Giving May

I feel like my life is falling away from me. Like I’m being introduced to something completely different. My faith scares me.

I read diary entries from two years ago and I talk about falling again, feeling like I’m falling again, spiraling, going downward in some capacity. I’ve always had a fear of heights, and the reason is falling. The fear my body will fling itself over an edge and gravity will win. That’s just the natural order of things and I don’t want to defy it.

I don’t know why I always feel like I’m falling maybe because that’s a poignant emotion maybe because I remember it well maybe the feeling of transferring from reality to the world of cerebellum spasms, a storm of malfunctioning maybe it’s what I return to. That’s what I remember it feeling like - falling, slipping away. Falling into the floor and into myself. Falling into myself, and at the very bottom of it entirely and deeply alone in my own. Falling into myself and finding nothing there. Just a black pit of unconsciousness. Maybe I’m scared I’m going to fall into this pit again. Maybe I did once and I never crawled out.

The more experiences I have, the more people I meet, things I see, you’d think that it would make me feel more connected, cultivate a greater sense of belonging, but no, the opposite. I feel more and more vindicated that I am alone in myself. Alone in my perspective, in my understanding.

I’ve been trying to give away my extra food to homeless people. On Saturday it was ice cream and Sunday peanut butter chocolate biscuits. I had just bought a joint for the beach and the homeless guy sitting on a blanket in the shade of the bus stop asked, “Spare change?” and I didn’t so I told him no but opened up by snack from Trader Joes. I offered him one, saying, “It’s peanut butter, is that okay?” and he nodded yes. Is it infantilizing to say he reminded me of a kid? It has to be the mental illness aspect as well.

A young boy, probably my age, sitting on the sidewalk in front of Safeway wrapped in his blanket read his torn book intently. “Would you like an ice cream?” I got no response so I was about to walk away until he lifted his head and said, “Yes please” and “thank you.” I think he was just finishing reading.

Everyday I see so many things we don’t need. Worthless convenience created not out of utility, or improving the world in some capacity through beauty or appreciation, but solely for money. I would be willing to give it up if it meant other people could have more. I’d be willing to give up my laptop and phone if it meant children didn’t have to be slaves in cobalt mines. I’d rather not have the chance to eat any fruit at any time of the year if it meant there were more sustainable agricultural practices. It’s all a trade and we’re making the wrong ones.

But I’m sick again, it all makes me sick again. Empty empty conversations and little lives of lies. Please stop talking about celebrities.