Two thousand and three. I’d been writing poetry almost non-stop for three years, posting it online for at least a year, and was completely caught up in writing. Some of my best friends were online; writers, teenagers, romantics, Christians… much like myself. But, as is the trend with teenagers, their interests change so frequently, and with such intensity, that when they get caught up in something new, they leave everything else behind.

My favorite poetry forum at the time was dying; its admin/creator caught up in the first few years of college and life outside of the internet, writing, and all of the people he’d never met. The other two sites I used were growing so quickly, and turning over members so regularly, it was hard to make any friends, get decent feedback, or even get reviewed more than once or twice per poem. One of my closest friends at the time, “Gothinius,” suggested we start our own forum. “Who are we to start a forum of our own?” I thought… “we’re just bored teens.” But she was convincing enough to not just change my mind, proving that we were the ideal founders of a forum for those like us, but get me excited about it… and by mid-2003, we had our own forum. Our very own sanctuary of poetry.

We spent the next several years constantly writing, reaching out to potential members all over the web, and growing quite well for a small forum with an obvious Christian influence. Our first forum was upwards of 200 members when server problems and a flame war between ideologically incompatible members convinced us it was time to move on and just chance not getting all the members to follow us to the new site. And sure enough, we lost a lot of members, and with that, a lot of momentum.

The trouble of moving, the drama of what had once been a secure place to post, shattered the secure feeling we’d taken so much time to craft and now our sanctuary seemed somewhat tainted. Along with that general feel permeating the site, the core users were finding new areas of interest, as was I… and, with time, the forum slowly just put itself on hiatus.

It didn’t need a mass email or its own thread. Posts just slowed down, reviews were less focused in content and in number, fewer members were signing in regularly… and eventually, it just slowed to a stop… living on as nothing more than a happy memory in the mind of its users of 3-4 years. A mere blip on the map of life. Our main core tried to stay in touch, but due to health problems, school, work, etc… it was just almost impossible, until recently. And while discussion the lack of writing in our current lives an idea occurred to us: a weekly poetry challenge. And what better place to hold it, than our old forum?!

That was less than a week ago, and yet all four of us have not just written something for that challenge, but other stuff in different forms and genres. A shared sense of excitement resonated with our work and we felt like keeping it all to ourselves was just too selfish… and so we cleaned up our past mess and reopened our doors; and we can’t wait to see where we go from here. For we are The Winter Moon.

I’ve been pondering the following shit for a while. It takes a bit of an introduction, though, so if you’re at all up to date on my posts, then you know about my brothers situation and can skip to the second paragraph. But, I’ll do a quick breakdown for people wandering in during the halftime show anyway… my brother attempted suicide by making cyanide in his dorm room on February 1st 2009. He spent about a month in the hospital getting physically better and being psychologically examined. The school obviously didn’t want him back after having turned his room into a goddamn chemical lab during the super bowl (it got them, and him, a lot of bad publicity), so he had to move back in with the parents, where he continued therapy and basically did nothing with himself for 6 months. After that he and I moved to Lincoln so he could be closer to his friends, got jobs, and a sweet apartment… until he decided to try again on November 4th. Or he at least had everything he needed to try again… he didn’t actually try that we know of, but he checked himself into the mental help center up here and is now back in KC near the parents receiving ECT (electro-convulsive therapy).

It has obviously been pretty hard on the whole family and all of his friends. This whole year has been one long existential crisis for basically everyone involved… which isn’t unusual for me; having majored in Philosophy and carrying a minor in Religion, I spent all four years of college in a continually snowballing existential crisis that I found out doesn’t end when you’re handed a diploma. If anything, a diploma makes you feel more insecure for not having figured it all out by then. Anyway, since most of my family is religious, its been rough on them in a totally different way than it has been for me. They question a deities master plan, their faith’s religion/tradition, how the spiritual world is effecting the physical one.

