what if there's no one to run to?

"the definition of lonely" - award winning gay drama by leon lopez

when it gets dark

the path of my life's journey seems to go into and out of spaces of darkness. as i've gotten older the dark patches have seemed to have gotten more opaque and the length of time in the darkness has gotten longer. conversely, the light spaces have gotten less and less bright and my times along these stretches have seemed briefer and briefer.

i walk in a dark space on the path now. as i move what i hope to be forward, i'm reminded of other times in my journey that have been like this, and how i've wondered then, as i do now, if this is the dark point that will finally break me. i wonder if i won't make it out of the darkness to the light. i wonder if, after so much struggle and pain, i will become convinced that the only way to make it to a light is to step off of the path of life.

i keep moving forward because i think maybe, just maybe coming out of the dark is only a few steps ahead. still, i find myself starting to wonder if the light spaces keep getting dimmer and the dark spaces keep getting more so, then how long will it be before i can't distinguish one from the other?

i walk in the dark. i do not believe my life has been good. i question whether it can ever be otherwise given what i have experienced thus far. i keep walking .... but for how long?

irreconcilable

there are moments, particularly when i go through dark times, that i think i was not made for this world.

today, i was confronted with a situation at work the end result of which made me think that the world does not a just place. in this particular instance, an individual, who had committed some pretty unscrupulous acts, had gotten a promotion. at the same time, i know of many good people who have had their positions eliminated and are leaving the company. i am one of those people, and the news has pushed me off my axis of emotional well-being once again.

i thought about sharing how much the situation pains me deeply to a friend. i heard in my mind his likely response of, "well, that's just business," and it is that perspective that so many around me have that causes me to pause and question whether i really belong in this life.

so many seem so reconciled to "the way things are," and it leaves me wondering how, after half a decade, i can still be so hurt, so disappointed, so disturbed when events like the one at work today happen. it's as if, when i was formed in the womb, what ever part of my dna that's supposed to allow one's perspectives on life to adapt to accept "the way things are" either didn't fully form or just got left out all together.

i've always felt very odd and out of place in this life. i'm sure i've shared before in this blog that i sometimes (or is it often) question why was i even brought into existence, believing as i do that every life has a purpose. i keep wondering of what good am i if i get so deeply shaken and lost when encountering what i see as the darker realities of the world?

another bit of evidence i feel highlights why i don't think i was made for this world - i never get an answer to that question, and yet, i carry a belief that i should.

indifferent

i'm at one of those points that i look around and it feels that the world, that life seems so indifferent to whatever struggles i have and the resulting inner pain i'm experiencing; and i wonder, why does that bother me? i mean, why do i believe that life should develop in a way that supports and nurtures me?

perhaps it's because to believe otherwise, to accept that my life will always be about suffering mentally and emotionally in a world that is coldly unconcerned, would push me over an edge from which there would be no return.

i've been in this place before (more times than i often feel is fair for one human being to have to have experienced) and each time i seem to get closer to that edge of oblivion.

i've never looked over the edge. it frightens me. i worry that in doing so i will see an illusion of welcoming relief that will lure me over and away from existence.

i have read and heard about so many people with seemingly more fulfilling lives than mine who have done so. i do not want to follow them, but i believe i understand why they made that fatal step.

one day they looked up with all the hurt they'd endured for so long, looked around and saw a world that seemed indifferent to their experience, and then looked over the edge and thought, "could that really be any worse than what i'm experiencing now?"

i do not know the answer to that question; and, as i think it should be, i would rather the answer find me than seek it out myself.

frequency

what do you do when the only channel that seems to be coming through to your mind is the one attuned to all of the pain you've experienced in life? how do you have the belief that you can make it through the next day when all you've done in the current one is relive so many of the hurtful episodes that have occurred over the span of your life? who do you trust when the only signal you're picking up on is the one that reminds you of the loss of relationships that you believed in and trusted and the deepening of the sense of rejection that has resulted? where do you go when at every turn you see in your mind's eye every attempt at starting again to make a better life ending in yet another disappointment? and all i seem to ever be able to do at times like these is wonder, why does this keep happening to me?

the hug

there's a moment that happened during that trip last week that i want to capture because it tells all one needs to know about what i have longed for in life and why i am so deeply saddened (dare i say devastated) by the outcome of said trip.

i had the opportunity to visit with the person who would be my oldest friend my first evening there. we were best friends from first through fifth grade (then my family moved away), and after many, many years apart, we were able to reconnect about five years ago.

the "moment" i referred to at the beginning of this entry occurred when we first greeted one another. we hugged, and it was an embrace that was so full of love, knowing, and acceptance on both our parts that it was very much the experience of what has thus far escaped me in my adult life - a sense of belonging, the feeling of home. we gave each other a similar embrace as we departed and his final words were to the effect that if i were able to move there, i would become a part of his family.

you see, even though apart for many years, my friend knows me. he has seen the earliest parts of my life and the struggles that were inherent in my family dynamics and how they affected me. he knows of the challenges i have had in the interim between our loss of contact and our reconnecting. he knows of my current struggles with deep depression, difficult life events and the ability to hold on to some sense of hopefulness. he knows and he cares deeply about me.

from my time with him, i caught a glimpse of what it would be like to have that kind of loving support so immediately accessible to me (we would literally have been within minutes of one another). given that my next oldest and dearest friend would have been just a few hours to the north, it made me start to believe that maybe, just maybe, i could have a foundation from which to build on, finding my way to a greater sense of wholeness and a belief that i have a place in this world.

and so when i got news of the decision, i realized that i would have to let go of that vision; and, as so often happens with me, the feelings that perhaps i am not meant to be happy in this life have overwhelmed me.

it seems such a small thing to ask - to know love, to belong, to be at home within yourself and the world. a small thing? perhaps. but in my case, it seems as if, to have even the small things is too much to ask.