Finding myself in Lost Angeles

I wrote this August 24th, 2007 and knew, even then, that I wasn’t ready to post it but I feel like I can post this now.

For those who don’t know, I have this thing called Crohn’s disease.  It’s where my body pretty much thinks I have food poisoning all the time and doesn’t like to absorb food or do anything but make you feel like laying in bed and dying.  I take medicine for it and have been as healthy as a sick person can be for the last 3 years.  I tend to only bitch about it to my mom so this might be the first time you hear me talk about it.  I’m under the theory that when I die, it’ll either be from Crohn’s (usually dehydration or organ failure), drug overdose or suicide (I have problems with depression that I am dealing with on my own so please no pity comments).

Well the medicine that I take for illness is an infusion, meaning I check into the hospital for a day and get an IV put in and the medicine slowly drips into me and keeps me alive while ironically killing my immune system.  It’s just how it’s designed to work.  And I get this done every 8 weeks (used to be 6 but I’m handling my disease a bit better).  It has weird stuff in it like mouse and horse proteins and God knows what else and my doctor says it has no side effects but it’s only been on the market for about 5 years.  I’m a guinea pig…along with thousands of others.  The med costs 7000 dollars per dose, but that’s beside the point.  I’m going in again in the morning for another dose but I’ve been noticing bumps all over my skin that I’ve been blaming on ingrown hairs, bruises, bug bites etc…but I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that this may be a sign that the medicine is having some kind of bad effect on me and is, possibly, beginning to not work anymore.  It’s a possibility I’m choosing to ignore because there really isn’t anything anyone can do at this point.  It’s the last medicine available to me other than experimental drugs.  So I’m a bit concerned.  I refuse to have surgery done and if this is the end, then I’m okay with it.  I’ll go with a morphine drip and smile until the end.  But that certainly isn’t anything anyone else needs to think about at this juncture…I’ll keep you posted on that situation as it develops.

I also feel and have been told by doctors that my body is showing signs of Rheumatoid Arthritis (see: Sean Rouse).  My hands have always been goofy and misshappen like the old Simpsons cartoons but doctors would always ask if I had any pain and i would say “no,” and they’d be surprised and assume nothing was wrong.  Well, for the last few years, and especially recently, I am starting to feel pain and it definitely sucks.  My knees are starting to go out a bit and I don’t even snowboard anymore so I don’t know what to blame it on.

I have a feeling the coming months are going to be very climactic for me.  I feel more and more parallel with the life of Bill Hicks than I ever have before and it’s strange because the more my life seems to mirror his, the more I’ve been listening to his comedy.  Maybe we are just energy experiencing itself subjectively and life is but a dream…maybe the alien that told him there is no such thing as death was onto something.  Who knows?  I feel closer to knowing the answer than I’ve ever been.

My career is beginning to move forward in many ways and I feel like I’m finally  beginning to make a decent transition into adulthood but I’m still not sure how I feel about it.  As a kid, I never thought I’d make it this far so it’s no wonder I picked a career that lets me act like a kid all the time. 

I think I will be doing some of the best work and make some of the biggest strides of my career and in my life in the next 6 months but I can feel my health deteriorating too.  Both mentally and physically.  I’ve never really been happy; always sad, alone, and enlightened in my entire life.  And I’m never angry or afraid and I think that’s my biggest accomplishment.  I’ve felt frustration but I can now distinguish that from anger…like I said, I’m growing up.  :-)

