2021 Year End Review: Against All Odds
The strain in my forearms is almost too much to bare.
It doesn’t hurt, not yet. I haven’t reached that wall. One not of artifice or my own making but rather raw physical limits. So I keep going. I’m almost near the end of my rep. I’ve been lifting for an hour and my body is ready to quit-but I’m not done. Not yet. As I finish and collapse into a heap on the floor I feel the raw pulse of my blood. My chest heaves, and I live a few minutes more. In time, I pull myself up. Sweaty and palpitating. But moment by moment, returning to normal.
The weights came after biking for ten kilometers, after yoga and after boxing. I’ve no reason to do any of this. Some days, I lack the give-a-fuck to make it happen. Yet I persist regardless. I promised mom I would. No amount of pain, strain or sweat will make me stop improving myself to ensure she never has to bury me. I drag myself to the kitchen as my tongue rolls over my lips. Water, I need water like men need gods mercy.
As I open the fridge, I pass a glance towards a photo stuck there. In it, there’s a man just like me. A few decades older. A little more gray, the crows feet at his brow more numerous than mine. We’re seated side by side and smiling as wide as we can. There’s a half second of pain, but it’s from my head instead of my limbs. Only a moment, though that moment stretched to infinity once. I press my fingers to my lips, and then to the man in the photo. Kissing his head just as I had every time I saw him when he was still with us.
The water almost chokes me, but I gulp it down regardless. My heart slows.
The pain fades away.
Then I pull open my phone.
Despite careful catering of my feed, despite blocking and muting all I could, the Bad News ™ still comes regardless. It halts for no one and nothing, knowing no mercy and patience. It’s here, it’s real, and I can deal with it now or bottle it up. Pull away from the world yet again and pretend none of this is happening, the sword that hangs over my head is meant for another. But to do that is a fools errand, one that ensures I’ll hurt longer and harder than I need to.
Once more.
With feeling.
I charge head first, with no plan. With no realistic goal. I read and read and in all that research, a path appears. It’s gonna be hard as fuck to clear it. The brambles are high, thorns thick as knives in your back. To err is to fail, fail miserably and fall into a despair worse than damnation. Death of the spirit, but not of the body. I’ve never feared the latter, but the former is wrapped in the real fear of fucking this up in a way I won’t come back from. So I pause. I take a breath, and close my eyes.
I open them once more, and the path has branched. There’s multitudes where there was but one before. Success isn’t promised, but it’s no longer uncertain.
There’s always a way.
There’s always a means to lessen the pain, the burden, and the fear.
I close my phone, and get on Discord. I seek out my friends.
For the first time in a few hours, I smile.
If I have learned anything since my last year-end review, it’s that my method of ignoring what scares me and hurts me is my greatest stumbling block. It’s the one thing that can break me, often the fault of no one but my own stubborn self. To face fear actively rather than reactively, to plunge headfirst into every ongoing threat to my existence and psyche is far less painful than I could imagine. Even when it seems hard, even when it seems impossible.
I wrote that last year-end review two years ago now. Hopeful but in a place of hurting. I was exhausted emotionally and mentally. Spent in a way few people should push themselves to, and even fewer knowingly subject themselves to. I say this not for pity, but to shed light on the reality of the situation.
I was ready to give up.
On splathouse, on myself, on everything. All I had worked for seemed in that moment ego-stroking to cover up for the fact my soul was flatlining. I pulled into myself. I lied to everyone, lied to my own mind to hide how shaky things were.
Then we all got locked inside for a year and the world really did seem to be ending. Even now, the fires rage not far from any of our minds. The pressure insides our skulls would be enough to make anyone burst. I saw my friends panicked and fearful. I saw people I loved deeply worried.
Something snapped then. Something in the back of my skull finally cracked, and from the crevice boomed a voice I hadn’t heard since I started this “joke” of a creative idea.
No, said the voice, No, we aren’t going out like this.
Not on this day or any other. We’ve no responsibility but to die, it said, and it’ll be by this shell giving before we do.
Kill me if you can. Screw you. It’s our god damned life.
The realization washed over me with all the subtlety of full-on ego death. A thunderous hammer curled in an angered fist that broke through the anxiety, the fear and cowardice. The cats needed me. Mom needed me. My friends, my gods what would happen to my friends I loved so much. Someone had to be there to make sure they were all okay.
And what of the others? The countless people that wrote to me often, telling me I helped them? That they felt more comfortable in their own skin because of this dumb show I made on the internet? What would happen to them? I couldn’t let them down. I couldn’t let them feel even for a second they were forgotten.
For in doing that, I’d be breaking the cardinal rule I made for myself when all this started. Something I have said countless times to countless people over the years.
I just want to be the guy I wish had been there for me.
Two years ago, I walked into my weight room. A place I visited only a few times a week. I flicked on the light, and glanced at the equipment. All the plates, all the dumbells. I wrapped my hands and went to work. The pain came, but it was only physical. A spectre of doubt that I shrugged off as I kept going. Every single day as hard as I could. I called my mom and told her I loved her dearly. That I’d always be there for her.
I went to therapy. I met a tiny little man who smiled in such a disarming way that it made me cry. Through long talks with him, I felt my soul patch itself up. He’s wonderful. He’s never going to read this, but god, he really did help.
I made a room for The Bad News (TM) to be discussed with my friends, for all of us to share and be open with each other. A place for us not to be appalled by the state of the world, but to plan. To stand strong together rather than be divided, broken and hopeless. I couldn’t let them feel even for a second they were alone. I loved them too much, perhaps selfishly.
Then, lastly.
I changed my outro to Splat Speaks.
“I love you very much” was never a by-line or a marketing point. It was never something I said with false bravado. I love you all intensely. Because of you, I’m still standing. I’ve the courage to wake up every fucking day and stand resolute against it all. Even with the Bad News, even with the constant threat to myself and Splathouse.
I can’t give up.
I don’t know if I’d have the courage to type that two years ago.
I don’t know if the person I was then could have stomached the thought.
I don’t believe they would have accepted, even for a second, that all this fear, panic and pain was not forever.
If you have ever asked yourself if you’re making a difference, if you’re having a positive effect in people’s lives, or if you even made someone happy today, know that you have.
I’m proof.
I know not what the future holds. I never have. Even now, I don’t have so much as a plan. But I see the path before us all clearly. I’ve hope in my heart now. And, as foolish as it might be, I’m dumb enough to be optimistic. The world, this existence-it’s worth fighting for, even with all the terror and horror. It’s worth standing up together to defend our existence, our way of life, and the unique multi-faceted beauty we breathe into the world simply by being a part of it.
So once more.
With feeling.
I love you all tremendously.
Thank you.
For everything.
-j