An Unfinished Symphony......

Thomas rolled up his collar and cinched the zipper closer to his neck to guard against the coolness of the early morning air as he methodically checked the items he had loaded into the trunk of his car. It occurred to him that there was a certain irony in that he was protecting himself from the cold; despite preparing for what he intended, to be a one way trip - "let's see now, 40 oz. bottle of whiskey, enough sleeping pills to drop an elephant and a good sturdy rope." Certainly these in combination would ensure the job was done effectively - mind you he had worked a number of years in health care and he had seen the results of more than a few individuals who had botched up their attempts at suicide (and it wasn't pretty) - what if he were to be found just dangling by the rope - still alive but perhaps brain damaged due to lack of oxygen - he'd heard the other health care workers speak with a disturbing lack of compassion for these individuals - in fact it was down right disdainful. He was to be 28 years of age on the 28th of the month (which was to be his last birthday) in his mind, which was likely addled by prolonged drug and alcohol abuse he somehow thought this was somehow symbolic. 

After a life that from his perspective was plagued with doubt and failure, it didn't come as a surprise to him that he would question his ability to do this right too. There was this nagging concern - strangely not that his life would be over - what was this creeping into his thinking after so methodically laying out this plan? Couldn't really call it will to live - more like vanity (what would people think? He thought, is this to be the legacy of my life? After considering this for a while he concluded, "nobody gives a shit!"

Thomas’ head snapped abruptly forward causing all the muscles in his neck to spasm in unison sending a shooting pain which radiated up the back of his head subsiding somewhere behind his eyes. He gasped and choked, his breath involuntarily and abruptly severed. His head dropped forward like a rag doll, and his body slumped motionless. It was as though head and body no longer belonged. A violent convulsion shuddered through his body and all went black.

 “Huh what,” he said bewildered; realizing he had been asleep.  Now that all eyes were upon him, he wondered if he had drooled on himself, to add to the feeling of embarrassment, that was welling up from within him.

“Would you like to share?”

“Uh ya sure – what’s the topic?”

“Gratitude” and what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now”

“Right, okay – Ya, my name is Thomas, and I’m an alcoholic/addict.”

“You know come to think of it – I really don’t think I’ve got much to say today – I’m grateful to be clean & sober today – good to see you all here, I think I’d really just like to listen today – thanks”.

What a crock a shit he thought to himself – on this occasion, he was far more absorbed in his own life drama; to give any real presence of mind, to what anyone else was saying. Then he thought, what was that his A.A. sponsor had to say about participating when called upon – surely he didn’t mean all the time and even if so, Thomas decided – what does he know about what I need – besides he’s not here, so what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Though it had been quite some year’s prior, there was no denying that the planned suicide that Thomas had been dreaming of when asked to share was no dream. He had been sober only four or fives months at the time. Initially he felt great about “cleaning up his act”. He was getting all kinds of positive affirmation from people in his life and though he would have scoffed at the idea prior, it truly seemed as though he was on a natural high. He’d completed a 12-week abstinence group through the government sponsored alcohol & drugs program – access to which was made possible through his employer. The counselor he’d been seeing there was recommending he “attend some A. A. meetings” to begin to form some support and friendships with others who were working at staying sober.

Thomas was adamant – “ there is no way I’m going to get involved with that outfit, they are nothing but a bunch of bible punchers! “ He had never been to a meeting, never even known anyone that had been to a meeting. Just the same, it wouldn’t be the first time, nor would it be the last, that Thomas made decisions based on very little real evidence. More often than not, based on the thin fabric of his imagination; which he crafted masterfully, into an unassailable truth (at least in his own mind). Once there, nothing generally would dissuade him. 

In fact he seldom if ever found it necessary to defend his positions as he certainly wouldn’t allow himself to look bad by needing to ask the guidance of anyone else and if he was in a position where a different perspective was being presented – he truly felt that no one else could possibly understand the complexities of his life nor was it likely they would suggest anything that he’d already considered and dismissed. (He had no idea that the forces he had set in motion or perhaps that were now beginning to assert themselves; would sometimes slowly, sometimes with the subtlety and immediacy of a wrecking ball, break down his denial and at the same time demonstrate, how the rigidity of his thinking, was both the walls of the prison and the jailer, that created his chronic sense of disconnection and isolation).

