Me

I posted the following today as a comment to my "mother-in-law" (Jeremy and I are not married, but we have been together nearly five years, therefore I regard her as my mother in law. I consider his family my family, just as he considers my family his.)

 I posted my blog entry "They Call It Life" as a note on Facebook. I received several comments. MIL's most recent was

"Megan , sweetheart I KNOW the pain you are feeling, and I can honestly say that as losing a brother myself, the pain and emptiness is something that unless you have been through it, people truly do not understand. This is beautiful what you... wrote, but the world is not crappy honey, it is what you make in your OWN life and in YOUR world...that is what life is about, counting your blessings ever single day and making your world , your babies Jeremy, and family and friends the best you can cuz that is what life is !!! Cherishing the fact that you wake up everyday with those blessings because of losing Scottie now you KNOW it can all be gone in a New York minute as the song goes !!! I LOVE YOU"

 

My response:

"Sherry, I love you too. Here's the thing. My world, the one I live in and move in daily, is a good one. It's lost a lot of its color and sunshine, but it is still one full of love and one that most people would envy.

The world at large thoug...h, the one on the evening news and the one you go into when you leave the house alone, is a crappy place. Bigots, gay-bashers, genocide, neglect. The number of assholes far outnumbers the number of good people. Granted, I've always tended toward pessimism - experience shapes outlook, and while my home life was good my experiences outside the home were awful, to say the least. Losing Scott hasn't done much for that, and I had a long talk with Jeremy about it last night, and my resulting doubts that there is any sort of order to the universe.

I believe in love. I'm lucky to have so much of it in my life, and to have your son and our children and your family, which I consider my family as well.

But I also have a lot of questions, and a lot of anger. Dealing with the death of my grandparents was hard, but it was easier because they had lived long lives, and they had both been sick for a while. Losing Scott was like a baseball bat to the head in a dark alley. I have a tendency to brood on things, and it is going to take me a long time to work through this, so please be patient.

I love you."

 

So, with that being said, here are my thoughts tonight.

Scotty's viewing was at Stone Funeral Home today. I chose not to go. I have my reasons, the two biggest of which being that #1, everything that his biological father is doing funeral wise went against Scotty's wishes, and so I opted to do something Scotty would have approved of - I went to my sister's house with Jeremy and the boys, I cooked dinner with Jeni, and watched the cousins play. #2: I want to remember Scotty the way he was the last time I saw him. As I've stated, his arm was tight around my shoulders, he kept rubbing the top of my head with his hand because he liked the way my hair felt, and he stooped down (he was more than a foot taller than me) to rub his cheek against mine. Both Scotty and I are - were - sensual people in that we love things like the feel of a bristly cheek against a smooth one, or a hand petting a head. It's just one of our things. Plus, I had long hair for a very long time, and when I had Jeni buzz my hair all off, Scotty saw the pics and described me as looking like an angry Tinkerbell. I find the description apropos.

I've been stuck in my own head a lot since this happened. I still feel like I was attacked with a tire iron in a dark alley - the shock and pain are that great. I'm angry. Very angry. I want to find everyone who ever used the words "homo," "queer," or "faggot" in my presence and stomp the shit out of them. I want to beat the hell out of Scotty's biological dad for treating him like shit, for not realizing the precious gift that he had in his son, and for the abuse that Scotty told me he received at that man's hands. I want to go gay-basher-bashing, if that makes sense. I want to set things on fire and watch them burn, beat the hell out of a weight bag at the gym, scream and tear my hair out and rage and kick things and punch walls until I collapse.

There are a lot of strange things about me. I'm an odd person, and I've never made any secret of that fact. I'm the world's pickiest eater. I am quite comfortable with staying up till 4 am and waking up at 1 pm. I dye my hair random colors, live in my blue jeans, and drink coffee before bed to relax. Scotty was the only person who never questioned one of my peccadillos. 

