Giving Up

Giving up seems to be the topic of the week. Between the ongoing issues with the rookie in my Unit, losing one of our local biker community to what appears to be a wholly unnecessary fatal crash, and my foster daughter's boyfriend's erstwhile suicide attempt, I am beside myself with grief, frustration, and confusion. And though I don't really give a rat's ass about "celebrity gossip," let's just throw Heath Ledger and Britney Spears into the mix, because my angst on this topic appears to be boundless and extends to both known persons and practically fictional persons alike.

I'm not one to invalidate anyone's pain. If your brand of despair just happens to appear rather yawn-worthy to me, it doesn't mean that your despair isn't real, true, or as hopeless as it feels. The worst pain you've ever felt is the worst pain you've ever felt - the concept seems like it should be invite comparison, but it doesn't. It can't. Pain and despair are like any other human perception: wholly subjective.

Regardless of any comparative qualities, I don't believe that pain, or despair, or helplessness, or hopelessness gives any of us an excuse to give up. Sure, I've been overcome with the desire to just give up, to just let a situation go so I don't have to worry - cope - handle - fight - push - argue - about it any more, but when it's come down to the part where I actually throw my hands in the air and say "I quit," my entire being rebels against it. In the deepest terror, the darkest despair, the most horrific guilt, the abyss of hopelessness, the unrelenting grip of pain and injury, I still find myself wanting to see what happens next. I still find myself challenged by the yet-unrecognized solution. And in the not-so-very-few times I've fucked something up seemingly beyond repair, I've still found myself motivated to find a way to fix it. Maybe I can say this because I've never "hit bottom," but I'm pretty sure I have and each time I thought, "Well, this has to be the worst it'll ever get" only to be proved wrong down the line somewhere. The bottom, it seems, is a variable just like everything else in human existence. The bottom can, and does, get deeper.

The events and people around me this week reek of complacency, of cursed laziness and failure to be grateful for what is. My heart mourns for - while my mind concurrently rails against! - the wife, mother, and community figure that forgot her responsibility to her family and friends - not to mention her responsibility to the biker community - by staying out a little too late, drinking a little too much, and getting on her bike anyway. This is complacency at its worst, the little rationalizations we make to behave irresponsibly, unsafely, illogically, and in this case lethally. She gave up because she forgot that she was blessed. She gave up because she quit caring about herself and about the people around her. She's (oh sorry, she was) a quitter.

My blood boils everytime I think about my foster daughter's boyfriend: 19 years old, going to college (rather lackadaisically), working a part-time retail job, driving a car his parents pay for, and enjoying all the benefits of youth, seemingly in no real hurry to grow up. Instead of reveling in gratitude for the ease of his life, for the blessings of his upbringing, for the time to make life choices at his leisure, he cut his throat, his wrists, his femoral artery, and then stabbed himself in the abdomen. Not only did he give up on his life - because it's not "exciting enough" in his own words - he gave up on his suicide when he realized he wasn't dying. When he didn't bleed out fast enough to suit himself, he just went home and allowed his mother to save his life. A couple of days later, when I asked him what was so insurmountable that he felt he had to carve himself like a jack-o-lantern, he said, "I want to move out and I can't afford to." Hey, here's a tip, numbnuts: all you have to do to change your life is change your life. I'm pretty sure that bleeding out in your bought-and-paid-for-Jetta doesn't fit most people's definition of "exciting," or at least not for very long. The fact is, he gave up. And in my opinion (which I know doesn't really count because I wouldn't want to invalidate anyone's pain), he gave up before he even tried. In my opinion, he gave a chickenshit answer to a poorly phrased question. In my opinion, he's a dirty, rotten, stinking quitter.

In a less morbid but equally infuriating way, Ye Olde Rookie is giving up without even trying and it chaps my ass to no end. I can't even look at her any more without wanting to slap her so hard her kids will be dizzy and shouting "Snap out of it!!" Today I found out (and this is remains unconfirmed) that my Department is going to allow her to do something unheard of: "demote" to a position she didn't "promote" from. Instead of taking her resignation, calling her a lazy, delusions-of-entitlement, whiny little pussy and letting the door knock her sorry little ass to the ground on her way out, they are going to let her demote to Corrections (where she wasn't hired from and has no freaking clue about). Instead of recognizing her for the low-life, slur-slinging, self-serving, ass-dragging, I-don't-know-how-to-do-that-and-if-I-keep-saying-it-long-enough-you'll-eventually-have-to-do-it-for-me quitter she is, they're going to allow her to move to Corrections - possibly incurring serious liability for the Department and/or injury to a child along the way - so we can waste a bunch more time and money on her before she reveals her true colors AGAIN and quits. And though the majority of the clamoring voices in my head selfishly agree that anywhere she goes is good riddance for me, the frustration of watching a retired Naval Officer quit an entry-level job after only a few weeks of sucking up multi-thousands of dollars of training and everyone else's precious time puts me into a Neitzsche-an rage that cannot be described without shrieking aloud.

What happened to "failure is not an option?" What happened to "quitters never win and winners never quit?" What happened to "pain is fear leaving your body?" What happened to the effort being its own reward?

Humanity, *I* will not give up on you.