Happy re-Birthday

Image by another_finn via Flickr

Today marks the 20th anniversary of my rebirth. This is the day that a hot headed 13 year old and an impulsive 14 year old developed their own rite of passage without intention and forever changed both their lives. One will be forever haunted and one will be eternally grateful.

In celebration of this twisted birthday, I have decided to post something I wrote in 1995. It is a little rough but it sings the story. So, as though I were in an old movie, I am here to say, "Take it away Sam."

It was a glorious feeling now that I reflect. Death. The absence of feeling. My vision went black, not even black, there was nothing. No senses, nothing. It was wonderful.

I was shot by a gun, a .44 magnum to be exact. A beautiful, metallic, harbinger of death. The long, cold barrel stared me straight in the eyes, no not the eyes, the soul. The pistol screamed! I fell into nothingness. My face leaped towards the words the pistol shouted as the rest of my body attempted to jump awy. My unliving form fell forward in amazing speed but my chin caught us at the edge of the desk I was occupying. My senses were already on vacation by this time. Vacation nothing, they were half way to Mexico on a more permanent basis.

The depressing part was that my sight had returned. I was watching a set of stairs walking up and away from me. My feet weren't moving. "This must be the stairway to Hell," I thought. I was upset to find out that I was wrong...very upset.

The blood raced from my still unmoving form in ungodly amounts. If I had feeling, the sensation would be better than sex, I'm certain. Everything swiftly turned crimson and the sight alone made the tip of my mind tingle.

I was outside. The rest of my senses returned, unfortunately. They were as depressed as I am now. I found myself staring at the alley behind my shooter's home. Bored. Alone for another part of my life. I walked, slipping on my own type O all the way back up the stairs I was dragged down and into the executioner's room, the place I had the chance to greet Death. This is where I found the gunman dialing for help. At the time, I was pleased. I don't understand why. I sat on the bed, wasting space in the corner and began taking delight in the actual entry wound and the oral innards that were exiting my widened maw. The mouth stew seemed more like a witch's brew...a dozen teeth, freshly mulched gums, a pinch of gunpowder, a handful of ripped and burned flesh...and it was all annointing my person.

The angels charged into the room, wearing their customary white. Two had brought in a stretcher, two were equipped with towels and a red, plastic box. Strange equipment for angels. One supressed my bleeding crevice with a towel while another checked my heart rate. The other two loaded me onto their stretcher and hauled me off like groceries in a shopping cart.

Well, that's how I saw it six years after the event. I have had time to heal and grow since and have grown to love what I once loathed. I appreciate the life I fought for.

My life never returned to normal and there are many things I cannot do that I watch the rest of the world take for granted, things that I used to be hateful for not being able to do. The toughest part of the whole change was the deadened nerves in the left side of my face that cripple me in the sense that I no longer smile without looking like Quasimodo and that my facial expressions are so outlandish now that they cause a second glance from people around me, even people that are often in my presence. I know that my goofy expressions are enough to cause people to point and snicker, and it still stings every time someone does, but I know that if they were to try going through the ordeal that made me the joke I am today, they wouldn't have the willpower to survive the first week of my trials, let alone the years of physical and psychological torture and two decades of societal ridicule and when I feel the needles of shame or embarrassment piercing through my chest, I just think of the gun. No other pointing hurt quite like it and just like it, I will survive the pointing of others and become stronger for it.

Though my life isn't normal and I can't do some of the simplest of things, my life is great and I wouldn't trade in for any other. I am me, not because of the handicaps that hold me back, but because of the success I achieve in spit of them!

Happy birthday to me!

(Same event, different emotional perspective)