loves, it's my thirtieth birthday today... and as i celebrate in my own naturally subdued way; with good food, good whiskey and good wines, chicken soup classic films and loved ones via face-time; as i reminisce and ruminate and attempt to grasp my own diaphanous mortality and acclimate to trying, within reason, to control what i do with it, i find silent tears streaming down my made-up cheeks and a grievous ache blooming in my chest for all the friends who didn't make it to this day, to this age, who left this realm via their own hand or another's, who prematurely ascended to the perpetual party on another plane, or were cut down by fate's brutal scythe [however you like best to phrase it], this year or last, or years ago... and i can't help but feel an acrid taste of guilt in the back of my throat at surviving all of my own near-death experiences, be they by my own hand or otherwise. for christ's sake, i've lived with so many issues, especially su*cidal ideation, for years and by all accounts it's uncanny that i've survived every instance when really i "shouldn't" have. it's unnatural, against nature. it's unfair, it's cruel. and there's no making any sense of it, of the universe's penchant for randomness and balance in equal measures... i suppose what i'm trying to say is: it's okay to feel conflicted about surviving, it's okay to go on and keep the memory of those who have gone, it's completely natural to feel a tinge of survivor's guilt every now and then, and it's okay to give in for a bit, to grieve, to sing and to smile simultaneously, to laugh through the ache. hell, dance around the room, flailing wildly and shrieking like a banshee. but know you deserve to be here. i deserve to be here. and we're gonna be okay... i remember turning twenty on this platform, it's surreal [and ultimately impossible] to try to comprehend the ineffable passage of time. i love you all, especially you absolute legends who have somehow, for some inexplicable reason, been here for over a decade, through all of my erratic neurotic depressive gregarious loquacious furniture chewing phases and hopelessly melancholic dour despairing silences... all of it. i'm nuts, but y'all might be nuttier. and i ADORE you. and i hope to be back on here more regularly soon. in the meantime, though, in the indelible words of one Madame Regina Spektor:
