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Thursday, January 15, 2015

For Roger

F O R   R O G E R



I have to break with tradition and post something that is not a monologue today. Just recently something happened that shook me up. Made me question life.

I have been reading recently about MRA and MGTOW and the philosophy behind Men Going Their Own Way and one of the topics was how men feel trapped in life. My research goes back to late last year but all of that research didn't really set in until my partner came home from her acting class last Monday saying: “You won't believe what happened.”

I was confused at first. I thought maybe she meant someone else. Maybe even got the name wrong. When she repeated herself, said the exact same words and the same name, I searched her face for signs that this was some kind of joke. So she said it again.

“Roger killed himself.”

The man in me didn't know how to react. It wanted to cry but I hesitated and questioned why. I only met him once, at a Christmas party. He was the kind of guy that was always smiling. Infectiously positive and upbeat. I talked to him the entire night, I mean almost exclusively. He was just the kind of person I liked to be around and now, that's it. I won't get another chance. I won't get to know more about him. He's gone.

We would all have to start referring to him in the past tense now. Remember how Roger used to smile all the time and how he used to make us smile?

Just hours before it happened he was on facebook posting about his favorite 80's movies and in a couple hours he was loading a gun. It just didn't make sense, so it shook me. Shook me hard. I couldn't sleep, I started feeling anxious. I mean, I only met the guy once. What was my deal?

I guess it was the question that bothered me the most. What could posses a man to kill himself? Against all the inbred survival instincts a man has that fight to keep him alive, someone could still do it. The thought that at any moment, for any man, life can suddenly close in around you and become too much to bare. So you elect to end it... Men are the majority of suicides in this country and in fact the world. What is happening to men when they feel like they have no one they can turn to? Are we so cold to each other as men, so distant to our feelings, so dismissive of baring our pain to others that we feel like the only alternative is to cease to exist?

It scares me. Makes me feel my own mortality. Forces me to confront the pain of the people who knew him even better than I, who must now either deal with the loss, or pretend it doesn't hurt them. His death is making me ask myself: “What is the point of all this? Why do we exist?”

It's not a question to take lightly but yet so many people do. To their detriment.

It's strange... You can always Monday morning quarterback this kind of thing. I stay up nights now, wondering if I could have done something to prevent it. When I look back on the day I met him, I can swear I could sense a strangeness about him. Conjuring up some kind of sadness that I just ignored. Maybe there was. Maybe it's just hindsight but I still wonder to myself; What if?

The fact of the matter is we were having fun and he was a fun guy to be around. Easy going and easy to talk to. If that's the last memory I have of him, so be it.

It's a good memory at least.

For resources and help:

http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/getinvolved/reasons.aspx

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