My first blog assignment was to write about a day I dreamed, but my dreams died years ago and I have struggled in this saturnine fight to invent a dream that does not end in death. All I write is death, mostly mine. This was not always true. At five, maybe six, I wrote a short story about a cat and I don’t think the cat died. Perhaps as punishment, my mother smothered me in Edgar Allen Poe, an unabridged Merriam-Webster dictionary always within arm’s reach. She was eager to depress my burgeoning psyche. My second grade class assignment to memorize and read aloud a poem saw me recite the first verse of The Raven to shocked cherubic faces and an impressed, but horrified, Mrs Adams. In sixth grade poetry class, I invented a girl listlessly standing by her grave waiting for winds to blow her essence from existence. A tenth grade story of suicide written in the first person received a B+ grade because “we all know she didn’t die in the end”. Perhaps death is the dream and my choice is the execution.
In a recent visit to Alaska, I found myself hiking past countless clusters of poisonous baneberries. More than enough to gift myself a tragically painful death, cramping and vomiting my way to the abyss. Strangulation while orgasming sounds preferable, a solo journey’s pathetic end. A gun shot to the forehead quick, if violent. Drowning a horrible choice and any wrist slicing requires a numbing agent. Options I have visited for decades as I march towards a death from old age.
A good friend christened me Doomsday Debbie the year life sucker punched me and dreams held only in my subconscious died. Dreams I had hidden since youth protecting remnants of a fragile hope. The blow broke me in unexpected ways. I had thought perhaps I would be reborn a phoenix rising from the ashes, but instead the bitter shell that now houses me was birthed and I cowardly hide behind it suffocating all the yearnings of my soul.
I dreamed once of a ranch where I would raise horses and be happy. My grandmother disowned me for not choosing a dream of money.
I dreamed once of being a veterinarian caring for sick animals. My mother dissuaded me with tales of killing healthy animals for selfish rich clients.
I dreamed once of escaping childhood to find love and acceptance. Life cured me with reality of the lingering effects of trauma.
I dreamed once of making a family with a boy that swore he loved me. He pushed my head under the water and drowned me in his disgust when depression overwhelmed and darkened my countenance.
I dreamed once of forgiveness. Pride laughed.
I no longer dream of anything but death, and yet my mind constantly questions the choice. If I am to die, why not live first and accomplish a few remaining tasks so I can close out the chapter with a smile. There are rules to life after all. Ones I created decades ago that I have followed religiously ever since. I may lose the war, but there is a final battle to be fought. Journey before destination, even when the destination is finality.
So I have decided upon a few moments left to experience. Visit the Emperor penguin colony recently discovered on Snow Hill Island, design an app that transfigures my darkness, surrender some of my anguish through a violin conduit, battle anhedonia even if only through acting a character, write my memoir. I quit my job several months ago with no plans to work again and enough cash to finance a final year. The first five months were wasted in a hazy depression. The remaining may fall to the same fate, but then again, they may not. For now, I dream of the day I am able to dream of something that makes this life worth the journey. I dream of the day hope returns.