There seem to be three main categories of things that aren't possessions to lose...mind, and body, and love (friends, family, lover). Most lose one or two, it's rare to lose three in a world where most who would read this have a place to stay, and some kind of income to rely on, and hopefully people that check on them now and again.
I've lost two of these before. I can explain what you learn losing them ... but not all of them. I've been completely alone, and I've also had no safe place in the world. When the overloads became something I couldn't avoid, and stress brought the quirks out, I was ridiculed and told "normal people don't do this, normal people don't do that." Even my own family wouldn't understand me ... in essence, I was cut off from my largest support network when I needed it the most. When I began to realize what was happening to me, not only was my mind no longer safe, but I was alone, with a mind that it's definitely not safe to be alone in. I'm not looking for anyone's pity... I'm sure I have, in past years, but it's all gone now. Instead of clinging to an old world, I found one worth building, where people who may also not be safe in their own heads could be as well, where I could give people what I needed and was ridiculed for needing. Then, I stood on the edge of my sanity and realized that I could never fit in any place in the world, my last lucid moment was knowing that.
A good friend of mine talked to me once about having so much internal turmoil that he wanted to fight for his life, to push the limits of his physical capability, to force resolve out of danger. I understand that. It's not the need to die, it's the need to be forced to live. I didn't know what he meant when he told me this years ago, but I understand it now, because by now I've been there. My need was to challenge my ability to survive, to metaphorically stretch my hands out in front of me and fall ... I wouldn't die, the ground wouldn't take me, it would repel me as everything else always has ... to know where I would wash up. Sometimes the urge is still there. To push, to challenge that vulnerability until it's forced to respond, to see which can knock the other down first ... me, or it. But I could do that because when I wasn't safe in my mind, and I had no ties, I could run forever. I had nothing else to rely on, no physical strings that force me to stay put, no progressive conditions, no sick loved ones (then...). Sometimes I think that trail is a place where most people go ... but it looks different for everyone because most people haven't lost all three.
There's no sun over that trail. To me it runs parallel to the sea, it's cold and misty, and huge old trees lean on the sky. It's a dark place where the sky looks like blue snow. It's not day or night there, because in fact there is no time there at all. There's nothing where the edge is. It's not abrupt because edges rarely seem to be. There's a warning slope, but it's a gentle deceptive one. It does become abrupt, but there's that space of edge where you can slide and appreciate what's about to happen.
I used to thinkI would walk down it once and that when I came out the other side I would know what time it was, it would be morning and the sun would finally come up over the edge of the world instead of casting watery light everywhere. But it's not linear that way. It would defy physics if it were real ... it would be everywhere. It would be waiting for you to think about it too hard. And then you'd be walking down the sidewalk in a normal town ... several unrelated events would come together at the same time, and the landscape would change because the potential for it is always there. I don't think of it as something that threatens me anymore ... the things that take me to it are definitely threats. But the place itself is deceptive that way, it's where resolve comes from. Nothing unnecessary or weak can survive in it so I come out of it carrying nothing other than the keys which can open it again, because those are the only weaknesses that can't go away.
There's danger in it, a person could definitely die in there. The only things that can lead there are things which can kill a person anyway. But it's not meant to kill ... it's meant to make you fight for your life, yes, but not to kill regardless of what pushes us there. Some seem to come out bitter and angry, resentful and often nearly insane, and some liedown on the path and never get up. The key has always been to keep moving. I find something to cling to when I see it coming--music, for me--something that doesn't remind me of how I used to live, but of what I want to live for.
