This post is neither a cry for help, nor particularly uplifting. It’s just some brutal honesty about my life that I put to paper to try to make sense out of in my head. I think it worked to some degree. Feel free to skip this one.
There are moments. They come when I sit in a hotel room. Far away from anyone or anything I know. They don’t come at the normal hours, but they come later. When the TV is off, the distractions distant, but the mind still wheeling along too fast to apply the brakes and crash into sleep. Instead I lay in this awful place with this feeling gripping my heart. It starts, first, when I think on my life. My mind wanders first to what I’ve accomplished and I begin to cut life into segments. It’s something I’ve always done to attempt to handle a task more effectively. If I had to run 10 laps during football, I would say in my mind. When I have run 5 laps. I’m halfway done. And when I run 2 laps, I’m halfway to that point. And so as you cross continual smaller goals you draw nearer the final goal. but I find myself doing this with my life. Partitioning off how much I’ve lived and how much I have left to live. When I think of my life ending in a quiet snuff, with nothing continuing after a sortof cold terror wells up inside of me and I can’t sleep. I can’t do much of anything, because my mind becomes more alert and awake the more I think about it. A self fulfilling prophecy if ever there was one.
And then I try to think of ways to stop thinking of this. And in the end the only distraction that works is companionship. The sound of someone’s voice or the solace in their arms. It’s why I seek so desperately to find love. As wonderful an emotion as that is, all the more it drives away those cold, dark and grasping feelings of condemnation. Like a cow in line at the butcher’s suddenly realizing the futility of its course. Far beyond the point of being able to alter its destiny. The only other option is a sooner exit. And so when I finally meet someone who awakens happiness and hope within me, it is a miracle. I can find these moments of terorr pass so quickly, because as the feeling of dread wells up inside me, quick on its heels floods a feeling of warmth and beauty. Certainly I may die and have nothing thereafter. Just a cold bleak emptyness. But this is an inevitable fact. Even as I write this I feel the same feelings. The skin on my cheeks begins to prickle like ice. My heart feels heavy in my chest, and I become acutely aware of my breathing. When I actually type out the words of what it feels like it seems so simple and unfrightening. But when it happens it’s all I can do to keep my sanity. And right now I don’t have someone to find solace in. Only the memories of them, and the thoughts of them leaving, or my leaving them. And its in these quiet moments in the hotel where I find myself either thinking of death, or pining back for more life. In either situation I just find myself… wanting.
The end result of course is a sort of mild desperation when it comes to meeting people. Whether it’s friends or loved ones, it feels like the only thing that staves off the mounting bouts of breathless uncomfortableness is contact. An instant message, phone call or just hearing someone laugh. It creates a legacy. This is the great realization that I’ve come to that keeps me running, and it’s why I don’t get stressed at life’s curveballs anymore. Your race is from point A, to point B. You can’t alter your trajectory no matter how much you flail your arms and scream. In fact, from the moment you’re in a constant battle to not die. You can give up at any point, and that’s it. So I had to look for something else. What’s the difference? If we’re all just these particles cascading randomly through the largest fishbowl ever. Who cares? The answer is, I suppose, no one. So then the goal should be, in my opinion, to enjoy the freefall as much as possible. And if you reach a point where you can’t enjoy it anymore, then rather than just give up, why not do what you can to make someone else’s meaningless freefall that much more entertaining? It doesn’t cost you anything. It’s a zero sum argument. The answer at the same is still the end. No matter how many times you flip the coin eventually it comes up tails. And when it does, nothing else matters. You’re done. But other people are still flipping. It won’t change your life any whether or not they continue to do so, but the chaos of all those spinning coins is far more interesting to me than the barren order of when they all stop, and the inert matter sifts itself away into nothingness.
The feeling is coming back. I need to go find a way to shake my mind off of things and think more meaningless thoughts.
Tags: Depressing, random, Writing
Posted by admin - 20/05/09 - 0 comments
