So Adam Yauch died. I am kind of surprised at the level of my
shock and sadness about his passing…but I guess not really. Beastie Boys have
been intertwined with my life for over 20 years. They started out as these raunchy
little punk-ass bitches, and then really grew into themselves. You know, like
me.
I really am thrown off about this. I have been knocked back
to younger days, from the crippling disaster of junior high school (Paul’s
Boutique), through not graduating from high school (Check Your Head), through
the pregnancy and infancy of my first baby (Ill Communication), to wrapping up
the emotional hurricane that was me in my 20’s (Hello Nasty).
When I saw an article about the Beastie Boys Anthology, I was
all like, “what?” Aren’t anthologies only for old people? Then I was like, “oh,”
because it made me realize how much of kid I’m not anymore, and so am legitimately
privy to anthologies. When Jonny got it for me, I was very excited. I really
loved reading all of the different accounts of what each song meant to each of
those guys. I guess when I know what something means to someone else, it kind
of bonds them to me – it’s so simple and human to have something mean something
to me, and I have that connection with other people I learn about, even when I am
certain our paths will never cross.
When Hot Sauce Committee Part Two came out, I realized I hadn’t
really listened to any new Beastie Boys in years. It reminded me again of how
much people can change, like living different lifetimes over the course of
thirty years. Thirty years really is not a long time, but people are so
malleable and mercurial (triple points for the correct application of two fancy
words in one sentence) that we truly evolve (as opposed to getting old) from
the time we are born, and depending on what kind of people we are, even to beyond
our deaths.
I’ve been thinking about how the traditional concept of
death involves so many bad things. Violence and blood and pain and tragedy and
loss and evil and dark; I just don’t feel like that is what death is about. Maybe
I am just getting older and less naïve (or more naïve) about it all, but I really
associate comfort and peace with death.
No matter how shitty anyone’s life has been, you get to rest
when it’s over. It’s a light at the end of a tunnel, offering up hope because
when you’re dead, you don’t hurt anymore.
I suppose I’ve been writing a lot about death, and maybe I have
an affliction from it. I don’t know, but it’s nothing new – I guess recently I am
just getting more comfortable with thinking and writing and talking about it. I
feel like it is alarming to people, my fixation on death. Which people, I don’t
know, but I feel like I have to not talk about death so much because I will
have to convince people that I’m not going to off myself.
Not any time soon, anyway. One thing I have been really
fearing the past year or so is aging to the point that I am unable to care for
myself. The idea of anyone wiping my own shit off of my own very white, very
wrinkled, and very incapable-of-making-it-to-a-toilet ass, scares the bejesus
out of me.
I feel so much shame at the idea of someone other than
myself being that intimate with parts of my body that I still feel unfamiliar
with as an adult. I suppose that’s something to bring up in therapy…
There’s that old fish guy on Spongebob Squarepants who is
always going around saying, “I don’t want to be a burden,” and I suppose it’s
funny because it realistically parallels life, and I don’t think it is funny
now, but I almost pissed myself laughing the first time I saw that old fish guy
saying that. I can’t stand the idea that I will one day be the old fish guy who
is largely ignored, but still manages to be a pain in the ass, and is constantly
pondering the fact that they are still alive.
The phrase “I ain’t goin out like that” is what I hear in my
head when I think about my mind and body getting to a certain point of decay. I
think it’s a gangster or cowboy thing, that phrase, and I am not a gangster or
a cowboy, but it’s such a succinct and perfect phrase to characterize how I feel
about getting old.
I also roll around the phrase “I ain’t goin out like no punk
bitch,” which is a line from a House of Pain song, and those guys aren’t
gangsters or cowboys, either, so I guess that phrase would be more apt to apply
to me, but it has too many words. “I ain’t goin out like that” is definitely
how I feel about getting old.
What I’m really concerned with is my mind. My mind is not in
the best condition for someone who is only 35 years old. It’s cognitively a bit
fucked, and that’s not going to get any better as I get older. Part of my brain
is already the soup of dementia from all of the trauma I’ve experienced. I seriously
don’t think I will be able to safely drive a car by the time I’m 50.
I don’t fear getting older so much as I fear the cognitive
deterioration, having to live with the not knowing – is this real? Am I supposed
to be here? Am I doing something wildly inappropriate? Are people staring at me
like I’m a total freak? What exactly was it that I was doing anyway? Is it
really right now, or some time in the past and I’m thinking of the future and
that’s how I got here?
The not knowing is a heinous, motherfucking nightmare, and I’m
not going back to that place in my mind. I’ve spent most of my life there, asking
myself those questions over and over again, and not knowing the answers, and I am
simply NOT. GOING. BACK.
Sigh.
I will be impressed if I make it to 65 with my right mind
still intact. I’ve been impressed at how I made it to 35 and have never been in
a straightjacket, so … who the hell knows? I don’t have to think about it now,
though. Now I am trying to just concentrate on being alive, and being right
here right now.
I’ve actually gotten really good at that, but sometimes when
someone dies, I get to thinking about getting old and decrepit. I know I am
going to die. I know everyone I love and care about is going to die. I know
people will miss me when I’m gone, and I already miss people who are already
gone.
I have figured out though, if I think about what I’ve been
through and where I am now – my experiences, my intentions, my best at doing
the best I can – I find my life is really very substantial, at least enough to
know that dying doesn’t scare me any more than living does, and I’m going to be
okay.
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