????

What. The. Actual. Hell. I was fine. I wasn’t even paying attention to it. Robert has some music playing quietly in the background because he likes some noise when he sleeps. I’m just here reading random crap online with zero point behind it hoping that I’ll be able to get some sleep myself soon as the past few days have been really hard on me in that regard. I’m not feeling particularly depressed or anything, mostly just really tired, and I just start crying. I know it’s the song that started playing and I know what I was feeling while it was going on. I just don’t know what triggered it exactly. As I said: Just tired. Just reading. Just crying? And as quickly as it came, it vanished again. I can’t really be that easily manipulated by music, can I?

Saw my podiatrist. Foot is healing but not healed. She still doesn’t want me walking on it. Gave me a new, less obtrusive shoe to replace the boot for now. I told her about the blisters and she cleaned them and gave me some supplies to keep up on them. The new shoe is because of the blisters and she wants to see me again in two weeks. I think I’m actually going in on the 19th to be specific. I really can’t blame her because the one on the bottom of my foot is rather nasty looking. I gather the boot will be returning after they heal enough.

Made a bunch of other appointments. Optometrist is tomorrow. Primary care is the 30th. Dentist is in early May. Still need to get that referral for my wisdom teeth done now that my insurance should be sorted. Chiropractor is still on hold until my foot heals more. Not much reason to go since it’s for my back and I’m still not supposed to be walking so… I was really hoping I’d be able to start exercising again. I’m guessing summer by this point. At least I still seem to be loosing weight. Well, fluctuating down I should say. Overall lower numbers are good either way.

Oh good. Another emotionally manipulative song just came on. I think I’m going to be able to sleep here soon. Starting to have trouble typing. When I have to keep going over words because I’m misspelling them over and over or have to pause for a second because I can’t remember how to spell them at all in the first place–. Once, in third grade, I forgot how to spell the word “of”. I actually had to ask the teacher because I kept spelling it “ove” and I knew something was wrong with that but couldn’t figure out just what.

Thirty-some-odd-years later that’s still a vivid memory for me. I wonder why that is. Why would I remember something so insignificant with such clarity and yet forget so many other much more important things. I can remember misspelling a two-letter word when I was nine but I can’t remember my own father’s face, his voice, smell, touch. I can see the shadow but it’s so far away. Was it ever even real to begin with? It’s running from me. Or am I running from it?

…

Where the hell is this coming from?

I don’t think I’m safe right now.

It’s late and I’m nauseous.

So what else is new?

In two days I’ll be 41. I’m not happy about that. It’s not that I’m upset about getting older. I’m more upset that the number keeps going up but I never seem to actually feel like I’m anywhere near it. I’m a child not even playing at being an adult. I just don’t see the purpose in pretending to be something that I’m not.

It makes me feel so isolated. I’ve heard other people talk about not feeling their age but in my case it’s different. I honest to goodness don’t feel like I’ve aged any psychologically since I was 12. As such all of the things that adults are allowed and even expected to do? I can’t do them. I’m not an adult. I’m not allowed to. And when people expect such things of me? I shut down and/or run and hide. I can’t do or be those things no matter how hard I or others may want it of me.

As I continue to age and… not… age… I feel more and more confused. The cognitive dissonance of being a child old enough to suffer from a mid-life crisis feels so very, very wrong. The fact that I’ve lost most of my hair isn’t helping either. I look old and tired. Ugly. I’ve always been ugly. Inside though, I just feel tired. Exhausted really. I don’t feel so old but at the same time I do.

Let me try to explain a bit better: I’ve always been older than my age. When I was a kid, a teenager specifically, I always acted much older than I was. I used to bang on the wall between me and my brother’s room yelling for him to turn his damn music down. I cleaned obsessively. So much so that I would purposefully leave certain things messy in an attempt not to appear crazy. Thinking about it now, that kind of makes me crazy. But that’s how I was, that’s what I became about the time I started puberty. Everything had to be perfect and yet nothing could be.

I remember once when my nephew came over to visit. He said something to me that still sticks with me today. He told me that my room looked like a monk lived in it. It was neat, tidy, and sparse, just as I liked it. I had no idea just how odd that apparently was. I felt unbelievably embarrassed. My attempt at playing being a person had failed. If even my nephew could see through me it would obviously be even easier for anyone else.

So tired. Beginning to lose the plot here. I lost the person I wanted to be a long time ago. I gave up. It was the best I felt I could do. Being an adult meant being something I couldn’t understand. Being a child meant being something that I never really was. Walking through limbo. Struggling through the shadows of what others expected of me, what I expected of myself. I want to burn it all away. Scatter the ashes to the winds.