I,  however, settled on some sort of “gleeful nihilism” around the time of my graduation (and also the name of my comic). The best way I can describe it is a sort of hybrid philosophy made up of the ones I find the most useful/awesome (absurdism/existentialism, nihilism, and bits of “post” modernism, mostly), and I tried to marry them in as cohesive a theory as possible. Since existentialism is such a big part of it, this whole psychological ordeal my brother is going through seems much more trivial than it does to those around me. They can blame the disease for his actions, the disease for his selfishness, the disease for the pain he’s caused… and that works in their worldviews. But to me, its just bullshit they’re hoping is true so they can take the responsibility of his actions off of him and onto something they can actually be mad at, stay mad at, and fix as if it were any other sickness. For them, underneath all this, is my brother. For me, its always been him.

Why? Because if there is no creator, then existence has to precede essence. And if this concrete world is all that we can know, all there is, and therefore all that matters, then we cannot blame a human nature, we cannot blame psychological diseases, we cannot blame social constructs or family traits or genetic misfortunes; we are condemned to be free. And with freedom comes responsibility for our actions and decisions; all of them.

That means that the biggest philosophical problem is that of suicide (and our relationship with the absurd). My brother has decided that life is too hard, too rough, to unfair and that it is not worth living. Most of my friends and family have made the same decision, but gone the route of philosophical suicide by turning to religious institutions, personal faiths, fairytale-like stories, and creators to hold their hand and tell them everything is okay and that all they just need to do if things get rough is do x, y, and z to make it all better. I,  however, have chosen to stare down the absurd and live my life in its face. It leaves a lot of questions unanswered, and means that there is a lot of uncertainty when it comes to different things, but if life were meant to be easy, it would be.

I’ve said all that to basically show you the question I keep mulling over in my head day in and day out (or for me, night in and night out): can there really be scientific exceptions to the rules or is my little brother really just a selfish, ignorant little pussy who would rather give up than make even the tiniest efforts to make his life worthwhile?

Right now I’ve sort of settled on the fence, deciding that its a little of both, but that the latter keeps him from overcoming the former. He’s always been so smart that he never really had to try in school. When he didn’t like sports or the effort involved, he would just quit. When videogames had too steep of a learning curve, and when consoles got more complex, he quit playing them and stuck to replaying games he already knew. And whenever he did have to try in college, he would take the course pass/fail. All that makes it really easy to just say “he’s a lazy, impatient asshole” and decide its the latter. But he was also a very sweet, naive little kid who had life throw a ton of shit at him in middle school that no kid should ever have to face at that age (he was young for his class and skipped a grade). And all that could account for a lot of the psychological issues he’s now struggling with.

The more immediate problem i face in all of this is how I interact with him over the upcoming holidays. I’ve let all his phone calls ring through to voicemail since the latest attempt but I won’t be able to avoid him or all of this once I’m under the same roof as him again. I’d like to just sit him down, tell him to fucking grab his nuts, man-up, and face life like a goddamn adult… but if he’s either of the above things I think he is, that won’t help at all.

I would honestly rather spend the holidays completely alone than go home and have to see him right now. I feel like, in the past year, I have lost my little brother, bestfriend, and roomie one after another. When I look at him I don’t even see my brother anymore. It’s honestly like I don’t even know him; like he’s a zombie or a ghost of someone I remember. Then again, maybe he’s never been the person I thought I knew.

I’ve started a myriad of blogs about a variety of things since my last update… but I either finish them and don’t feel like ever reading them again, so they will remain drafts forever, or I get bored and leave them unfinished, or I over-think it and realize its like a 2000 word post and that no one will ever care enough to read the whole thing. However, today that changes, because as I came to work tonight I saw something that actually got under my skin enough to write about: Christmas decorations.

The most obvious reason it irritates me is the obvious “never put up Xmas decorations before Thanksgiving” rule. But that’s been obliterated by just about every retail chain, so I can’t really hold these mindless “individuals” responsible for following larger social trends by egging just their houses. If I really wanted to make a difference I’d have to egg all the retail stores I see with Xmas shit up already, and that would be too much work and would cost way too much money. Plus, I rather like eggs. Not as friends or decorations, but as food. And yeah, as friends too.

