Soul Stripper

Lafayette

July 17 2009 - July 17 2015

My best friend in this damn shitty world died Friday. He was six years old. His kidneys shut down, and my son and I agreed that it would be best for him to be released rather than having to endure costly treatments that wouldn't buy him more than a week. He was a very sick little guy, but very brave to the end. If you want to read what happened in detail, I've published a post here. I honestly didn't know how sick he was.

This post is going to be long, rambling and ranty. It isn't going to be full of sunshine or unicorns farting rainbows. If you have a problem with long, ranty, rambling posts short on sunshine, unicorns, or rainbow farts, this is your cue to exit. 

Anyone who sees the need to tell me that I need to be more positive, think more positive, or anything else of that nature needs to realize that you are a sanctimonious ass and you need to not tell others how to think or feel. I've more than enough of your kind of person in my life.

I am a very angry person overall, and life hasn't done much to make me less angry. It seems that every time I find something that softens my heart, the powers that be conspire to take it away.

Now, here is the difference between my mother and me.

I'm pretty sure this plane is purgatory. I've developed this belief over a lifetime of being kicked in the teeth at every turn. You don't have to join me in my belief. I will never say that anyone has to believe what I do.

I have stated that I am an angry person. I probably qualify as bitter, although I try not to be hateful. In spite of being angry and bitter, I actually am capable of caring. Sometimes I care quite a lot.

I loved Lafayette more than I love just about any other creature on this planet. I was the one person that he really trusted. His love for me was innocent and unconditional. That kind of thing doesn't come along every day, and I let this little creature into my heart.

When he died, I was utterly devastated. I wondered how I could have missed the fact that he was so sick. Logically, I know why. I'm currently working two jobs. I'm trying to pay off massive amounts of debt, mostly vehicle related. I'm helping my son, who is unable to work due to severe anxiety and depression. I'm just trying to keep afloat.

It wasn't until Thursday that I was aware that Lafayette was having trouble eating and drinking, and I made an appointment to take him to the vet. 

He was much sicker than I thought, and there was nothing that could be done.

I ended up talking to my mother, whose comfort came in the forms of statements such as this.

"This is why I won't have animals."

Yeah...thank you for letting me know I'm an idiot. I was already aware, actually.

"Things like this happen so we can form callouses on our souls."

My response was "because that's what I really needed is more callouses on my soul. Look, I already resigned myself a long time ago to the fact that nothing good is ever going to happen to me. What the hell more does the Universe want?"

I wondered if this tragedy came to me because I recently got a new job and I was happy about it. It seems that I can't have anything good happen without having something really shitty happen in return.

"Well," my mother said, "we have to pay for what we get."

"Yeah, but this is completely out of line," I said. "This sort of thing is worth a vehicle breakdown or something of that nature, not something utterly tragic."

"Oh, you don't want car problems," she said.

Well, I'd much rather have car problems than to have a creature that meant the world to me die!

Now, in my mother's defense, she comes from a family with a really harsh world view. When her dog got hit by a car when she was in high school, she was devastated. Her grandmother told her "stop crying over that dog. Just think how you'd have felt if it had been your sister."

My great grandmother had a very difficult life and had developed a lot of callouses on her soul. 

Thing is, I honestly don't think this is a good thing.

Somehow this conversation reminded me of the song "Soul Stripper" by AC/DC. Possibly because the band's founder, Malcolm Young, is getting the royal shaft from the Universe himself by having his mind stripped away. If you believe the Satanic Panic shitheads, you believe he deserves this. Please pull your head out of your ass if you believe those fuckwits for even a nanosecond. This man was far from evil and in no way deserves what's happening to him.

In any case, the line that I was reminded of goes like this:

She started moving nice and easy

Slowly getting into my spine

Killing off these nice little feelings

Every one she could find

Granted, the song is about one of those awful, doomed from the start, obsessive romantic attachments. But my mother's statement about forming callouses on one's soul made me think that this is what the miseries of life can do. Eventually enough nice little feelings are killed off that a person becomes cold and hard. 

I may be angry. I may be bitter. But I refuse to be cold and hard. No matter how much it hurts to let myself feel, I will feel. I don't ever want to let my soul be entirely stripped away.

I contemplate suicide often. The only reason I don't do it is because my son still needs me.

Because this is my damn blog and because I love this band, here's Soul Stripper. One of the reasons it sounds so different from a lot of AC/DC's material is because Angus and Malcolm switched who was playing rhythm and who was playing lead. Malcolm really didn't like playing lead, but he was perfectly capable of it. This song was never meant to be a "single." They were having fun, and it shows.

Fun...wish I knew what the hell that was.

~Cie~