Last year I started getting a flareup of eczema on my hands that eventually progressed into a severe case. It got bad enough I couldn’t bend my fingers because the skin was so damaged. I think it’s starting to finally die down but resisting the urge to claw at the skin whenever it begins to itch is a ridiculously hard task. And of course, dummy me managed to burn the tip of my finger the other day. Anyway, skin conditions suck and I would maybe only wish this on my worst enemy.
Boredom led me to going through my overly-long list of subs on youtube at this unreasonable time of night (I need to fix my sleep schedule 💀) and I ran across one channel that I subbed to way back in the day because he made a hilarious LP of Façade. And then I saw… ah, his most recent video was six years ago. And he looked and sounded very, very rough in it.
The oldest video on his channel is him singing a goofy little song about Butterfree from Pokemon. He looks like a guy I could’ve gone to high school with back at the time and he’s just having fun. His last video is the same song, but instead of someone goofing off it’s a man who’s deeply troubled. I was curious and did some searching and ran across a post by a friend of his, only to learn he committed suicide that same year. It’s an awful bookend to a channel, seeing the same person in the same room and knowing the struggle he went through, and how this is the last glimpse we see of him; at the same time, it seems so purposeful to do it this way. I dunno why I’m even talking about this but it’s just so, so tragic and heartrending to think about. It’s weird feeling sad (and dare I say a bit of grief?) for someone you’ve never met personally, you know? But I guess that’s just how I am these days. Having so many people in your life there one day and gone the next… it tenderizes something in you, and probably not for the better.
I don’t think I’m doing okay either, but things like this help keep me going. As recently as a month ago someone posted on that last video expressing how sad they are over his death. I think there’s beauty in places like this serving as a sort of living memorial to people being gone.
There’s no easy way to segue into this. Things finally went through and I managed to pay off the bill for my dad’s cremation, and his cremains were brought home to me at the start of February. I just barely managed to afford it, but the weight of taking care of that finally dropping off of my shoulders was such a relief that I couldn’t put it to words if I wanted to. It’s still surreal staring at the box with his cremains in it and seeing the label with his name there and knowing I’ll never speak to him again. I didn’t get a proper chance to really say goodbye, after all, and I think an important part of grieving involves seeing the deceased (at least, for me). We couldn’t afford a funeral for him, but I don’t really know if there would be a point—all of the friends he had lived back in our home state, where all of us grew up and lived a majority of our lives (not much longer for me; I’m approaching the halfway mark of my life being spent here), and none of them are the sort who could afford dropping everything to come two states away for a service.
I had one person reach out to me after my sister posted the announcement on Facebook, and I’m thankful for that much. But it’s hard to express how this has impacted me, and I wish I could afford continuing therapy to talk out what these feelings are because even I’m not sure what I’m experiencing. I sit here some days and know that I’m sad over it all, but there are different kinds of sadness and it’s hard to put my finger on the complexities of the one I’m feeling. I guess a part of me is still in denial, like he’ll call me any day and be like ‘you forgot to wish me a happy birthday/thanksgiving/christmas/etc!’ and I’ll be like haha I just forgot (because I really do sometimes because holidays hurt). But I knew he didn’t have long left, too; the doctors he saw gave him like, 3-4 years when he first started going (and this was back in 2019/2020). I just wish he had tried to take better care of himself. I’m near-certain he was still doing drugs up until near the end, and it hurts to know he didn’t try to stick around longer to meet the new nieces that came (he would’ve loved them, and he would’ve cried if he could see them)—though I think he would’ve sent himself into a tizzy if he knew how bad it got for my sister the day they were born.
He wasn’t a good father, but I miss him. I really, really do, and I wish things could’ve been better between us. I sometimes still look at the text messages between us and I wish I had sent him more.
Mom would’ve turned 68(!) this month. This is also the month she passed away (I always remember when spring starts, because it falls right around the same day, if not on it). I’m going to be frank. I feel like I’ve trauma-wiped a lot of my memories from when I was younger as some sort of coping mechanism. I can’t remember much of her anymore, and it sucks. I still miss her, of course, but it’s so weird to think that’s she’s forever in her late 40s in my brain. It’s also weird to think that my dad managed to live to a higher age than her (9 years older!).
March is overall a hard month for me, one filled with loss (the uncle that took me in when I was a teen also passed away during March); I try my best not to be distressed over things, but it’s hard not to think back on all of the tragedy this time of year has brought me, and it’s even harder not to just feel so sad over all that I’ve lost. Life has never been too kind to me and I’ve always been pretty melancholy, so it’s a constant struggle to maintain joy. But I’m trying. I’m really, really trying.
Also, that book on grief? Shit. Don’t read it.
I miss so many people. I hope the ones I’ve only lost contact with are doing good. I hope they’re eating well.
I love you all.
Tagged nostalgia