Another reason is that I just don’t fucking get it… why do people feel the need to spend hours of their freetime putting up gaudy decorations around their house and lawn to remind everyone that its the worst time of the year once more? Is it worth paying for them just to display for a month and then store all year? Is it worth the wasted electricity? Is it worth the time and trouble knowing that all it’s really showing is that you are a superficial, materialistic, ignorant fuck? I would hope not. But then again… maybe they know something I don’t.

Lastly, it just reminds me of a lot of shattered dreams, weird memories, and lost hopes. It makes me reminisce about a time when I believed in fairy-tales and superstitions… a time where I discriminated against people who didn’t believe in those same stupid ideals… a time where I did and said a lot of stupid shit that I now know was just stupid shit that I shouldn’t have said and can’t believe I ever actually believed. I don’t think I’d go back and change any of it because I think I turned out pretty awesome in the end, but it doesn’t mean I have to like the route I took to get to awesometown.

Plus, I’ve blacked out most of those memories with booze, caffeine, and a general lack of sleep, so its mostly the other things I mentioned. You know, the first two; the ones that are funnier and less depressing. I shoulda stopped after them probably. But I didn’t. Maybe you did though. That woulda been smart.

Since I’ve gotten several direct messages on twitter about my sporadic and depressing tweets, I figured it was time to explain via blog for everyone who isn’t already in the know: my brother is back in the hospital. Apparently, over the past several weeks, while simultaneously buying everything on his Amazon wishlist, he ordered all the supplies and chemicals he would need to make cyanide again. Seeing how it didn’t work the first time and he has had nightmares and flashbacks to that incident, I’d have chosen a different strategy on the second go ’round, but I’m also not depressed or suicidal… so who knows. Maybe, in that situation, I would try the same thing.

Anyway, for whatever reason, he stopped himself, called 911, and had the squad car take him to the hospital where he checked himself into the Mental Health Ward. That was around 1am Wednesday morning. I got a call from him at around 720am as I was leaving work. As I got home I found all his supplies out and in the ready position. Our kitchen was inches away from becoming a crime scene and my apartment minutes away from being a nightmare. I just dropped everything and collapsed in the doorway. I had been hoping the whole way home that it was just a bad dream, that maybe he was playing a cruel prank… anything but this… but it was real.

After a few minutes I realized the door to my apartment was still open, so I got up and closed it, and thought to check his room for a note or anything… there was a new version of his suicide note and death quote list on his computer. I just leaned back in his computer chair, fell apart, and started gathering the pieces.

Took pictures to show to the therapist/doctor at the mental ward. Printed his suicide note and quote list so they’d have it on file. Started to clean the kitchen and just couldn’t do it. Took a shower, got dressed, and went off to the hospital.

I called dad on the way there and explained what I knew. Went back and forth between the hospital a couple times to get his meds and other things the docs needed. Went by his workplace and explained why he wouldn’t be back. Talked to the parents a few more times. Broke the news to his friends. Sat and listened to Stevo in the ward… while he did a puzzle… never looking me in the eyes, never showing remorse, never showing any sign of depression…

Laying on the floor with all the TV’s in the apartment on different channels, I fell asleep for maybe an hour. His friends came over to keep me company sometime that afternoon. My parents got here a few hours after they did. We ate, I tried to sleep some more, I worked that night. I decided not to go see Stevo with the parents on Thursday. The more I find out about how planned this was, and how far in advance and how much effort he had to put into this, the more mad I get. Maybe this entire move back to Lincoln was just so he could try again. I’ve never felt this conflicted about anything before.

The parents went back home Thursday afternoon. I slept all day… worked again, and am now trying to finish the comics I was doing Wednesday, before I found all of this out, so that I can try to have fun at the Nebraskon this weekend. The parents will be here when I get home on Sunday. I work that night and then Monday morning they’ll pick Stevo up from the hospital and take him to a longterm facility in Kansas City where he’ll spend however much time he needs to spend there getting better. After he’s released he’ll have to go to a different therapy place daily, for the entire day, and during that time he’ll live with my parents. Hopefully this is what he needs to get better…

As for me? I’ll be in Lincoln until at least next July when my lease is up. Maybe, after thats over, I’ll move somewhere I want to go/be this time. Or maybe I’ll just move back to KC so I’m at least near family. Anywhere’s better than Nebraska… right?