Inter-dimensional: A Testimony of the Grim Reaper

Don't Let Yourself Be Here

My name is Mary Ann Grace, and I really don't want to be here right now. Anywhere but here!

I'd give anything to be somewhere else. Not physically in a different place, but in my mind, in a different mindset or different understanding of things. I desperately need refuge.

I've kept all of these thoughts inside me all of my life, never talking to anyone about them and never allowing all of the frustrations and anxieties to come out. I can't talk about it with the professionals— psychiatrists or psychologists — because I know my next ride would most definitely not be a fun, slow ride in the back seat of a Buick, back to my white-picket fence and ranch home in the suburbs . It'll more than likely be a high-speed ride while I'm being restrained in the rear compartment of an EMS van headed straight to the stone wall of a loony bend!

I've tried talking to friends, family and several of my ex-husbands throughout the years, who are now deceased, unfortunately. I shared just about everything with those dastardly bastard husbands of mine, but all it caused was friction between them and me because they all thought I was imagining all of this or that I had too much to drink.

One or two of my exes even accused me of having smoked marijuana laced with hallucinations, or they concluded, I'd dabbled in mushrooms, LSD or had a reaction to medication or some other illegal drug, most of which I've never even heard of. I've been accused of the entire gamut of street drugs, including cocaine, crack, methamphetamine, Mollie and even horse tranquilizers.

Of course, the 1960s and '70s were the drugs of an era, and everybody who was anybody tried a little just to see what it was like. And I admit that I have tried marijuana before but none of that hard stuff. My mind is screwed up enough as it is, and so I sure didn't think I needed drugs to push me further over the imaginary edge.

Even so, the 1960s and 1970s were some of the best years — and some of the worst years — of my life.

This was the Space Age, with the former Soviet Union launching the first satellite in 1958, the Sputnik, and the United States sending the first astronauts to the moon in 1960 called the Apollo Missions.

This was the decade of sorrow, as the nation mourned President John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1962, his younger brother, Senator and presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy's assassination in 1965, the killing of Nation of Islam leader and human rights activist Malcolm Little, a.k.a. Malcolm X in 1965; and the assassination of Civil Rights activist Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1964.

On September 15, 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama, white terrorists exploded a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church killing four black girls and injuring 14 others, sparking riots and a national outcry of grieving.

But this was also a decade of hope, as the Beatles, Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley changed the world with rock and roll. It was the Age of Aquarius, sexual freedom, mind-expanding drugs and Woodstock, racial tension and entrepreneurship.

It was the age of Afros, Barbie Dolls, beaded curtains and bell-bottomed jeans. Citizens from all walks of life sought to expand the meaning of the American promise. Their efforts helped unravel the national consensus, an effort that involved much struggle and unity but laid bare a far more fragmented society.

People like the late Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, breakthrough singer Janis Choplin, actor/singer Marilyn Monroe, revolutionary and very talented guitarist and upcoming singer Jimmy Hendrix, all died at the odd age of 27 from an excess of opportunity, as cocaine, alcohol and marijuana fueled creativity, and drug overdoses became a common theme song that quickly rose to the top of the Death Charts.

The Civil Rights Movement clashed whites against blacks and the nation, as a whole, was in turmoil and more polarized than ever. Images of Black Panther violence led by Malcolm X associates, and the Neo-Nazis and white supremists groups like the Ku Klux Klan became symbols of violence on opposite ends of the spectrum, and senseless killings, bombings, lynchings and massacres on both sides, ripped at the very heart and the very soul of American pride.