Before we got to the point where we decided we were family, I was having an awful day. I fake like I'm confident. I'm good at that. But my self esteem is horrible. I hate my boobs, my round ass, my thick legs, etc. I pissed and moaned about it to him for a while, and then Scotty just shook his head and said, "I'm not friends with unattractive people." 

So many memories of him, and they're still not enough. Ugh. I have to get back to my point.

I've been thinking and thinking and thinking since I found out that he'd been rushed to the hospital. My personal belief structure is odd, like me. I've tried Christianity, and it didn't work. Do I believe in a higher power? That's up for debate. Am I an atheist? No. For a long time, my god was love. Just love. That's all there is to that. I believed that everyone's life had a pattern to it, that "bad luck" was just your unknowingly deviating from the pattern that you were supposed to follow. And I believed that everything happened for a reason.

I don't buy it anymore. I don't believe in a Christian god. First off, anyone that would condemn someone to hell for their sexual preference sure as shit isn't "all about love" as the propaganda would have us believe.

Second, a god that is "all about love" wouldn't have taken my brother. You've seen my Facebook notes and my posts. You can go to facebook and search "Scott Alan Dixon." Pick the profile of the good-looking guy with dark hair and blue eyes. Read his wall. Scotty was love, hence me always referring to him as Scotty-love. He was non-judgmental. He loved life, he loved people. He brought color and light and life and joy and love into the world. If the whole mission of Christianity is to spread god's love, and god creates the souls that reside within us, why in the motherfucking hell would he take a person who did nothing but spread love? If I believed in a higher power, it would resemble my brother. Joyful, artistic, beautiful voice, and accepting of people, regardless of their faults and foibles. 

Part of me would really like to think that there's a heaven, because it would mean that I'd get to be with Scotty again at some point. I really would. Shit, I'd love it. I wish I could believe it, I really do, as much as I'd love to believe that there was a plan behind all this, some sort of reasoning that will make sense to me and to everyone he left behind at some point. But there's not.

The universe is a bitch. There's nothing logical. What happens is random. There's no sense or order to it.

Life is fragile, right? If someone as beautiful as you can be snatched away in a minute, doesn't that tell us something? That we need to say what we mean instead of second-guessing ourselves, tell our loved ones that we love them more often? Laugh at the antics our children get up to, take the chance and ask that person you've been crushing on for forever out on a date? 

This world is a shitty place. I stand by that statement. While misogyny,misandry, bigotry, homophobia, racism, sexism, all those negative -isms exist, it will be. While war occurs, it will be. Anytime someone kills another person because they don't like how they look or who they're fucking, it will be. 

But here's the thing. We can be what Scotty wanted us to be. Instead of raging because you're stuck in traffic, sing along with the radio, or talk to your kids in the back seat. Let people go ahead of you in line. Try something new. Try to put aside any convictions you have that gays are going to hell, that all people of middle eastern descent are terrorists, that children born out of wedlock are automatically condemned, that multiracial relationships are wrong. Let go of your paranoia and replace it with trust in your fellow man. If someone ranks you out, let it go and smile at them.

Like I said, I have a lot of anger right now. It's me. I'm an angry little Irish midget; I have a reputation for being too stubborn, and while my temper is better than it was, it's still pretty fierce. I'm going to try to let it go.

Stand up for what you believe, but don't be an asshole about it.

Try to create something. 

Try to make this world more beautiful. It's a crappy place, but it can be improved.

Whether you knew Scotty-love or not, honor his memory, please.

And Scotty-love, darlin' boy, I know you're reading this, and I can just see you putting your hands up and saying "whoa, whoa, WHOA, melodrama much?" But this is what it is. You've always known I was a pessimist, but for you, I'm going to try to see that glass as half full. I love you, kiddo.Always.

PS. I would just like to clarify one point: I am practicing what I say here. I am doing my best to honor his memory by helping to pass his message of love wherever I go. That being said, anyone says ANYTHING negative about gay people around me, they're getting fucked up. And I'll be wearing my purple Doc Martens while I do the stomping.