It rained last night, and I was genuinely grateful for the deep, low rumbling in the sky and the refreshing pattering of raindrops on my windows and roof. Fuck knows, but my tired soul needed some soothing…I’ve had better weekends than this one…the last two days have been a draining experience. I’m sad, angry, fatigued and generally not in a happy mood (happiness, joy, excitement etc has eluded me now for 5 years so its not unusual 🙄). A friend and member of the club I rode with, passed away…I was once again reminded, why I don’t do social events …It was also confirmed (again…) that friendships are strengthened by how convincingly you can lie…
My friend’s accident opened up some scars. My accident was on the 22nd of December… also days before Christmas. His daughter is around the same age as my youngest and my heart is just breaking for her and his wife. He was one of those gentle giants married to a soft, angelic woman. Hearts of gold…good people….this is unfair! I still remember them visiting me when I was in rehabilitation hospital….not on the Sunday when the whole club came revving in biker style, bringing teddy bears, chocolates, flowers etc…..but came to visit me and see how I was doing, instead of being part of a show… I remember us drinking coffee in the foyer coffeeshop and that they were there for quite some time. He told me that day, of his own accident when he was 19, he was also in a coma for a period of time, and also woke up with strabismus, like me. He told me about how long it took him, to get to a point where he was capable to live like an adult again….. In a way I think,, he was trying to tell me that it will get better but it will take a long time…I did not get it then…I was still so trapped inside my own brain, fogged up and trying to figure things out and to make sense of the world again….He was good man who got a second chance in life…..a loving father and husband….This is fucked-up! I’m angry about too many things today…..so while I was wondering around in the supermarket yesterday, thinking about life, the universe and everything, I happen to bump into an old friend. She has invited me to her son’s 21st a while ago, which was coincidentally yesterday and convinced me to go to the party. She reckoned it was a good idea, seeing that many of the guests invited, will be members of my old bike club and it will do me good to see them….
A mistake. Too many people and movement, buzzing voices over some background music…I froze right on the spot, where I entered, and that is where I mostly stayed. I spoke a mouthful of words, to a handful of people and lasted about two to three hours. The last half hour I spent alone in the garden trying to feel better. I was sad. All the people around me, used to be my brothers and sisters for roughly 6 years….my family….and now I was one of those awkward people, someone they used to know…someone who flinches at loud noises and battle to focus on conversations, because lots of people, movement and noise mix up my sounds and colours, and confuse me. People, who have not seen me in quite a while, asking about my health and getting uncomfortable when I tell them truthfully what’s going on in my body and brain….If you don’t want to hear it….don’t ask! Shit happens and IT is,, what it IS, so just take a shot of Jägermeister and shut the fuck up…. you see, to die in a bike accident, is sort off an unspoken honour for nearly every biker in a club….. A fitting funeral would be swiftly arranged, with a huge pack of motorcycles following your coffin. The will arrange with the Traffic department to stop traffic and block traffic lights and streets, so that your coffin and the trail of bikes following, can travel undisturbed with the dignity and respect a biker deserve….At an end destination (preferably with a bar) A couple of words will be said, a round of shots will be given to everybody and the dead will be toasted. As your coffin departs back to the crematorium, it will ride trough a guard of parked bikes, engines revving as a homage and a farewell…. What’s considered not cool, is surviving and living on a daily cocktail of meds, in order to stay sane and alive. Definitely not cool to still be building neuro pathways, to compensate for those dead, grey cells, after 5 years. Urgh not even to talk about the fact, that you can’t ride anymore, due to damage in your occipital lobe (affecting your vision), losing half the major muscles in your left leg, and a knee refurnished by a strip of flesh, from your calve that were covered by longs strips of skin, taken from your upper legs….
But I guess that’s life….You either live it and go out with a bang, or crash and magically return to normal, because you are a warrior and a biker…..Nothing in between. If you dare to be different or act different, you will loose friends. You will loose the people, you would have defended with your life, and who you believed, would have done the same for you….. it turns out that they could not even accept and tolerate a different you. Still the same person in your core being but also a ghost or spectre, of your former self….In the end, I guess….nothing is real, everything is just a ghost of what we want to perceive…..In the end…..We live…. we love…. we lie.
