Filling the Void
It’s been nearly two months since I have last written. I haven’t been too inspired lately to write anything. But, so much has happened in the past couple days, my brain is simply full of garbage which I feel the only way to empty it is to write. I don’t even know where to begin. Bad things happen in threes, right? Hopefully, my three are over…
My Aunt Koby died earlier last week. I wasn’t too shaken by it.. I never really liked my mom’s brother to begin with. Still, I didn’t think it that much of a big deal. A dead Aunt I hardly saw, I could deal with.
A couple nights ago, I got a call from my mother telling me that one of my 18 year old brother’s friends had died. He fell seven stories from his dorm window, supposedly smoking a cigarette on the 18 inch ledge below the window sill. This doesn’t particularly apply to me, but my little brother… a young soul of a mere eighteen years, has lost a friend that used to walk into our house, eat our food, and listen to Jim jam on his guitar in our basement. It shocked me. I couldn’t believe it. My little brother has been through so much- he found Kerri dead, he found my Nanny dead, he is trying so hard to do well in school and change his life, and he just keeps getting pummeled by every shot God can through at him. I want him to be strong, and to understand God has a plan. And this morning, when I went to church, I almost began to cry as the chior started to sing… I prayed with all my heart, “Please, God, let Jim make it through this, help him keep the faith.” My family has been fighting a lot lately. Sarah is back into her old drug habits after having been to rehab and going to meetings and all that an addict can do to keep away from the “trigger”. Jim has nobody to look up to. He is in this alone, and I don’t know how to make him feel better, what to do to ease his pain.
As I was at the house, about to leave, my mom got a call from my older brother, Ray. He checked himself into a rehab clinic. Drinking, he says. He told my mom he was having suicidal thoughts. I don’t need anymore death in this family, nobody does. We are just one small group of people out of the billions in the world, yet I feel like there is a permanent rain cloud thundering and lightening above our head, causing us more than enough turmoil to last a life time, let alone in a two year time span. Why me? No, why my family? Can’t we ever catch a break? I am glad I moved out, because if I was still at home, I don’t know what I would have done to myself by now.
I won’t lie, I’ve thought about it… about how much I can take and if I want to take it anymore. It seems whenever we catch just a slight good stretch of road, we hit a pot hole. And I’m sick of it. I just want normalcy for a month. One month, or a day even. Just one day where nothing matters, and everything is OK. My family happy once again, and all of us together without having to depend on drugs or people or drinking to make it through just one day.
The title? I don’t know how to fill the voids in my heart. Every time something happens, I don’t fill it with happy thoughts or affirmations. I choose alcohol, and smoking, and sex and anything else to make the pain stop. It never stops though… it’s always waiting for me the second I wake up from my comatose induced state of mind. I need a break. I need something new and different to tell me I’ll make it, and that everything will be ok. I need change, I need something else to fill the void. Anything….