on the road to being a memory

it's been a difficult week. as i was just recounting to a friend in an online chat, i've been at the edge of a complete emotional breakdown on the average of 2-3 times a day. even when i'm not, i feel this great sense of fragility as if the slightest pressure will cause me to break apart.

one of the great struggles i've been having is with the feeling that i'm losing ground with many of my friendships. there is less and less contact each week, and when there is dialogue, it is brief and not very substantive. i feel like i'm on the road to being a memory. you know, i'm becoming the "i wonder whatever happened to" guy -- a distant memory of someone sad and lonely.

as is my habit, i blame what is happening on myself. that i am no longer interesting or engaging enough. that my depression is something that people do not want to deal with any longer. that people feel that i am not trying hard enough or doing enough to make myself better. it's the same old tape, playing over and over again.

i am trying to look at this differently. trying to recognize that people's lives change. trying to see that the fact that my demand for attention and support far exceeds the supply that these particular individuals are able to give at this time. i'm trying, and the circumstances are still difficult and painful as my broken psyche continues to use the growing distance as evidence that i have been rejected and discarded.

i guess the worst part of it all is i see no way out. there are no signs that this struggle or really those in  any other dimension of my life are going to get any better. i can't see the way clear to whatever other side might exist. i don't even know where the path is anymore. i continue to be confused and lost and without hope.

the song i'm sharing today is really about how there are times that things seem beyond us. beyond our understanding and certainly our ability to control. that's how i am feeling about life in particular and about this situation specifically. how and why people choose to or not to involve themselves in my life is the enigma wrapped in a mystery that i will just have to live with. another way of expressing this sentiment would be a phrase that i often use (and was the competing title for this entry), "it is what it is" no matter how painful that may be.

out of my hands - jason mraz