I've Seen the Future, Brother; It is Murder

Survival. The very word brings to mind images of alpha animals chasing down prey and disaster scenarios worthy of IMAX screens. But real survival is much more insidious, much more mundane. It's both easier and much more trying than we realize as we go through the motions of it every day. All it entails is waking up every day and continuing to breathe. It's just functioning at the most basic level.

There are the times when that basic level, the one that only contains the minimal effort it takes to keep living, feels like climbing a mountain. Then there the are times when you breeze through the highest levels of function almost unconsciously. The two seem to come and go at random, with no rhyme or reason dictating which level you'll end up on from day to day. But we keep going because...why? Because we have to? Because the evolutionary drive forces us to? Because it's actually easier to keep going than to stop? Stopping involves overriding our body's impulses and it doesn't take kindly to that change in programming. Stopping is hard.

I've become something of an expert at survival over the years - Not because I wanted to be but because that's what it took to keep going. I kept going when I was told that I wasn't wanted in this world by the people that were supposed to protect me. I kept going when the neglect got so bad that I had to be hospitalized for completely preventable conditions. I kept going when the false charges were lobbied against me in an attempt to free themselves of this unwanted responsibility called parenthood. I kept going as my shoes were locked away and my pencil confiscated, both too dangerous to be allowed in my hands. I kept going when the man who professed to love me brandished a sledge hammer and told me that I wasn't allowed in the house unless he gave permission, forcing me to sleep in the car after he left for work. I kept going when I left everything behind and ran away to a city where I knew no one and no one knew me. So far, at least. I kept going because it was somehow easier than stopping.

When there's no safety net, you learn how to walk the narrow ledge between survival and destruction. I don't recommend it - It's needlessly exhausting and terrifying, never knowing if you'll make it. No one should have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps over and over until those straps are hanging on by a frayed thread. The struggle doesn't make you stronger, it makes you weary. It makes you jaded. No one should have to fight to survive. It's true that I wouldn't be the person I am today without those experiences - I'd be better. I'd be trusting of both people and situations, never worrying that I'll wake up tomorrow and have empty cabinets or a drained bank account. I'd have learned the tools needed to thrive in this world without the painful missteps, always having to claw knowledge out of mistakes that could very well have killed me at times.

I've lived in survival mode for decades, scrambling at all times. Now the time has come to learn how to exist outside of it and that's more terrifying than anything I've ever had to face.