how do you become complicit in your own destruction?

when i got ill and had to spend a lot of time invalid (it's weird to use that word on yourself), my dad told me to "take this opportunity to reflect on your life." as if i hadn't done enough of that already. by the time i left the hospital the first time -- almost exactly two years ago -- i already assumed i was going to be dead and accepted this fact. it kind of does something strange to your head when you've submitted to death and then find yourself still alive in a half-alive state. to put it simply, it sucks. at least in death there's finality and permanence to the end of your suffering; now you have no idea what to expect except more of the same.

add to that isolation. also, anger. throw in regret. then wondering what you did to yourself get here, and who else you can blame, including everyone you vaguely knew (whom now you can rightly dislike, because they might have done this to you) and every ugly thing you saw on television as a child. the illness is idiopathic, no one knows why or how it starts. but you wonder if it had to do with these drugs you took or this unpleasant procedure you had or that moldy bread you ate when you were six.

but the truth is, no one really knows. my parents speculated (too much, i think), but they should have stopped speculating and so should i. i didn't cause it. i told myself i was going to die by my 25th when i turned 23. by then i surely was sleeping too little, drinking too much, and doing too many not so good things to my health. although, i was having a very great time at it.

still, i didn't cause it. it was something else -- fate? or, the glamorous version of fate -- destiny?

in any case, i've been spending too much time "reflecting on my life" without really doing so the past year. i've just been creating bandages that hide things beneath them. i think it has been bullshit to create more rules and rejections in order to continue life-as-normal. and it's bullshit to try to belong to something you aren't really a part of or do something you don't believe in. what i gained from this so-called opportunity is that there is no time to lose to be yourself at every second of your life and to not be afraid of your own power.