JOURNAL...9/12/2026 pt2
I am back again today for the second time. I went into work today and it went fabulously, I am feeling more and more confident I can handle a part time job. My job is pretty boring but I really enjoy it. It is monotonous and I enter a flow-state where my hands move and my thoughts run free. I can watch movies and listen to music while I work so I'm mentally free. I can't have a job where I am not mentally free. And I'm pretty good at the job, if I do say so myself, and take pride in my craft. A terribly niche craft, one that I am grateful to have fallen into. I use a heat gun to melt and weld different kinds of waterproof membrane for roofs. It is definitely not a common job, strange things lined up for this shop to be built. Anyways, the point here is that I was thinking today. The thought of death came up and got me thinking.
My first instance of understanding death was my first suicide attempt at the age of five, maybe seven years old. I locked the bathroom door and gripped the counter. I held my breath, straining as hard as I could, convinced I could kill myself that way. I tried multiple times to asphyxiate on my own, in my foolish child's way, but found it impossible. I lived with suicidal tendencies for decades until I made a new family. I thought about death again and again, wondering why I was still alive. Every instinct within me begged to die but was terrified to make the final blasphemy. I reconciled my death within me too many times, trying to accept my life was without meaning or purpose. I thought to myself, I might as well spare the world from my existence. I'll finally be free of my wretched self. My life was an abortion from the beginning, a crude attempt at making a foolish joke and my mother (who explicitly told me to kill myself) often beat me, making me even more convinced that my life was only meant for suffering. I hated myself and, although I have committed to life, I still hear voices telling me to kill myself. It's conditioned at this point and extreeeeeemely frustrating. So, this brings us to now the death of my grandmother. I was very close to my grandma. She was very near and dear to my heart and I think about her often still. COVID took her from us, I still feel cheated I spose. I remember visiting her on hospice. She was unconscious and cold to the touch, I spoke to her and wept beside her. And then, a magnificent thing happened, one of the most beautiful and impactful times of my entire life. I call it, "The Summer of the Spiders". My grandmother was cremated and her ashes were scattered into a lake, followed by a trail of flowers as we drifted back to shore. One day, a few weeks later perhaps, I noticed a single spider, camped in front of our door. The spider remained in the same position in the same web everyday for weeks. My husband and I named him Ol' Faithful and thought nothing of it. And then another spider appeared. I still thought little of it. And then out of nowhere, boom! 15 spiders outside our door, webs and webs, interconnected and communal. I think 15 was the highest it got to but it was incredible. We began to name the others as well, seeing their personalities here and there. And then, I thought back to an old tale I heard about spiders being connected to our ancestors and I do believe that to be true. I know that Ol' Faithful was my grandmother, saying goodbye and telling me she loved me before it was time for her to pass on. I hold her in my memories always but the magic of the Summer of the Spiders convince me that her spirt and vitality retained its potency in wherever or however energy ends up. Since that summer, I have never experienced anything like that again. Maybe one or two spiders here and there in the following summers. I miss my grandmother very much. I would like her to be here with me. But she is dead and my parents disowned me. I have no connection to my ancestors. It seems like a travesty but I'm stuck. I'm born in America, parents from South Korea, but I was raised in Japan and then moved back to America after high school. I don't really have any kind of real community(mostly by my design) and never feel like I have any sense of culture or heritage from it. Well, that took longer than I thought. Thanks again ol' stranger. I think I'll check in daily for a while.