 If push came to shove and something was being demanded of him by an “authority” figure he’d just “give em the old lip service, and do what ever he wanted anyway”. It was for these and so many other reasons that Thomas was resistant to allowing too many people to get too close (closeness invariably invites getting hurt, arms length is close enough and his overriding principle on relationship would best be described as “can’t hit (hurt) a moving target”) – “it really just complicates my life too much” (his idea of baggage being the excessive demands of others which increases exponentially by the number of people you allow in your life) The problem for Thomas always existed somewhere out there. (He always considered himself very adept at discerning what others needed to do to redirect their life but had never considered the need to examine the man in the mirror.

It completely escaped him for example, that he had briefly looked at addiction as being a problem in his life when he was eighteen years old. He started into the very group he had just now completed, at that time it only took attendance at three sessions before he convinced himself “he was way younger than anyone in the room” “he didn’t have all the screwed up relationships like everyone in the room” and “he didn’t have all the legal and financial problems of everyone else in the room.” Therefore, he couldn’t possibly have an addiction problem. Never mind that he still lived at home and was largely sheltered from some of the realities that the others had faced – he was oblivious to the fact that the only thing separating him from them was time. So rather than get the lesson at that time, sure enough, once he invested another ten years of his life into drinking and drugging he could then say; he was just like the people who sat in the room along with him – of course pride and denial, would not allow him to make that association immediately. Even with the state of his life and worse still, his mental/emotional state, he managed to hold himself at least a rung or two higher than some in the circle. When it came to those in the room, with whom he felt inferior, he concluded; that what he perceived to be their successes, would not have been possible, had they been dealt the same hand as he.

The discussion at the meeting was reduced to a drone as his thoughts became consumed by the recollection of life at a time when most of his conscious thoughts centered on ending life. He was no longer receiving the accolades for remaining sober from those in his social circles (he had no idea nor would he have admitted if he did, how much he was being bolstered by this attention) – he actually didn’t know anyone that didn’t drink and drug - most to excess. Without the comfort of the fog of oblivion the state of his life was increasingly apparent, and he was sure it was beyond his capacity to overcome the extensive damage left in his wake. It was then he thought that he never felt so alone in his entire life (which wasn’t entirely true he always felt alone but there was no escaping this all-encompassing sense of isolation and there was no attributing this to just a bad night – this was a despair that consumed every cell of his being).

He recalled that the “kit” he had prepared had been in the trunk of his car for weeks prior to his “birthday” (he became increasingly melancholy as the day approached though he had no way of knowing what was to be “born” on the day he had chosen to die).

When the day finally arrived he had decided to drive one last time down by the waterfront, though he likely would not have admitted how much he enjoyed it there, just the same he found a sense of comfort there. It was an uncharacteristically hot day (for the Pacific Northwest) a day that many would consider to be one of the “only true” days of summer weather – even the ocean breeze was warm and lacked it usual sea-side freshness. The view out over the straits was so clear that the features of the mountains along the horizon were easily visible beneath the snowcap. The surf gently kissed the shoreline – while the sound of the gulls rang out overhead. In all it was a scene that begged to be included in someone’s collection of vacation photo’s – even still the splendor of the seaside vista was lost on Thomas who was hopelessly lost in the catacombs of his mind.

“How in God’s name did I get here?” he thought to himself.

“Shit is this it – is this really it? What the hell happens from here if I actually go through with this?” Is there a heaven or of more concern, is there a hell, and am I heading there on the fast track?”

 “Fuck I really don’t think I’m ready to find out – but I’m pretty sure I can’t live like this any longer!!”

Oh for fuck sake God – if you actually exist what the fuck am I supposed to do? – I need help!!!”

