dfw- a small thanks for large work

generally, i don't like to write about folks who are self destructive. here's the thing, over time i've certainly learned that most self-destructive folks aren't out there having a fantastic time doing damage. they're just trying to breathe. and if that doesn't work, trying to stop. there's a great deal of struggle behind that behavior. and being a person with a diagnosis and a medication makes me acutely aware of the fact that about one in four of the folks who share my own diagnosis lose their battle with trying to breathe.

it doesn't make me any less angry when the battle is lost. but i understand the fight. still, the anger made me take a little time before writing. i'm not ever going to say that losing the battle is good choice and i had to step back a bit before writing because the focus of my anger is the only one i can't really yell at. but i think it would be nice for you to meet him anyway.

david foster wallace has been writing and being published since i started college. and i suppose that for the most part that's all done now, which is a shame, because i'm pretty sure he had plenty more to say. it is tough to say useful things about someone i don't know, but feel quite comfortable having around. i met him when a friend suggested i check out infinite jest, a fat slab of book which, in my edition, has 1079 pages. and i liked many of them. most of them, probably. the last few years he'd been doing essays, and i have liked seeing him this way as well. he's been writing the sorts of things you wish you could have written your own self, but won't or can't. so lots of folks liked his work and because he was young, only six years older than i am, he had, and i suppose will continue to have, a sort of cult following. this means that plenty of folks hated him as well. and all this is fine, because it will keep him out there in the world, folks reading his pages and having their eyes pop or throwing the book across the room. i know and i'm sure he also knew that either way, he's getting you.

but his death is harder than it should be. i'm not weeping and flinging myself to the floor. i don't think anyone should be but maybe his close friends and his family, and i'm almost sure they're not. and dying because he chose to is one of those things folks have plenty to say about. but i guess all i want to say about it here is it doesn't feel like i can't go on with my own life. but yesterday and today and for a while when i hear about his life or see one of his books on my shelf, i will be mad and then embarrassed by my anger and a little lost at the same time. it will feel like a friend has forgotten who i am.