Diary entry 2

This time last year, I was in Algeria and I had suffered a profound mental and emotional breakdown. This time last year, I had unofficially quit my translation job of ten years. This time last year, I had a plan; I was going to kill myself and I had a plan to do it. Prior to this, I had done research on effective and sure ways to commit suicide, and I had pondered and begun to devise plans, but I had never had a plan as likely to succeed as this one, and I had never had the preparedness to execute such a plan. This time I did.

My plan necessarily involved travel. In one week, my visa to stay in Algeria would expire, so I had to leave. My plan necessitated that I be in a specific country (not Algeria) and that I store my luggage in the airport lockers of an airport in that specific country. It necessitated that I then travel to a specific area of that country to complete the execution of my plan, all on my own. On this day last year, I had this plan.

On March 26th last year, I was walking to the bus in Ain Turck, Algeria to go into the nearby city, Oran, to buy food. On my way, I fell on the sidewalk and broke my foot. At 40 years old, I had never gotten any more than scrapes and bruises from falling down, and hadn’t broken a bone since I was six years old…until last March 26th, 2008. I would blame the miniature rock quarries that pass for sidewalks in Algeria, except for the fact that I was actually walking on a portion of sidewalk that was completely safe and in-tact. My shoes were a little big, and my feet were sliding around a lot in them, but still…

On this very day last year, March 27th, in meeting a certain Algerian…let’s call him “Lucifer”… I had fulfilled the reason I had gone to Algeria. In some parallel universe, Lucifer loved me; in this one, he lied to me, he cheated on me and he stole my heart, my mind and my money. I still loved him, because he had loved me and I had never had any feeling of being loved before and I was insanely desperate for it, so I just couldn’t let go of that love, or even the memory of it. I had to meet him one last time, just to see for myself how far away from his love for me he had come. He had come far.

One week after our meeting, I had to leave Algeria…with a broken foot, on crutches…with my luggage. My plan had to be postponed. I couldn’t even carry my own luggage, let alone carry out my plan. The Algerian doctor who had treated me had told me, however, that after two weeks with the cast, I should be able to have it taken off and to walk on my foot.

I left Algeria last year on Saturday, April 5th, the day my visa expired. I had nowhere to go. I had no domicile, I had no home. Prior to departing for Algeria on June 2nd, 2007, I had given up the apartment in Finland I had been living in for ten years and put all of my belongings into storage. I didn’t care what happened to me. You could say I had a death wish and, in a sense, I had become reckless.

So on April 5th I flew out of Oran, Algeria, headed for Paris. I spent two nights at the Charles de Gaulle airport. I had decided in the time at the Paris airport that I would fly to Helsinki, where I had to take care of some matters before dying, so I would also have a doctor take my cast off and then I would proceed with my plan. I was just biding my time at the Paris airport so that the prescribed two weeks would pass by the time the doctor in Finland was to look at my foot.

After two nights at the airport in Paris, I took a plane to Helsinki. I stayed two nights at the Helsinki airport too. On the second day, I went to a medical center, almost miraculously and thankfully located only several meters from the airport itself. I had had the cast on for two weeks to the day. The doctor and the nurse removed the heavy Algerian plaster cast and I became a little perplexed as to how I should be able to walk on my very painful and swollen, very purple and blue colored foot. The Finnish doctor informed me that I must have the cast on for two more weeks, a total of one month. Not only that, but he said I mustn’t fly. He put on a new cast and I was stuck in Finland with a cast, crutches, luggage, no help and nowhere to go but the freezing cold airport. I was forced to call for help.

I called one of the two friends I had made in Finland, knowing I had to impose myself upon her and knowing how the people in that country hate to be imposed upon, especially in their homes. I didn’t think I had any friends of whom I could ever ask such a great imposition. I was crying on the phone when I told my story. My friend said I could stay with her and her family for the two weeks until I got my cast off. Today this friend holds a unique place in my heart, even if our contact is sporadic.

