Afterlife Now

It is as though I finally understand what religion is to us. The savior from our fear of no afterlife. I have long tussled with the worries that end in a spiritless world. When will I see my sweet love again? How will my children get by? What will come of all that I have built, experienced and felt? I again find myself chilled by the desolation of nothingness.

When the talk of nuclear war graced my adolescent ears, I would awake from dreams terrified. Dreams where all that was left from the explosions were floating bodies and debris in the starkness of space. I contemplated, while miles away at college or on the other side of the world, how I would return to my mother and my brother, my grandmother and girlfriend if something cataclysmic were to happen.

I remember a dream in my early twenties that began with familiar friends in a familiar house near my old high school. My lover was with me enjoying the day as well. When I heard helicopters hovering overhead, I knew immediately they were going to fire on us. I remember diving atop her, flailing to cover every exposed piece of flesh that I could. When the missile hit, I felt the burning sensation slither up my back. I knew that I had saved her, but understood that we were still in trouble. I grabbed her hand and pulled her out through the back door. We ran hand-in-hand down the steep, grassy slope toward more open field. We were being fired upon still. We both instinctually know that we would have to let go hands and spread our paths if we were going to survive. We never broke stride or eye contact as we peacefully released one another and began our descent toward freedom.

I understand that after death we slump over motionless, a bag of carbon and fluid that will soon begin deteriorating and disappearing. I believe this because I am realistic and honest with myself about the disillusionment of assuming otherwise. Only the foolish, I stated with a firm tone, would waste life preparing to look foolish in death as well.

Today is different, however. Today I am lonely. Today I am emotionally and physically flogged from a short adulthood hollowed by narcissism. Today I am not worried with looking foolish to anyone at anytime. Today, I feel religious.

Religion is not the uniting of all who love each other, love God and love love. Religion is the uniting of all who are afraid to die without first knowing where they are going, and secondly, whether they are going to be accepted there. They will stand outside of the velvet ropes like a coed excited to enter the best dance club in town, knowing the bouncer will surely see the hopeful gleam in her eye and buckle beneath her batting lashes. We want eternity in a comfort we feel as though we rightfully deserve. We want our own self-created heaven. Though it would be tremendously exciting, I’ll never be convinced that its possible or even necessary.

It’s the not the deteriorating that saddens me. It’s the disappearing. With billions who have passed and billions more to go, we will merely vanish into the forgotten. A rotted box or discarded ashes left to the void. It’s being forgotten, like a month old pop song or completed book. We are dated and no longer relevant. Our hands never touching one another. Our lips never holding each others. We melt away and can not stay just a little longer, like trying to hang up the phone with your high school sweetheart on the other end. You hang up. No you. I can’t. I don’t ever want to let you go.

Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe I want to keep loving. It seems to be the only reason I am still alive today. I never want to live the day I can’t call my mother, stop in to visit and talk with her about anything. Show her that her years of struggle were not in vain, that I am a good man. I want see my brother and my niece at the park forever, and never experience the feeling of not being able to push her tiny back as she swings back and forth, or listening to my brothers newest adventure. I want to still lay my lover’s head on the pillow and kiss her to sleep until we are five hundred years old. I just don’t want to say... goodbye.

My self-created heaven is life just as it is now, where everyone is just a call or a drive away. I’m certain I’ll never take full advantage of it. Again, I’m realistic. But maybe if I just try to enjoy it enough, never miss a moment to love, and never hang up when I can still talk, maybe I’ll finally be okay with disappearing. A moment now is worth a million in death.

Birthday Brass

I want to preface this blog with my unwavering respect for those who took time out of their day to show me some birthday love. I had many more birthday wishes sent to me throughout the rest of the day. Some showed up at the bar to celebrate, a half dozen texted salutations to my phone and more than twice that posted to my MySpace account. I, in no way, wish to diminish the prominence and importance of each friends gesture. I merely noticed the strangeness of this event early in the day and have not stopped dissecting it for greater meaning. I am simply fascinated at who would be the first five people to leave an indelible mark on the weathered heart of a birthday boy who has made a life of making friends.

