Sanity is relative. I’m sure someone has already said that. Someone smarter and (possibly) better looking than me.

I come from a long line of “troubled souls,” to employ a euphemism that is in turns poignant and patronizing. I am the recipient of these doomed genes and have often been referred to as “wild” by kinder people and “crazy” by the not so kind (and often the envious). But only I can call myself crazy. I mean, you could but the way that will play out is I'll see your "crazy" and raise you a "hater." In the end, you'll just look like a sore loser. But  seriously, calling myself crazy is my tribal right. It’s also the truth. I wont bother defining my crazy for you because: 

1. its tedious. 

2. it creates expectation and will colour your perception of me, for better or worse. 

3. explaining things doesn't always clarify them. 

You will come to notice that I like things in sets of three. I’m very fond of prime numbers and odd numbers. Even numbers strike me as sneaky little poseurs that are probably up to no good, but that’s a discussion for another day. Today, let’s stick to my relative sanity. I am aware that, to the casual observer, I present a pretty good representation of a sane, responsible and successful adult. Good. That’s how I want it. You see, I guard the parameters of my apparent, functional sanity with vigilance, part soldier, part nurse, part priest. I've seen too many people in my family fall over the cliffs of ruin due to our genetic predisposition for instability. I've shaken the magic eight ball and seen the possible futures. I don’t want it to be me. I feel like I can see back through history, far back to my ancestors all along this timeline that twists and winds like a strand of dna, and I see ruin, failure, misery, regret. I don’t want that to be me. I feel that somehow, I've been chosen by my ancestors to break the cycle. I don’t hear them but I see them in my minds eye like a series of tableau vivants that appear, dissolve and reassemble themselves anew with every heart beat. A great grandfather imploring me with outstretched hands from a single chair in a darkened room, a cold, naked light bulb hanging over his head like an omen. A distant aunt who stares at me with the glazed eyes of the opioid addict as she sheds a single opalescent tear. A cousin frantically swatting at bugs that only she can see, her skin red and diaphoretic as the throes of alcohol withdrawal induced psychosis wash over her like dark and frothy ocean waves. This is the only way they have left to communicate but they try so hard so I scrutinize these scenes for hints and clues like a good critical thinker. Like a scientist or a detective.

But just so we're clear, although I do feel called to break this cycle, by no means do I feel in any way special or grandiose. If anything, I feel cursed. Doomed. And tired. You have no idea how tiring acquiring and maintaining the accouterments of normality is. I run a marathon every day and at the finish line, there’s only me. I douse myself in Gatorade and stumble home. Because, in all truthfulness, I actually do feel special and grandiose. It’s an illusion that I often lasso and ride like a wild horse. Why? Because I can. Because it gets me somewhere better than wherever I was before. Because it gets me to the end of the day. Because it gives me a reason to get up in the morning on those days when my first tastes of consciousness are soured by vague suicide plans and the nihilistic urge to see all of it, all of it in ashes. Because it keeps me hanging on to the idea that it all somehow means something. Because I can.

If you ever see me at the finish line, stop and say "hello." I won't bite. Probably.