Thomas slumped over the steering wheel of his car and began sobbing uncontrollably (it completely escaped his awareness at the time but he had not cried for years)

The car stereo had been playing in the background – which Thomas was largely ignoring until just in the moment of his prayer (albeit laced with profanity even still was likely the most sincere cry for help he had ever uttered)

The next song to play made him sit bolt upright and take notice:

“When I was younger so much younger than today”

“Never needed anybody’s help in anyway”

“Now those day are gone, I’m not so self-assured”

“Now I find, I’ve changed my mind, I’ve opened up the door”

“Oh my God am I really hearing this?” I mean, of course I’m hearing it but I’ve listened to this song dozens of times – well at least it’s been playing and I was there at the time – Lennon/McCartney’s “Help” they made a movie by the same title – but the movie was nonsense – “wasn’t it?) Is this what they meant when they wrote the song – what is the song about anyway?

He listens in again:

“And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,

“My independence seemed to vanish in the haze.”

“But every now and then I feel so insecure,

I know that I need you like I’ve never done before.”

Thomas still behind the wheel of his car is in utter dismay – “is he really hearing what he thinks he is hearing?”

“How could this be it’s the Beatle’s?” “I must be losing my mind.” Suddenly aware of how deeply absurd he thinks this to be he quickly looks around to “see” if anyone is looking?

Relieved that though there are people walking about with their dogs and couples walking side by side or arm in arm (after all it is a public park) he chuckles to himself at the depth of his self-consciousness as he realizes his concern for whether people walking by are hearing what is going on – (? in his mind).

As the song is ending:

“Help me get my feet back on the ground, won’t you please, please help me. – Help me, help me, oo.”

He screams out “My God I don’t want to die – please help me!!” and recoils back over the steering wheel – his body heaving with the intensity of his emotion.

The words no sooner left his mouth – when he heard very clearly someone say, “would it hurt to go to an A.A. meeting, what do you have to lose?” – again he snapped upright in his seat wiping his eyes – aware that he had been crying so hard that it was now next to impossible to breath. He looked in the console of the car for a napkin to blow his nose – given moments ago he was contemplating suicide, one would think that a sleeve might have sufficed for the clean up – but no, that wasn’t about to happen, after all he paid $500.00 for the leather jacket he was wearing.

He looked around and there was no one to be seen anywhere, and even if anyone was near enough to have been in ear shot all his windows were rolled up, he couldn’t hear anything that was going on outside the vehicle. So where did the voice come from? Well obviously the “idea” was his – after all he was a highly intelligent person. There could be no other explanation – could there? (It never occurred to him as he considered this that many of his “ideas” or at least his choices had led him to be here this very day on the brink of taking his own life)

Just the same regardless of the “source” of the idea – “it may have merit” – really what would it hurt to check out a meeting – if it turned out to be a waste of time (and he was sure that it would) he could always resume his intention.

That was it then – the plan had changed (or at least was on hold temporarily). Thomas had been wrong frequently in his life – though just the same he always tried to carry himself has though nothing “impressed” him – always an exterior of “cool, calm and collected” – never could he allow the impression that he was “unsure.” The experience in the car on this occasion – rattled him though, but even so, it was so far out from anything that fell within his belief system – (though he knew something quite profoundly unique had happened - what difference did that make – it’s not like he would ever tell anyone about the experience – “shit they’d throw a net over me for sure!”

Thomas’s attention was brought back to the present moment as the person sitting next to him dropped the basket in his lap that was used for the collection of the voluntary donations, which supported the meeting itself and various level of service throughout the A.A. organization – he rummaged through his pocket for some coin, at the same time he heard the person chairing the meeting inviting “all who wish to close with the Serenity Prayer.” He joined in the closing prayer – rushed to secure access to the exit, there were times when he enjoyed the “meeting after the meeting” which was a measure of change that had come about in him since that fateful day so long ago (when he operated on what he had decided was a whim to his first A.A. meeting) today though he was eager to be alone with his own thoughts.