Lost Lives and Funnybook Lessons

Oh Jesus, were do I start?

How do I explain me virtually disappearing for months? What happened to me? How did I get here and what have I become? Honestly, I'm still figuring that out...

I know whats it's like to have everything taken from you, and left to die. To have someone you thought you can trust do anything to destroy you. Even if it were to decimate themselves, after all, they can blame you for that too.

I won't get into too much detail here. I'm tired of having these thoughts bouncing about my skull, and I don't want to get into a "pity-party"...even though I think if anyone deserves one, this is a great time to work that up, and bring depressing party hats with a stale cake and a sad drunken clown who's wife just left him and can only make balloon animals like a snake, a stick, and a deformed legless dog.

In one day...I got set up an fired from my job. My bank account and savings was emptied. My friends were threatened to never talk to me again. I came home to an apartment with absolutely no furniture and almost no personal affects intact. And, my cat, Indiana, was taken away. I had the money in my wallet, the clothes on my back, and my car. And, all of this was caused by me.

I put all my trust into the perfectly wrong person.

What does one do? When you have nothing, you give up hope, some people say. And I'm sure the whole evil mastermind plan was to see me hurt so much, that I would want to die. Pictures ripped up that could never be replaced. Things I worked hard to make or do, shattered to oblivion. Bits of my life, burned and raped, just for someones perverted pleasure. even my Rickenbacker, was bashed apart with a hammer and left behind as a token of how stupid I am.

What does one do. I sat in my car in the dark and wondered what do I do. Where do I start. I can't afford food, gas, rent, clothes, anything. I'd be so easy to just...give up. -They won. well played.

I sat there and glanced over to see if I had a coat in the back seat, as it was going to be a cool night. In the back of my car was a book. Before you think I'm going to say I "found religion", it was a comic book. In the story, the hero Daredevil, a successful lawyer by day, has his identity given to his arch enemy, the Kingpin. And the Kingpin knows that it's easy to murder his hated foe, but it also lets him off the hook way too quickly...he wants Daredevil to suffer.

The Kingpin uses his influence to frame Daredevil. His accounts were frozen, he lost his house, he was fired from his job, no one believed him, and he lost everything. reduced to stumbling around back alleys and sleeping on the street. You see, to totally destroy someone, you need to take everything away from him, then when he has nothing, you be merciful and end it for him.

The Kingpin made Daredevil lose all hope. Then he saw his greatest mistake: A man without hope, is a man without fear.

Daredevil realized that he really lost nothing. He has himself, and he'll be damned if anyone will take that away. He fought back, if only to show that he is still alive, and he triumphed. Nothing mattered but who he was inside.

And I'll be damned if I let myself give up.

Within weeks I work my tail off. I got a job. I got a place. I got people who cared about me and also didn't have any fear. I didn't let myself drown in worthlessness (but god, that was hard...). Because, that was the best way show everyone that I really lost nothing...because you can't change me. You can't crush me. All you can do is be blinded by my brilliance of resolve. All you can do is be envious.

For that entire stressful month and a half, I've had this horrible chest pain and cough. Sometimes even coughing up blood. I found out that I have a problem with my thymus in my chest. I know what that might mean. And, I know in the past I would have cried, "why me?" But I don't, and I smile more now. Why? If anything all this has done, is show I can beat anything.

I sit in my new apartment, typing on the Internet before I have to go to work, and I know people love me. I had people who took me in their homes, and gave me their love and understanding.

I really lost nothing. I actually gained a few things. And I have no fear.