November 01, 2000
Requiem
Gingko of Dreaming Among the Jade Clouds recently commited suicide. I wasn't one of her regular readers, but I knew who she was. You can't be into the 'journaling community' and not know her name. I didn't know her, yet why am I so profoundly upset by this?
I suppose part of it is my usual reaction to suicide, about what a sad, horrible waste it is. Yes, I know. I've been suicidal in the past. I've made half-hearted attempts. I have been so horribly and utterly depressed that drawing breath was an almost inconceivable effort. I've wanted to just die to end the pain. In the end, all of my attempts were not so much attempts to end my life as subconscious attempts to draw attention to how much I was hurting. I can only imagine how much hurt there would have to be to carry through on the attempt.
Go to Gingko's site. Look around. She was an artist, a writer. Her site is gorgeous. I remember thinking I'd send her email once when I was first getting started, but I was afraid to, because I felt so intimidated by her and her beautiful site. I wish I had now.
That's really what it comes down to, isn't it? The end. No more words to write. No more pictures to draw or take. No more songs to sing. No more stories to tell.
I'm so afraid of that. Once I thought I knew what comes after this life, and that if I followed the rules, I'd go on happily ever after. Now I don't know. What if this really is it? One time around the merry-go-round and then everybody has to get off. There's so much time I've wasted. So many things I haven't done. I drift from day to day never really thinking about it, moving without much plan or purpose. There always seems to be enough time ahead of me.
But what if there isn't?
What have I done so far? My list of life accomplishments seems so small. I've achieved tiny amounts of success as a writer, tiny amounts of success as a singer. There are so many things I haven't done, that I haven't had a chance to do. Twenty-eight years is not long enough. Ginkgo was twenty-nine.
Whenever I hear that someone I know through the net has died or gotten sick or had some major change in their life, I feel this creeping sense of panic. What if something happens to me? Almost none of my closest friends would know how to get in touch with my family, or vice versa. No one would know any of my passwords to update this site to let y'all know. Or to check my email and answer it. All the phone numbers I know I have in my head.
I almost feel like I should make a living will, only instead of one that says 'do not resuscitate' it would say, 'Call these people, here are their phone numbers. Here are all my relevant passwords, do this if I am unable to.' I suppose it's not a completely bad idea. I have very little in the way of physical property. But I have so much intellectual space on the net, things that are important to me, projects I care about.
There are things I will not finish. I think that's what has really hit me about the news about Gingko. Someday I'll die, and it won't matter that I haven't finished a story or that I was working on a character. Conversations will remain forever unfinished. Relationships will stay unfinished. In stories you try to wrap up most or all of the most important loose ends. Life isn't like that. When it ends, it ends, and whatever loose ends remain are left to unravel or for someone else to knit up.
Logically, I knew this, of course. I think the import of it really hit me for the first time. I'm feeling a little at sea right now.
To Ceit and anyone else reading who was close to Gingko, I'm very sorry. I wish I had sent that email.
Posted by Lisa at November 1, 2000 12:51 PM
