” Well at least he didn’t have to suffer for very long” I heard the pudgy old lady from next door mumble with a mouth full of potatoe salad at my dad’s funeral.

Those words have since been branded in my head.

As I am curled up up on the intersection of Market and 4th in my ratty old blanket I had found two days earlier in the dumpster around the corner, I am hitting the rewind button on my life, careful not to skip a single second on what people would call ” a trainwreck”.
What the hell had happened?
A question I have been asked too many times and I am now posing to myself.
I am shivering not just because it is a chilly February morning, but mostly because I am afraid to explore the answer in it’s complexity, knowing that the feelings and pain that consequenltly come with it, will push me over the edge, as they have done throughout the past 17 years.