Lullaby

My friend Jeff and I used to escape the campus of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Oregon by walking to the bus stop for Tri-Met line 57.  It was the final stop about 25 miles west of Portland.  We’d grab as much change as we could and try to get to Portland to visit cool record stores and such, despite the hour and a half trip each way.  If we had less time, or patience, we’d ride the 16 or so miles into Beaverton and go to Tower Records.  We needed to feel civilization.  Being on a small college campus in an isolated town that didn’t want to have anything to do with the college students back in 1989/90 was a little claustrophobic.  There was little to do, so we invented our own fun, and minor escapes.  During our treks to the bus stop near the mini mart and the Vac & Sew storefront, we generally sang exaggerated versions of songs that would pop into our heads. 

 

One of those songs was The Cure’s “Lullaby.”  It was never a huge favorite of mine from their catalogue, but our overly breathy version was, well, it was a thing.  The combination of the exaggerated gasping whispers and the attempts to stifle our laughter while performing this song for our own entertainment would lead to near hyperventilation.  If it wasn’t “Lullaby,” it might’ve been “Fire in Cairo,” or “Party of the First Part,” or “Debaser,” or “Cuts You Up,” for which I was convinced I had perfected the Peter Murphy croon, but I’m sure in reality I sounded more like a dying harbor seal barking out my misery.  Then there was the Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Sidewalking,” which included our repeating howls of “chilled to the bone” and an impossible contorted stroll that can only be described as a silly walk – Monty Python-style.  I would say, “You had to be there,” but it still likely would not have made any sense.  None of it ever made sense, but I will never forget those mini adventures and the laughs.

I woke up from a short fit of sleep recently having dreamt of spider webs.  They were everywhere.  Thick and sticky.  In my eyes and mouth.  Surrounding me enough to make me believe that a giant spider or a gang of ambitious regular sized spiders were hunting me.  I could feel the webs in my mouth and sticking to every part of my body as I tried to force my way through them.  There were layers and layers.

 

Legend has it that one of Robert Smith’s uncles would tell him nightmarish bed time stories about a spiderman that would eat sleeping children.  Was the “Spiderman” from “Lullaby” coming for me after all these years for making fun of the song? 

“On candy stripe legs the spiderman comes

Softly through the shadow of the evening sun

Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead

Looking for the victim shivering in bed

Searching out fear in the gathering gloom and

Suddenly a movement in the corner of the room

And there is nothing I can do

When I realize with fright

That the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight”

I look back at those days with bewilderment.  I was fairly healthy and one of my biggest fears at that time was sleeping through my 8:30 am classes at college.  Sure, life wasn’t always fun and games, but a lot of my needs were met, I had new friends, my small insular world was expanding, and there wasn’t a lot of outside pressure.

Generally, I’m not one to read a lot into dreams.  If I’m dreaming about looking for a bathroom then, yes, I likely need to pee in real life and should wake up.  In this case though, the imagery is not lost on me.  I’m pretty sure that those webs represent my own inhibitions and shields that I’ve continued to build and maintain throughout my life. 

I’ve always been slow to trust and very wary of trying new things, especially if there’s potential danger.  And by danger, I mean everything from falling from a tree fort, or flying off jumps on my first dirt bike, to opening myself up for emotional damage from failed relationships.  For the most part, I’ve kept to myself, which has always felt safer and frankly, comfortable.  It can get lonely sometimes, but I’m not so bad at keeping myself company most of the time.  As a kid, I never fully embraced being away from home.  Never felt comfortable sleeping over anywhere.  I preferred spending time with friends and then going home.  I’m still that way.

After years of medical issues that have caused a lot of damage, I am feeling like I’ve isolated myself into a deep, dark hole full of those sticky webs that will not allow me to escape.  It’s frustrating, because I’ve been this way for so long, that I am not sure how to remedy this self-entrapment.  The older and unhealthier I get, the more I realize that I cannot do this alone anymore.  I need help, but I don’t know specifically what help I need or how to ask.  I feel like I’ve alienated a lot of friends who have offered help, by declining, but I do not know how to relinquish control of every aspect of my being, or what to ask for, and I don’t know how accept the idea that I’m anything but a nuisance or burden, if I reach out for help.  Pride is a bitch.

 

Self-hatred would likely have happened anyway, but it took a dark turn after having a few serious abdominal surgeries before I turned 20.  I do not feel proud of my scars like well-adjusted people do for having toughed things out.  I feel mutilated like some sort of Frankenstein’s Monster.  Back then though, I suppose I had enough belief that eventually I’d pull myself free of my self-imposed shackles and not be ashamed of my physical being.  It has never happened.  Shame and embarrassment has only expanded with age and numerous hardcore medications.  Steroids, chemo drugs, immune suppressants, and numerous cholesterol and blood pressure medications have helped me morph into some kind of pale doughy crippled Sasquatch.  I feel humiliated.  Ashamed.  I could go on and on.

 

Shit.  This got dark real quick. 

What I’m trying to say is that I think this dream led me to some self-reflection and a full honest realization of how I’ve sabotaged myself over the years as part of my unfortunate lifelong unhealthy journey.  Emotionally, I do not know how to handle it anymore.  My poor social skills have caught up with me leading to isolation and difficulty navigating some of the few friendships I have remaining.  I spend so much time with medical professionals that they have essentially become my social circle, which is incredibly unhealthy.  When I move on from a physical therapist or a specialist having completed some kind of arbitrarily sanctioned insurance coverage.  I get incredibly sad, because these people are no longer part of my life.  

As I mentioned above, I seem to reject offers of help.  I do not know what to ask for, and by the time I do have a specific need, I struggle to send out a request, nor do I want to give up control and my privacy.  The nature of my health issues stems from a genetic disorder that never seems to end, as long as I keep surviving.  So, the same things that were making my life hell in 1991, are still affecting me – only it’s expanded and become more all-encompassing.  I feel embarrassed and reluctant to keep complaining to those I love about the same old shit.  Nothing has changed.  The disorder is unrelenting.  I often get “what now?” reactions when I attempt to communicate my problems to others.  How do I make it clear that I live with this stuff every day and have most of my life?  It doesn’t go away.  It is a part of who I am. 

What’s funny is that intellectually I recognize that I self-shame myself into oblivion.  I am proud of my survival on a certain level.  Not a level that’s high enough for me to prevent me from feeling like a waste and a failure.  I can recognize this kind of defeatist attitude in others when they manifest it and I can come up with compelling arguments as to why they shouldn’t punish themselves that way.  Apparently, these arguments do not apply to me.  Is it possible to turn things around?  Is it possible to undo a lifetime of mental sabotage?  Is it possible to fend off the spiderman?  Do I want to fend off the spiderman, or do I want to give up?