She So Funny

by Helene "Truckin" Gresser

Sorry I missed writing my blentry last week. I discovered, via a Facebook post, that a friend of mine from grad school had committed suicide, and I was lost for words. I should have written anyway. I should have talked about all those weird feelings and sadness and regretting that I had not reached out to him more often - as if reaching out might have possibly saved him from hanging himself - but I did not. Instead, I just stared into space for long moments and thought about what it takes to get the tools together to take one's life, and the moments immediately before unconsciousness takes over, and what it does to the people who discover your lifeless body, no note left behind.

I thought about the taboo of talking of such a thing in a comedy set. I almost brought it up when I last performed. But something else took over, and I made funny without mentioning my now-dead friend Bryan. I wanted to try to find something real to share with the audience (I almost always talk about my life as it unfolds, as I don't have a traditional 'joke' act,) but I had no pithy summary or dark humor to view the suicide yet. I guess I still don't. Bryan would likely have laughed at my attempts to make the horror into material. Maybe. Maybe he would have given me a long hug afterwards. He was very sweet and loving. He was also easy to make laugh, and had a great big mouth, and a loud voice (perfect for the stage - he was a talented actor,) and he once came to my tiny basement apartment while we were in grad school and confessed that he had a crush on me. I had to tell him that I loved him as a friend but that I could not return his affection.

It takes bravery to tell a person that you are in love them when you have no idea if they might feel the same. You are risking your heart, your pride, your ego, your appetite. And if the object of your affection does not feel the same, what then? You cannot fight that. You cannot make someone fall in love with you. You just have to swallow all those feelings and walk away, tail between your legs, and act as if you are okay with the status quo. It makes you sick inside.

I know that my not being in love with Bryan is not what made him hang himself twenty years later. But I do know that those feelings don't just disappear. I know that it takes new love or a great role or some powerful distraction to shove those feelings to a little box in your heart and keep the lid on. Maybe he had too many little boxes of unrequited love for his heart to hold. Maybe he was just tired of fighting his bouts of epilepsy and depression. Maybe he felt so alone and useless that he thought being dead would affect very few. Maybe he did not think about the effects of his hanging, he just wanted to stop struggling with everything - money, health, family, career, the unknown. He did not say. He just decided to do it one Saturday when he was alone at home. Did he think about what to wear? Did he play Grateful Dead, his favorite band? Did he talk out loud to himself as he crafted the noose? Did he have visions of his life as he took his last breaths?

I stare and smoke and think of all these things. I want to tell the man I love that I love him. But I am afraid to say it first. I am afraid to have my heart break again. I am sick inside with unsaid things. But I know that I will not take my life if my heart breaks. I am struggling with so many things - career, money, messes I've made that I have not dealt with, constant worry, anxiety, self-loathing, shame, all of it - but I have eternal hope that keeps me moving forward. I also have a psychiatrist who sees me for free and gives me free samples of medications and most importantly, a loving family and amazing friends who lift me up no matter how low I sink.

I don't know how brave I am. Especially lately. Just getting through daily life in New York City is a fucking fight. I may find it within me to finally grab my guy and say the words "I love you." I wish I had been able to say it to Bryan when he needed it most - as a friend, reaching out to let him know that he had reasons to keep moving forward. We all need to hear it. It's such a weirdly human condition, this need for love. We survive so much, but then have this aching longing within us to connect with another human being and mean something to them. I ache. I hope. I live. I love. It hurts.

And the beat goes on. Goddamnit.

-hmg



Truckin' got my chips cashed in
Keep truckin' like the doodah man
Together, more or less in line
Just keep truckin' on