Ten Years Gone

For those few that visit here, for whatever purpose... enjoyment, ridicule or enlightenment; I have returned. It has been a harrowing few weeks... time is creeping up and I have been lost in translation. My 10th anniversary is coming up on the 27th of this month... 10 years past since my expiration date. When I was 20 years old, I told everyone I wouldn't live to see 25... I worked hard at achieving this goal. Here I stand, for better or for worse, 10 years later and ready to see my 35th birthday. I know some may be thinking, "Oh, depressed over turning 35? Grow the fuck up!". Well, that's not the case. Honestly I don't really understand the increased depression. By the time I was 21, I had a wife, 2.5 kids, the pretty little house, 2 cats and a dog... everything people want from life. By the time I was 23, I was divorced, losing my house to the bank and foaming at the mouth laying across the floor with my father looking over me crying. The coffee table was dusted with homemade low-grade meth (commonly called "dirt"), empty hairspray bottles with needles stuck in the top (for easy drinking) littering the floor, the cats had given me the finger and ran away and I had shot the dog in the back of the head... I was all alone, except for the company of my weeping father. I should have died, just like planned, by 25. In fact, I had already O.D.'d twice by then... but it never stuck, I came back. If it hadn't been for the blind compassion of a stranger, I would have surely died. They came down to my home, from across the country, and brought me back home with them... nursed me back to health and sobriety. Over the past 10 years, I have struggled with my health physically from the severe drug abuse and my mind has slowly slipped away thanks to this wonderful disease of schizophrenia. Ten years gone. I am disabled and a prisoner to these four walls. My cat taunts me to kill myself relentlessly. I don't have the ability or understanding of feeling positive emotions. My therapist and others, seem to think I should be rejoicing with living the extra 10 years... I am very confused. Am I mourning the loss of life for the past 10 years or am I mourning the fact I never died? The choir has differing opinions. Some are angry and feel cheated. Others want to leave here once and for all. A few mourn the things I will never have in life. Then there is myself... listening to it all, rocking back and forth wondering when a decision will be made. There needs to be a common voice or opinion. About 10 years ago, I sold my soul to the devil in exchange for something I desperately wanted... perhaps I really am dead and my soul has been claimed. That is another story for another day. Maybe, just maybe, this is hell and the price that needs to be paid.