Every time I write a blog post on a Wednesday morning, I feel the urge to include a reference to the Beatles song She’s Leaving Home, as in “Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins…”

There, see, I just did it again.  At least it was self consciously done, not some quote put in as if it were my own words, intended only for those “in the know” to recognize.  I guess that’s a way for me to feel vaguely clever‒and sometimes funny‒while actually just following the often irresistible compulsion to quote shit* at every turn.

In high school, when I was a senior (and maybe when I was a junior?) I was pretty confident in my place as one of the “leaders” of our school orchestra, and I used to go to the orchestra room first thing in the morning before school, usually arriving before the teacher, and then I hung out there (with other orchestra members and friends who arrived a bit later) until time for classes to start.  While there, pretty much every day, I would write a quote from something‒Shakespeare**, Tolkien, Stephen R. Donaldson, Poe, etc.‒on the board.  I even won the “Dusty Cello Award” at our end of the year orchestra party because of it.

I’ve always had that habit of quoting books and movies and plays and shows and so on, and even doing the voices of people when I could.

I think reading fiction in particular was very good for helping me to understand what goes on in other people’s minds, at least in principle.  But I also just liked being able to go to those other worlds and other lives.  It’s better in general than watching TV or movies, though the latter are easier and also easier to enjoy with other people, if you have other people with whom to enjoy them.

Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.  My past and my thoughts about it are of no moment to anyone but me, and even I find them boring.  It’s just that they’re all I really have.

I’ve tried to interact with people to some degree online, but that just gets me weird feedback, like getting almost 3,000 “likes” in less than 24 hours for pointing out in a comment that the biblical Jesus would not approve of a particular, supposedly religion-based, exclusion reported in a thread about a shopkeeper toward a trans woman (ironic for a nonbeliever to be pointing out Jesus’s very clear attitudes, but I am one who remembers characters and quotes).

On the other hand, when I noted yesterday on the same site that the office where I work was 3.4 miles from the nearest “beach” (and a fishing pier) and I thought it might be good to walk down to the shore, kick off my shoes and socks, and just start swimming east into the Atlantic and not come back (pointing out that it would leave no need for cleanup, and it wouldn’t mess up anyone’s day, or anything of that sort) I got 3 likes (after quite a while) and only one comment by a person saying she doesn’t like to dwell on such thoughts.

This is, supposedly, Mental Health Awareness month, but I don’t know what good such a thing does, especially if such is the response to someone expressing suicidal ideation.  I’m aware of mental health in general, but it’s been a long time since I had any personal experience of mental health (if I ever have).  It’s been at least 13 years since I’ve had even moments of mental pseudo-health.  That was the last time I saw my kids in person, for one afternoon.

I’ve only recently realized that it’s now been a longer time since I saw my children than how old they were when I last saw them.  So, I’ve missed more than half of their lives now, and that fraction is only going to get bigger.

What would I possibly know about mental health?

Physical health is not my biggest attribute either (not many people had open-heart surgery at age 18).  But I know it gets very boring for people to hear about‒for instance‒the fact that I feel right now as if my entire right side from the lower ribs on down to the ball of my foot feels as though it’s filled with molten lead, which is quite painful, in case you were wondering.  But that’s always the way it is, for much longer than 13 years (more than 20, actually) and though it waxes and wanes and shifts locations, pain never fully goes away while I’m conscious (and probably contributes to the worsening of my insomnia).

Anyway, I know, Waah, waah, waah, shut the fuck up, Robert, no one wants to hear all this shit*** over and over again!  It’s tiresome to face nothing but complaints.  I’m sorry.  I’m very, very sorry.  I really am.  To everybody.

I really should just try that swim.  There isn’t much to prevent it.  I’m not particularly afraid of drowning (other than in an instinctive sense) though I do have misgivings about sharks and other sea creatures.  That’s probably silly, since, even in shark infested waters, statistically people are far more likely to drown than to be attacked by a shark.

I have to do something, or at least to have something done to me.  I don’t have the will or the wherewithal to take action to save myself in any way (and wouldn’t know where to start if I could) but I don’t have the strength to keep living, not for much longer.  And I don’t have any good reason to keep living.

But that same problem with “executive function” or whatever it is makes it hard for me to take action to kill myself.  So, for the moment, I just hurt myself to try to distract myself from other pain and to punish myself for being such a lame and shitty person, but weirdly, I have a hard time making such things hurt very much anymore.  Maybe I’ve always got too much pain medication in me, but I just don’t realize it because it doesn’t do all that much for my back and joint pains.  It’s weird.

Then again, I’m weird, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  Like the song says, “I’m a creep.  I’m a weirdo.  What the hell am I doing here?  I don’t belong here.”

I don’t belong here.

*This is the nonjudgmental version of the word “shit”.  It’s more or less synonymous with “stuff” but it flows better (so to speak).  I don’t mean to imply that the song to which I refer is in any way shit.  It’s one of the most beautiful songs I know.

**Yes, I loved Shakespeare even back then.

***Here, the use of “shit” is much more in the derogatory, excrement-related vein.  Though if someone had excrement in their veins, they would be in big trouble, because that excrement would be carried to the lungs and then heart and could cause horrible endocarditis and pneumonias and so on.