I can’t really begin to describe the lonliness because it doesn’t really seem to make sense to me although it’s the emotion I’ve been feeling the strongest for the last 4 years.  I’m constantly surrounded by people but I don’t fit in.  I’m in high school all over again.  I had a million friends but only one person out of that whole group embraced me and said, “you’re one of us.”  He made me feel like I belonged.  I played football, breakdanced, worked out in the gym, was good at computers and video games, did some theatre, skateboarded/snowboarded etc etc etc.  If you could do it, I did it.  I was friends with the nerds, jocks, and every other clique but it was always on the surface.  I was a display model in a store.  People come and enjoy you until they are ready to make a purchase and then they leave with the one in the box in the back.  That was me.  That is me.  That person that embraced me is now dead.  I buried him and spoke at his funeral and carried his casket.  A big part of me is in that grave.  Then Ditty died.  Then Dave Starr.  Then Tim Lamoreaux.  Then Kaleb Kournkoven.  Then Ryan Perry.  Then Aaron Padilla.  Then Phil Gates.  Then Gabe.  Then my dog and my grandpa in the same month.  Then Kendallee Thornton.  And I feel alone.  Trent and Court got married and Nick moved to Sacramento.  I have a million people that I surrround myself with, but I don’t fit in.  I don’t want to fit in, I don’t think.  I enjoy being alone.  I like giving myself to others without asking anything in return.  Maybe there’s something Christ-like in that.  Maybe there’s something Satan-like in my interest in being Christ-like.  Who knows?

So, I’m dedicating all of my time to an idealistic passion/obsession that I hope will at least be something worth being remembered for.  Nobody really knows me.  Nobody.  Not even me.  But I imagine the people we make statues for and praise in literature were fairly lonesome people too.  It takes time alone to obsess and it takes obsession to do something great.  I don’t know how many close friends Einstein had.  He seemed to focus mostly on his work.  Same as Bill Hicks.  Same as Hunter S. Thompson.  There is something so self-sacrificing about wanting to change the world. 

Dick Scary recently emailed me and said that I was either a hero or completely nuts.  I think he gets me more than anyone I talk to everyday.  I don’t want thanks or praise or anything like that because I’d like to think that my ego is beyond that.  I just want people to look at the life I lived and reflect on it as hopefully inspirational and hopefully I added more than I took away.  I fear I have become more of a poison and destructive factor in many people’s lives than helpful like I’ve tried to be.

To me, life is a memory.  When you look around and experience things, you are creating memories.  You are living a memory.  Then you can look back on the memory and re-live it.  My memory is fading.  I still smile through it, but it’s like a photo someone shows you and you don’t remember taking it.  It looks photoshopped. 

I don’t question the way things are with my disease and my life and how I came to be who I am or what I could’ve been because I believe everything happens for a reason.  Everything.  I don’t think the breeze hitting my face right now is an accident.  It all adds to our total experience.  We all need the stimuli or we might wake up from this dream and realize that without distractions, this life is no different than any other game we’ve ever gotten drawn into.  It’s silly really. 

I tried to kill myself a number of times when I was young but never had the balls to do it right.  I once knew a girl who wanted my suicide note and so I gave it to her.  I don’t know what Sheena Baugh ever did with it, but she has it somewhere if she didn’t lose it in the moves in her life.   

So what have I learned?  What have I accomplished?  I learned in writing class not to ask questions in your writing even if they are proverbial…but I obviously never gave half a shit what the rules were.  I will not let a textbook outline how I describe myself.  That’s what I’ve learned from life.  To do what you want.  Control is all you’re taught your entire life, like a dog being trained.  No one likes it but no one dares defend themselves and stand up.  I fought tooth and nail and compromised when I felt necessary to achieve a higher goal.  I fought authority from as far back as I can remember because I don’t think anyone should have any say in how my life goes other than me.  Call me selfish.  Who knows?

I feel abandoned by this world and this life.  It’s time for the next step and I’m ready for it.  I need to see what is beyond this life.  I’ll see you all on the other side.

Until then, I’ll keep faking it until my destiny takes me to where I need to go next.  I’ll enjoy every sunset and sunrise I can…every friendship I make…every great rainy/windy/blustery day…every long drive to a new town or to a place I once called home…Finding a new place to call home.

With all of my love and soul.
Your friend and family always,
(David) Sina Amedson