my dad and i visited the museum of death in november of 2009 – i had been eighteen for all of three months. to many this might sound a morbid excursion, but i assure you the memories of this day are beyond delightful, and one of my only happy memories from this period of my life. it was one of the few days that we actually got to spend alone, partaking in our shared bizarre interests. i remember walking in and immediately being confronted by a grisly photograph of a man that had been dismembered by a truck while riding his motorcycle. i remember this moment in great detail because i was afraid that my father, close behind, would have an averse reaction; it was how his younger brother, teddy, had died in the 80s. whether it bothered him or not, dad didn’t flinch.
i was entranced. i recall glass cases full of embalming tools, a room of bunk beds designed to resemble those of the Heaven’s Gate mass suicides, and walls lined with letters written by convicted murderers. one letter in particular went to great lengths to describe the author’s desire to make a meatball sub out of some poor sod, and they had drawn a truly rudimentary rendition of a cannibalistic sandwich overflowing with little man-meatballs, each adorned with its own adorable smiley face. it was twisted as all hell and i was completely absorbed by the peculiarities of the place, and honestly quite ashamed to say that i was feeling rather peckish afterward, having thought about meatballs for some time. my dad chuckled in agreement at this, and we sauntered off to lunch somewhere. these were simpler times.
it was a few months prior that i first became engrossed with thoughts about my own death. the combination of unresolved childhood traumas, a gut-wrenching break up, and the sudden shock of unstructured time post high school threw me headfirst into a seemingly endless depression. i cried for hours every day, felt completely alone around my closest friends, and felt joy in absolutely nothing. as food lost its taste, i quickly dropped to 95 pounds, and my dentist warned that my body had begun leeching calcium from my teeth and that i might start losing them if i didn’t start eating regularly again soon. i pulled out of my position at SFSU for fear that i would take my own life if i strayed from my family.
it was during this period that i agreed to go skydiving, propositioned by my otra mama (more on this later). flying had always been my greatest fear despite having flown several times in my life, but i was seated at ceci’s cafe in tarzana eating the best pancakes in the universe, and by happenstance i had ordered the “skydiver” pancakes that day (sans peanut butter). what ultimately convinced me was the total disregard i held for my own life at the time – that the idea of potentially dying, even via my deepest dread, stood as a potential perk in my book to what i assumed would be a truly horrifying experience. i reasoned, “if i don’t die, i’m still in the same boat as before. but if i do, cool.” a few weeks after my eighteenth birthday, strapped to a man my height named “red,” i jumped out of an airplane. the experience was indescribable – overwhelmingly terrifying, but also astoundingly serene and quite literally awe-some. i seriously doubt that i would ever opt to do it again.
this beautiful recklessness was something that i would revisit several times in my life, which eventually led to a sort of desensitization of the fear of dying. of course, there are ways in which i would prefer not to die, and those remain to be feared for the potential events leading up to death, but overall i feel largely unafraid of death itself. somehow my sordid encounters with depression have ironically led me to find that the closer i have felt to causing my own death, the more i have subsequently led myself to feeling most alive.
what is meant by this cliché-sounding notion is that as someone with horrendous anxiety as far back as i can remember, fear has kept me from doing countless things. historically, i have been one to shy away from experiences or sensations that one might imagine to be the least bit unpleasant, including nearly any measure of spontaneity. anxiety cruelly convinces its host that they can fabricate a sense of control if they just painstakingly plan out every little minute detail of their life, stick to reliable regimens, and take little to no risks. accepting death as an inevitability has allowed me to come to terms with the fact that whatever it is, “this” will either kill me, or it won’t. on my most stressful work days, this translated to self-soothing by reminding myself that in 100 years we’ll all be dead and none of the events of this stupid day will matter. super uplifting stuff.
if the odds are fairly reasonable that the thing or activity won’t kill me, i tend to rise to the challenge these days. in the past several months i’ve learned to do a handstand, surf, and rollerskate, receiving some injuries and even some notable scarring in the process. i know these sound like pretty run-of-the-mill hobbies, but for someone whose anxieties have prevented them from doing virtually anything for the majority of their life, these feel like major accomplishments every time. and yes, i am still afraid, every time – but each time that i don’t die or seriously maim myself, the sense of euphoria that follows is unmatched. acknowledging that the time we have here is limited has actually been an enormous burden lifted from me, and has empowered me to take perceived risks in the interest of living more fully.
my father remains the most incredible man i’ve ever met. born in vienna, he was diagnosed with pneumonia just months after his birth and was given days to live. his mother abandoned him at the hospital when he was six months old and moved to the U.S., and his grandmother took over caring for him. he seldom saw his father, who took his own life when my dad was just a boy around the age of twelve. as a teen, he was free-spirited and rambunctious – he would later tell me tales of dropping acid while playing guitar on the roof of his old apartment building. sitting close to the edge, when his friends expressed concern at his proximity to demise, he would respond to them in german, “it’s OK; if i fall, i’ll just fly down.”
when his grandmother passed away when he was seventeen, he flew to the states to reconnect with his mother and meet his three brothers, not knowing a word of english. when the reunion proved to be incendiary, he spent the next five years traveling with close to nothing to call his own, from san diego to san francisco, to new orleans, to texas where he spent a night in jail (another excellent tale), then eventually to los angeles where he met his first wife, who was his boss’s daughter in his cab-driving days. today, i still call her my otra mama. though their relationship was initially quite casual, when she found that she was pregnant with my oldest sister, he chose to stick around despite being offered an out and having zero parental examples to model himself after as a first-time father. before my sister’s birth, he carried out more travel plans, venturing from india to turkey, and everywhere in-between.
my father lived more than most do in a lifetime within just in a few short years of his life, and he was intentional in continuing this trend for its remainder. while i know that there was more that he hoped to accomplish – more to see, more to do, more places to visit, and grandchildren to meet – i know that my father lived so well, so thoroughly and un-regretfully during his time on this planet that at times i find it difficult to be too angry about his death. he knew what he was doing, he knew how to live, and he knew how to milk every moment for all that it was worth, and i’ve felt that spirit kindling within me a little more every day since his passing.
there is no part of me that wishes or aims to glorify mental illness – this is not what this is, to be clear. and i am in no way intending to speak for others who may suffer from depression or thoughts of suicide – my experience is exactly my own, and i don’t mean to diminish anyone else’s struggles by comparison to my own. i am simply acknowledging that as a result of my specific circumstances and brain chemistry, with a touch of self-determination and a sprinkle of dumb luck, i have been able to mitigate some semblance of a positive philosophy from what began as (and occasionally still feels like) a truly hopeless situation.
having both crippling anxiety and occasional bouts of serious depression was never going to be easy to navigate, but i’m actually grateful that my depression is at times able to overpower my anxiety and put it into check. it’s taught me that trying to create control over each of life’s circumstances is a fool’s errand – that it’s not about whether or not you are going to die, but a matter of when. i used to tell myself, “the worst thing that can happen is, you die.” but i’ve come to realize that for me that isn’t true. the worst thing that can happen is that you never allow yourself to actually live.
