unseen and unnoticed

today i went to a place i normally go to get some degree of relief from the pressures of life. it's a comic shop that's located in a huge warehouse. normally, it's a pretty quiet place and because of its scale you can walk around and barely encounter a soul.

i went there today having been experiencing a good degree of emotional stress this morning. i was feeling overwhelmed by thoughts of the many things that seem to be broken in my life in terms of work and personal relationships as well as dealing with the transition to my new anti-depressant medication. i felt very alone and confused and i thought maybe going to my lcs (local comic shop) would provide some solace.

when i pulled into the parking lot, it was filled with cars, and i could tell that meant there was likely some type of event going on. i ended up guessing correctly that it was one of the auctions they hold on the site on a periodic basis.

as i entered the store, i could tell something was different. much of the shelving space had been shifted around. as i got deeper into the store and started looking around it became apparent quite a bit  of the merchandise had been displaced as well, but in such a way that it wasn't clear anymore what material was where or how it was even organized.

i walked around looking for a particular book that had recently come out. try as i might i could not find it. some stuff looked as if it had been just pulled from the shelves at random and put on other shelves. some books were just piled on tops of tables, different publishers and titles were just all mixed in together. it was quite literally a mess.

as i walked from row to row, my level of frustration growing, i would pass groups of people milling around the shop excited about the impending auction. they were looking at the merchandise that would soon go up for bid. Others were congregating in small groups chatting and laughing. and there i was, by myself, lost and confused, desperately just wanting to find the book i was looking for, so i could purchase it and leave. and as i could see and hear people enjoying one another's company, i felt completely invisible and insignificant. i felt like a solitary ghost passing through the racks, as the living, oblivious to my presence, experienced the comfort of companionship and the joy of a shared experience.

i never did find the book for which i was looking and ended up getting a different one. when i was paying for it, the guy at the sales counter turned the book over a few times, seemingly admiring it as perhaps a purchase he would like to make someday. he looked and me and said, "it's funny how i've never noticed that we even had this book in stock." at that moment i felt the book and i had something in common -- both of us unnoticed and unseen by the world around us.

at least the book had now been taken from it's lonely perch and presently has a home where it will be valued and appreciated. i have no idea when or even if i will experience the same.

there was a time . . . ?

there was a time, i'm sure of it, when i felt good about my life.

there was a time, i recall, when i felt good about my life.

there was a time, i think, when i felt good about my life.

there was a time, i believe, when i felt good about my life.

there was a time, perhaps, when i felt good about my life.

was there a time when i felt good about my life?

drowning in doubt

it appears i'm going through another period in my life when everything i do, everything about me feels like a complete and utter failure. at every moment, from every quarter of my life the messages seem to come that i am not enough, never have been, never will be. you can fill in the space "not" and "enough" with whatever you wish and it likely will apply to a feeling of inadequacy i've had of late, but here's a sampling of some of the words that come immediately to mind for me: smart, attractive, sane, capable, strong, stable, supportive.... i'm sure there's more but i'm too tired to think go on.

sadly, i've been in this place more than a few times before. i imagine this won't be the last time i'm ever here again. i guess the strangest thing is that when i'm in this place, i can't ever imagine a time that i have not been here or a time that i will move on from it to a better place. i guess that's the very definition of doubt and i'm drowning in it.

not my best day

this was not my best day. i left the office at about noon. the early leaving was precipitated by having just one too many discussions about how fucked up our organization is right now. the problem is not so much that there are organizational problems (every company has a certain level of dysfunction). the issue continues to be that while i am normally an organized, responsible individual, the work is becoming anything but that and yet i'm put in positions where i'm asked to manage the problematic dynamics that have been created by others.

anyway, i left the office, climbed in my car, drove home, walked immediately upstairs to my bedroom, stripped out of all of my clothes, put on my pjs and climbed into bed. i took half of a lorazapem (my new anti-anxiety medicine) and took a nap. now i sit here on my living room sofa, typing out this entry.

when i left i wasn't sure if i was actually ever going back to work. i wasn't sure if i would ever leave this house again or if i did so it would likely be under someone else's power. i have felt so utterly alone in all of this stuff for so long. people tell me it is challenging to deal with me in this state. it feels as if they distance themselves from me as a result (related side note: i got a text greeting from a friend this morning wishing me a happy day. i wrote back that i had just been sitting at my kitchen counter wondering why everything in my life felt so broken. i thought it was a strange juxtaposition. he's yet to respond to my comment). i don't know how to manage any of that.

perhaps if i were well, i would be able to handle all of this, but a read of this blog over the past year plus will show that i am far from well and this brokenness seems incapable of being healed. as i wrote the other day, it feels as if my life is killing me and i am experiencing a slow, unrecognized death. still lost, still alone, still invisible.

moments of late

i've had moments of late where it feels as if my life is killing me, and i'm afraid no one will notice until it's too late.