Hi you all, I love you.

I didn’t want to tolerate the ongoing pain any more. I’ve left my body behind and I now live in a bodiless state! That sounds fantastic! In fact, heavenly. Forget about the streets paved with gold and all the other stuff, to be free of this body will be amazing and enough. I feel the approach of relief, of release, and also sadness and some shame that I couldn’t adapt to the pain to keep you from your sorrow.

Ending my pain is not a negation of my love for you. It’s only proof of my love for me.

Telling the truth about it to you, for the past year, in these blogs, on the phone, and face to face in so many cases, is proof of my love for you.

For all of you who have understood and loved me as I needed to be loved, you’ve given me the greatest gift I can think of. For those of you who had not the inclination to understand my choice and accept it, please try and forgive me. It was never my intention to hurt you. I understand that you wanted me to continue until the pain was more clearly unbearable, and I wish I could have given you that, but I didn’t have it in me.

I came out at twenty-five because I’d reached the limit of my willingness to deceive myself, and the people I love. I know where I’m headed, (more pills, more procedures, more pain) and it’s just not a fit for me, like heterosexuality never was, or a 9-5 job/life.

Fear of death might have stopped me, as it does with many, but I don’t have any. I don’t know why. I suppose the certainty in my gut that whatever’s coming, especially nothing (nothing means no pain too) is better than continuing in this body that always hurts.

I choose to follow the example of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which MTM took off the air before it got crummy and unwelcome in our homes. I still laugh a lot every day. I’m still myself, still Vittorio. The last chapter of my life is this one, The Struggle, not the one called The Guy Who Used To Be Vic, about a humorless man always groaning with pain and in complaint.

If you didn’t get a goodbye call from me, it’s because I felt strongly it would make my departure more difficult for you than it already is. That to know I was going a few days or weeks before I went would subject you to a deadline kind of anxiety, waiting days for the final news. And also, even though I feel certain about it now, I’m keeping open the possibility that I’ll change my mind at the last minute, and if I do, it would be so rude to subject you to days of dread, and then not to go. I’d be like The Boy Who Cried Wolf on steroids.

Certainly everyone agrees I’ve given more than ample time, emotion, and explanation to making my view clear and my feelings understandable. I’ve had so many long, long, outrageous, funny, difficult, comforting, contentious, honest, provocative, nutty, spiritual, unique, stream-of-consciousness conversations with so many of you, planning for my departure. These talks were a peeling away of emotional, intellectual, and spiritual layers for me, (as I guess they were for you too), which I truly, truly loved. Maybe it’s in my DNA from generations of nosey Italians who want to know the bottom line about everyone.

I spent some time work shopping my play, by the way, with a few wonderful actors who are also wonderful people, and ultimately decided not to go forward because Vic the director just didn’t have enough passion for the script, and Vic the writer didn’t have enough passion for rewrites. I’m not sad about that at all, though I hated disappointing the actors, and I really enjoyed working on it for a few weeks. They were so sweet about telling me how much they learned in the process, and then it was a big relief to let it go.

Friends have offered money to produce other plays as well, but my pilot light seems to have gone out. It’s a torch I just don’t have any real desire to try and carry any more.

Please be kind to Ann Marie and support her in her mourning. She has a fuller understanding of my view than anyone else. Not only have we talked intimately and often about everything, but she has shared with me the losses I’ve had since the chemo, and the pain in my body. She gets it.

You’ll discover if you talk with her that she doesn’t feel betrayed by my departure, nor does she see it as a broken promise, or as something that could have been prevented by psychiatry or anti-depressants, or as a mistake of fate. It makes sense to her for me, because she understands who I am, who I’ve always been, how I’ve lived my life, and what happened with the cancer, and then the back and neck pain. She understands the last part experientially.

Don’t misunderstand, she’s very sad to lose me, but she and I agree that we came in and out of each others lives in a way that seems miraculous, and because of our love for each other, which is huge, part of her is not sad, but happy for me, and proud to have supported me on my way to a place of no more pain.

Both of us acknowledged an unwillingness to live with ongoing pain when we negotiated, from the first conversation we had almost 7 years ago, what we were willing to pledge to the other, and what we weren’t. When we made that pact, we both expected to be healthy forever of course. I couldn’t feel right about the decision to go if I was breaking a contract I made with Ann, but this was something we were both explicit about not promising.

Ann is an amazing person who kept all her promises under very unexpectedly tough circumstances for us both. I never doubted she would, as we know each other’s hearts. We’ve had a rough time with all the stuff we’ve gone through, with me as the patient and Ann as the advocate. I played the advocate role, both with Scott and my dad, and it’s harder than being the patient in many ways. Ann has done it wonderfully. I love you sweetie. Thank you for meaning what you said, and for walking your talk.

If you want to contact Ann Marie, her email is: annmariebuydos@yahoo.com  She may be blogging from this site in the future as well.

If y’all find yourselves missing me some evening, rent Lars and the Real Girl. It’s become my favorite movie lately, it’s wonderful, and it’s about love.

I LOVE YOU !!!!!

Vic