Bitterness, melancholy and family trips.

...ohhh gawd.

Family trips are always a moderately frustrating thing for my family, mostly because we have to deal with living with each other in a vacuum for an extended period of time with no escape, especially when we're cramped in my crazy grandma Peggy's tiny trailer in depressing-ass Marion, Indiana.  Also, we're all (specifically my mom and my brother) incredibly stubborn.  Of course, though, this is nothing new.  From the dawn of time man has gotten stircrazy when in close confines with the rest of his/her family (pic above very related).

Normally, all of this is manageable.  But not this year.  As a result of a number of pretty awful circumstances this year there's one less person celebrating with us, and we're all the worse for what happened.

The amount of bitterness between all of us --especially during the holidays after the baggage of the rest of the depressing events of the last year/years--was palpable as we piled into the car after several unbearable screaming matches and almost leaving without my brother.
It's an awful thing that would make the people you love and care about most in the world shriek and be terrible to each other, even though you know they don't mean half of what they say.  It's a genuinely heartbreaking thing, especially during a holiday where you should be appreciating each other and being thankful for the love that you have for and receive from others.  However, the anger speaks to the beast of confinement that is so present and prowling during trips with family; it picks and pries at what bothers us most about each other and preys upon our weakest of moments.

Mom and Spenser eventually got over their squabbles as I sat quietly in the back of the car and we got on the road, and despite several more ragefests on the way there we made it to my grandma's house.
Here now was my turn for depression and bitterness.

Ever since I was child, whenever I went to my grandmother's house I would always be confronted with my own mortality. We come here every year, and so it serves as a watershed moment to compare my present with my past self.

A lot has changed, normally.  Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.  I always come to the realization though:  I've grown older in what seems like a very short amount of time, and so have the rest of my family.  Health deteriorates, and everybody grows more and more jaded

Of course, most of my family is jaded, and rightfully so due to the shitty lot that life has dealt them on occasion or in the past.  However, me being a normally optimistic person, it's difficult to deal with; the tragedies of real life slowly creeping into my body like a poison.

This bitter poison is something that creeps into everybody's life eventually.  It's how human life works.  People  do shitty things.  Families split apart.  People get sick and old.  People die.  And the only thing those that are left behind can do is pick up the pieces, reform your life and continue on, carrying with you the sadness and horrors of the past locked away in your heart and in your skull
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As I lay in the bottom bunk of the bed that I'd laid in ever since I was child visiting my grandma, I couldn't help but think about the huge disconnect between the idyllic days of my youth and now.  I'm sure those of you reading this have felt this many a time, as people often do.

But it wasn't just nostalgia.  It was utter dejection at the loss of so much since I was small, both for myself and for people that I once knew well;  love, innocence, respect, an unhindered view of the world.
And here I arrived at the crux of what was bothering me--the bottom of the well, the troll hiding at the back of the cave.

I, like EVERYBODY ELSE AROUND ME, was growing older and closer to death.  I was experiencing the tragedy of life as something with a definite end, just as everybody has.  And I was not alone at all, especially NOT in terms of the breadth of my problems compared with other people.

I have friends to talk to about my problems, friends who care and who have gone through the same things.  Though most people have been damaged in multiple ways by the process of time, hitting many rocks and almost drowning plenty of times along the swift riverflow of life, many of us are still alive and well despite dealing with awful things that have happened to us.  Some of us may be clinging on for dear life to the roots of trees on the edge of the bank, attempting to ignore the inevitability of aging.

And because of that, we all need people to talk to.  We need to connect and find out the stories of those around us and let them open up to us just as we would like to open up to them so that we can bitch about our own problems.  The compassion of friends, and even people you didn't think you knew very well, is astounding and a heartwarming thing.

Talking is the most therapeutic thing to do in the world so long as you do it right.

It's a candlelight held between friends and loved ones in the terrible storm of the world, rain pelting your sides like bullets, wind screaming and licking hungrily at your being, natural forces struggling to pull you into the unjustified chaos of the world.