Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Spiritual Warrior



I know a handful of people will click on this blog curious for possible details on the recent death of my friend. You won't find them. I feel your hot breath on my neck, your hungry eyes scanning my Instagram stories despite not reaching out. I'm full of anger, don't make yourself available to my irrational wrath.

Grief will tumble in and find you straddling an invisible line between utter numbness and panic fueled OUTRAGE. Nothing, nothing-yet everything, everything matters. Not regardless of, but because of, the end.

In this strange and obscene past year I've been training to become a Spiritual Warrior. I've learned how to show up and face the senseless fuckery of death and despair. The intimidating, horrible, beyond uncomfortable moments that we crawl through during the worst anguish imaginable.

Death comes- and stricken with a pervasive helplessness, we send flowers that wilt, commemorating human expiration. Instead, consider that your presence in the midst of sickness and loss will never be forgotten. Avoiding the sheer awkwardness, the nausea inducing interaction that facing other people's grief entails, is for losers. Toughen up. Show up. Cry, cuss, hold each other, sit in silence, suffer in solidarity. Don't send a goddamn text and call it good.

There are no great answers for why we are the way we are- why we die, or why we're here in the first place. Each death is a transformative experience for every single person it touches. Suddenly our lenses are divergent, our aperture expanded to a size where almost nothing is in focus.

All I want to do is honor you. By living, and persisting through the brutality of existence with fortitude and generosity. Oh, and with the quality of sheer bluntness that only you possessed...