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My 28th birthday held a surprise I wasn’t quite expecting. I had to work all day, but found some time to check my cell messages during lunch break. I ate my delicious birthday lunch: two Hot Pockets, a pizza and a ham and cheese one. I headed out through the front door to distance myself from potential interruptions. This would be the only inspiration available to push me through the lurching workday toward my excitement of that evenings binge and bash. I didn’t bother viewing the call list, I just wanted to hear the voices that cared.

I had missed five calls and had five voicemail messages.

1. Ex-girlfriend (from college, currently in Japan); 9:01 am EST
2. Customer from last job-turned-Friend; 10:18 am
3. Mother; 11:17 am
4. Ex-girlfriend (most recent); 12:08 pm
5. Ex-girlfriend (on-and-off from ‘97-‘03); 12:16 pm

Each one stated their cause and offered a wish that melted me to the hot sidewalk. I was enveloped in the beauty that is a full life, remembered and appreciated.

You see, birthdays are hard for me. The wretchedness of growing old uncontrollably leaves me shaken, wishing there was an afterlife like they say there is, full of old friends and reminiscent meanderings. Worse are the forced announcements from people who feel inclined to do so, as if some ancient God will slight their children for them not following the scripture’s call to wish happy birthdays to everyone. I don’t like the attention and don’t need all the hullabaloo created by overzealous sycophants. At least not until I’m certified Mel Gibson drunk. Then it’s on.

As the day wore on, I couldn’t stop wondering why those were the five that would lead off my big day. Are they just early risers? Do they possess my strongest emotional ties? Maybe the rest of the lot went a less confrontational, more digital route and contacted me via PC. Strangely, it didn’t really matter at that moment. These acquaintances wanted me to hear their voice and feel the inevitable surge of excitement through my spine that accompanies a message that is truly selfless. Nobody has to call, but they did.

I really don’t factor in my mother, as she has always been in the first five and will always be. The Customer-turned -Friend was clearly a surprise. It’s no doubt he saw the blip on his Myspace dashboard, but again, he phoned me instead. He was short on the call, and understandably, because the noise in the background at his work would have steeped any sincerity in annoyance. He has proven himself a good friend with this gesture and I hope we grow closer this summer.

The first caller astounded me mostly because she didn’t have to call. We began talking recently after I sent out an “Are you alive” email to the last address I had for her. We last spoke two years prior in a two-email exchange that I’m sure ended with”don’t be a stranger”. This rediscovered, distant friendship, however, has slowly evolved into a couple nights a week of IM phone/video chatter. Therefore, she could easily have told me later. Her sweet voice always a mash up of scream and soprano, it warmed my stomach faster than a shot of whiskey.

The fourth caller I expected to hear from because she is an early riser and we talk most often of all my friends. Her voice buoyant as usual, peaking and breaking as she improvised the message, always wanting to say the right thing but not say too much. Still I’m proud to have her in my first five “best wishes” calls, as her messages always carry the weight of reassurance with them.

I shouldn’t be surprised with the fifth caller’s message. She has called me every birthday since we first kissed five days after my eighteenth. But the talking has dwindled to mere hellos and occasional phone number references. It was all of three sentences, hurried and, what I gathered as, despondent. So, frankly, I don’t know why she called. It could be an old habit. Could be she wants to keep the consecutive call streak alive. Hell, maybe it’s a karma thing. I prefer to believe she still thinks fondly of me and cares enough to call every birthday regardless of our current drought in communications. Either way, the streak is alive.

I drove home from work bewildered, yet inspired by this event. We all choose random episodes to rate the current standing of our lives. This is mine. I deduct that my life has been one of sorrow and forgiveness, love and comfort, pain and separation. I have left all of them at different junctures in my life: off to college, new job, growing apart. Perhaps this is evidence that my existence culminates with a great love, a truly epic union, only to gather its knees and descend the mountain in a fatal tumble that survives trees and rocks but not the bottom. Bloodied and sprawled at the base of my glory, I will remember all who passed through my heart and left their mark, be it years of intimacy or an early call to me on my birthday.