Death, many times. Usually, she is just the thing I think I see out of the corner of my eye. In my darker moments, though, she comes clearly into view. I have seen her in the mirror, wearing my face, smiling at me knowingly, condescendingly. I have seen her holding out her arms, offering me the comfort I desperately need in that moment. I hate her and I love her. I want to know her, and I want to never see her again.

Death is a curse, a poltergeist that I wish I could escape. She is also the one being I want to know as well as she knows me. Have I ever avoided Death? I do it every day, and every day it becomes more and more difficult. Often she simply lurks in the shadows, but even that is still too close for comfort. When I see her in the mirror, she is coming ever closer and closer to the surface.

I know that one day her hand will reach out and ripple the surface of the mirror. I will be too frightened to do anything but run and hide from her then. But she will continue to come, and I will no longer try as hard to keep her away. She will step further and further out of her world and into mine. She will come sit in front of me while I am sobbing on the floor with freshly sharpened razor blades cutting their way through my veins. She will offer me her hand, and I will take it. She will slither across the veil and beckon to me from the other side of the busy highway, and I will go to her.

Those days are coming, I know. But these are not those days. These are the days I ignore her. I turn my head and my heart and my mind away from her. I feel her but do not see her. For now, I can avoid her, but like everyone else, I will not be able to escape her.