Coping

Update 9/6/2010: Check the comments for explanation.

Apologies for the lack of material recently.  Life get's busy.  As it is, I still have 2 topics to cover beyond this, and if I ever get some time to come up for air, I'll post them.  This post is mostly up out of need.  A somewhat new saying I got from a friend.  Mind you, this is the friend that named my dog, and the same that constantly feeds me new ideas and thinking pathways; ever important to me despite my recent disappearance from contact.  The saying goes like this, "Cope or Die."

That's it.  Just Cope or Die.  This summer I got the full gauntlet of difficulties presented to me.  And all come down to Cope or Die.

A good friend, my newly adopted little brother, lost his mother this summer.  I cannot imagine that loss, especially when juxtaposed with my own familial relations.  My brother is in med school here, and he still came this term.  I might mention that he's not coping with just this utter, profound loss, but also a whole other turmoil wrecking his family and home right now.  But he is still here.  He is trying very hard to keep it together, to cope, to live, to keep breathing while it feels like he's been dropped into the ocean, without a life jacket, during a squalling tropical depression...  He hates his memories, the pain, and himself for just those reasons.  He is without a home, without her, without that one person who just knew and loved and was all confidence and pride for him.

I watch him throw himself against this wall again and again, and I can't help except to tell him to ease up.  I can only try to hold him back from that abyss or risk diving in after him and then try to save the two of us.  I remember that feeling, of hating the past, wanting to go back and change it, the what-if, then not wanting to remember, and hating yourself, feeling so guilty that you are not strong enough to take on the pain, this repeating without end or respite.  And the only thing that saved me was being told there is method to the madness.  That, and a few mental exercises, and my best friend sticking with me through that squalling storm.  That pain, that violence, defines me and who I am now, and I never want anyone to feel that if I can help it.  I identify with his difficulty, despite the profound difference and depth, and cannot but try to help.  All my heart and strength go to him, in hopes of lending some healing.

I had, and I say had not have, another friend here who was at best delicate.  He struggles with everyday, with every instance of life, because he sees it all as a personal assault.  Get that?  EVERYTHING is out to eat him alive, and the few times he divines joy in life, he can't trust it, or it's source.  That he is the epitome of delicate and sensitivity begs the question why I am (was) friends with him.  And the best I can say to that is, I got pumped up from pumping him up, and I think I was his exercise in desensitization.  He was always a constant source of, "my life could be worse; it could be his."  He is terribly witty, and he runs (ironically) at the same pace and distance as I.  His problem, that I finally identified, is that when posed to Cope or Die, he freezes until the choice is made for him, and usually that is death.  

Ultimately, I have a really busy schedule this term, and specifically made time for him, to run and listen to him.  This, as part of something he cannot trust, he blew me off... twice.  So I let him know my unhappiness, and that was an insult on his sensibilities.  Part of my coping, instead of dieing, is to let out what's in my head, part of his coping is to drop dead, roll over, or avoid the situation completely.  The world was cold and harsh before he ever came, and will continue to be so after.  We must all Cope or Die.  I am disappointed to think I cannot inspire such a will.

Finally, one last friend.  Some people cope by taking it all on, some get angry, some fight.  This fabulous yellow roman candle does all three.  Most can cope well with extremes every once in a while, and a few for longer periods of time; this brightly burning mad man thrives in high stress all the time.  And while my first reaction is try to ease that, I have found it best to rock with the ride and then get some space.  He's got his own set of issues, and he needs to deal with those issues.  But his coping is in line with his circumstances: extenuating and somewhat bizarre.  If I couldn't accept that, then I would never have thought so much of him.

Unfortunately, he overstepped himself in a situation where I am well experienced, and exceptionally unwilling to tolerate.  He found out that I will stand my ground, and I found out he doesn't back down even when he's wrong.  I think he has decided that he wants to dislike me and it stings when such a bright flame is turned.  This is the consequence of being friends with fabulous yellow roman candles.  Hopefully, when he comes back to Earth, we will still be epic. 

I cannot be anything but myself.  And to cope, I can only continue to do what I have ever done.  Leap and the net will follow.  Sometimes I am the net, sometimes I am just falling.  Cope Or Die.  I don't expect any one of my friends to be anything less than they are, and I can accept they're coping, even if it means that I am no longer in that equation.  Because it means that they Live.

And to choose to feel the power of that life is how I cope.