Come as you are

It's my first Christmas without my boys. I suppose there are some corners of the world where that is still considered all my fault despite the sins of my ex. That's really neither here nor there. What does matter is that I am down to the very core of my soul miserable. Alone. I should be resting, soaking in some relaxation and me time and instead I'm downright despondent. So I'm doing what I did the last time the blackness hit...I'm reading, somewhat ridiculously and voraciously. On the kindle this week? The Kurt Cobain biography Heavier Than Heaven: A Biography of Kurt Cobain by Charles R. Cross. The Kurt Cobain suicide is actually the first "where were you when?" moment for me and many others around my age. Yes, while others are attending Christmas Eve services, wrapping presents from Santa and sharing their joy with loved ones, I'm reading a biography of a heroin addict who committed suicide at the tender age of 27. It would be funny if it wasn't so melancholic.

New Mexico was expecting one of its fluke snowstorms and we were all hoping and praying school would be cancelled. I'd stayed up late watching MTV news when Kurt Loder broke in and cut to footage from Seattle. I'd grown into adulthood young and hit puberty young and was already crossing into that stage of being too big for my britches and too small for my brain. You know the feeling I mean? That feeling that you're not sure who you are but you know you're not who you've been? Where you're on the cusp of something maybe wonderful, maybe tragic, but altogetherdifferent nonetheless? Where you don't entirely like or love yourself and you're not sure anyone else does either and why should they anyway? That.

Odd to find myself 32 years old and back there again. I would like to quote from the book here because I find his re-telling of Kurt's childhood (which I've read up on extensively) so spot on and captured with such a sensitivity and tenderness. He retells Kurt's pain and you can feel it in your bones as if it's your own. I may get a chance today to google around and figure out how to properly credit the book and the author and if I do so, look for a post later today.