I stayed two weeks with my friend and also managed to take care of the matter I needed to take care of before dying. What happened, however, during those two weeks…I continued to have email contact with Lucifer. Like I said, I still loved him and I still needed him, even mere shadows of his love. He indicated he was worried about me. I told him my plan. He was the only one. He was the only one I could talk to about what was in my heart, including suicide, because he had spoken to me of suicide, and, I believed, he had spoken to me from the depths of his heart.

In the end, I promised Lucifer that I would not kill myself. He had also made some promises to me which he said he would keep on the condition that I take care of myself, not kill myself, and keep him updated as to how I am and what I am doing. I don’t think either of us thought that he would ever keep any of his promises. The truth is, part of me was looking for a reason not to kill myself, part of me didn’t really want to kill myself, after all (it’s not as easy as people think if you think about what you’re doing). Lucifer’s seemingly heartfelt caring, though likely feigned, and his, again seemingly, sincere request for follow-ups on me, plus promises on his part to become a better person, were all I needed to abandon my plan and make a new one. And that’s what I did.

Please note that the comments are closed on all “My Diary” entries. This category is to read like a book, and each post as a chapter. Please feel free to use the contact form on the “Contact” page for any feedback.

Diary entry 1

Given the continued unstable nature of my life, I decided I should post a diary on my website. In my life, I can never know where I will be or how long I will be there (geographically speaking), and even less, what I will be doing when I get there. Nowadays I can usually only see one step beyond my current situation, and even then, all is apt to change if things don’t go as planned (presuming there’s a plan). As such, there will be periods when I may not have any Internet access and I won’t know when I might have Internet access again. Since this site has become quite important to me, I want to add a diary, so whatever happens will be anticipated to anyone reading, and I won’t just suddenly disappear without warning. Because I know 0 about web design, the only way I know to establish a diary on my site is to add another category to my blog called “My Diary,” where I will post diary entries. I’ll try to keep the category limited to what is going on (or what has gone on) in my “real life,” as opposed to in my imagination, poetry or the thoughts in my mind. Most of the time, however, they all coalesce (usually without my awareness).

I had wanted to begin this website as a success story, rising from the dead like a glorious Phoenix out of the ashes of utter devastation and destruction, having triumphed over all my fears and miseries, having all of the answers, being 110% healed, my head and heart put together, successful and serving as a guiding light for others who were struggling in their suffering like I was. I passionately wanted to help others, not limited to – but especially – people like me, the commonly misunderstood, with serious and deep-rooted emotional troubles, who might be suicidal, self-mutilating, severely depressed, or whose lives have been defined by devastating and repeated childhood traumas/experiences that have burned a brand of patterns of suffering on them, to such an extent that, even despite recourse to all resources imaginable to them in their lives, they are still at a loss concerning how to free themselves of the suffering patterns. I wanted to have credibility and ability to offer compassion, understanding and wisdom, which I think is a difficult and rare combination to find anywhere. I wanted to be a model, not only of someone who had overcome extended childhood and adolescent emotional and psychological abuse and neglect and their consequences, but who did so without espousing a hardened heart or a mind which lingered in hatred or revenge; I wanted to become a role model for breaking the vicious circle of the evil and bad we perpetrate upon one another in this world. And I wanted to do all of that without revealing any of my own lingering dysfunctions, depression, flaws or struggle. However, it turns out that the site, like the Phoenix, is up and…well, I’m not.

This site is the only thing I have going for me right now that I care about (and the only thing I’ve ever cared about that wasn’t a man), and I’m more than pleased about having this lovely little cyber corner where I can delightfully weave my own delicate, glistening dew-drop-donned web … pages, which are becoming like a real home for me now, so I’ll try to make all I write on the blog as coherent and organized as possible. (Routine and organization-two things I strive for but which always elude my grasp.)

Thus, rather abruptly and poorly transitioned, concludes the “Introduction to My Diary.”

Please note that the comments are closed on all “My Diary” entries. This category is to read like a book, and each post as a chapter. Please feel free to use the contact form on the “Contact” page for any feedback.