So tired.

So very, very tired.

Been thinkin’

I just want to lay here and be sad. It’s okay if I cry, right? They can’t see. They don’t want to see.

I’m so tired all the time. So tired and… uninterested? That’s not the word. I can’t think of the word right now. It’s like uninterested but even more uninterested than that. It’s what I am right now in regards to looking up that word that means more uninterested than uninterested.

Apathetic.

See! It just came to me. And now I don’t even care to go back and correct my original statement and add it in where I intended it to be originally, if I had been able to think of it or hadn’t been too apathetic to look up what word means more uninterested than uninterested.

I hate myself. I really do. This isn’t teen angst crap. This is full on adult self loathing. I’m laying here rubbing tears from my eyes as I type this. I truly and honest-to-god despise the person that I am. I’m garbage. Trash. Is it any wonder society threw me away? I tend to get this way when I think about my (horrific) past or my (non-existent) future or even my (completely bullshit) present. Pretty much I get this way when I think.

When I think…

GODDAMN IT WHY COULDN’T I JUST BE AN ALCOHOLIC OR A DRUG ADDICT?! I’ve seen it work for so many people, especially in my family. I think some times that I could do it. I could be an alcoholic easily. It runs in my family. I’ve been told my father was one. I know for sure my mother is. In my mid twenties my sister actually called me an alcoholic-in-training because I can drink so much before it effects me. Strangely enough I have a high tolerance for alcohol but nothing else.

I could see myself doing it, I really could. Almost did. But no… I have to be the adult. I have to be the, apparently, ONE MOTHERFUCKING PERSON ON THIS PLANET who refuses to use substance abuse to hide from my problems. The worst drugs I do come from McDonald’s and Taco Bell. Terrible for you, sure. But really…

I don’t want to have to be the adult any more. I want to run and jump and feel free and if it takes downing a six pack or a few shots, why shouldn’t I? What is really stopping me? I know alcohol makes me feel better, lowers my inhibitions, greases my sociability wheels. It would be perfect. Robert used to be an alcoholic. We could drink together. Would be better for him than the meth he’s been dabbling in lately, that’s for sure.

How to start though, I wouldn’t know. Just go to the store and buy something I guess. Start small, a few drinks at home maybe, before working up to sitting on a park bench drinking out of a paper bag. Hobo city here I come! Find me some new friends to drink with. We could split a bottle of whatever terrible tasting crap just… just take it away. Take the thoughts away.

Fuck! I’m crying again.

I’m not going to do it. I know I’m not. It’s just not in my personality. My mother could do it. My siblings could do it. Even Robert could do it. But I can’t do it. Not because I’m better or stronger than any of them. But because, at the heart of it all, I’m weaker and I deserve to feel all of this. I don’t have the right to hide from this pain and anguish. I’m not a man. I’m a boy. A failure. A terrified child unable to do or deal with even the smallest of things. I am to be punished. I am to be beaten and flogged. And I am to feel every lash.

This is the me that I am.

This is the me that I chose to be.

I hurt myself because I deserve to be hurt. I did something or nothing wrong at some point to someone or no one and I need to be punished until I learn my lesson. Then I can stop. Then the pain with end.

It will never end, will it.

They’re wrong.

There is no better. No hiding. No running. The darkness. It follows. It slinks. It slithers. Chases you. Endlessly.

I burn inside but I fear as well. Fear myself. Fear others. I need to touch. To be touched. There has to be something out there. Utterly alone. Always. Is suffering the only true vestige of existence? I leave my mark. Black as black. The endless past swallows it among countless others.

Why? Why am I alone? Why am I angry? Why do I hate? Why do I empathize? Why do I FEEL? It hurts so much. The prickling in my skin becomes screams in my mind. Forever. Forever. It holds me hostage. Afraid to move. I just want a moment. Any moment. Let me rest. Let the tenseness pass. Even if only once.

Smothering fear and sadness. Mother and Father. The beginning and the end. I have always been, Mother. A billion endings await my inevitable arrival. Over and over again, Father. Why do you hurt me? Why do I let you hurt me? I desire this. I desire this suffering.

It skips across my consciousness. I’ve lost everything. I have nothing. A fleeting shadow on the wall of far less substance.

Flesh shakes and quivers. Quietly. Silently. Waiting for the pain to cease. Waiting for someone to save me? To listen? To hear? To feel? To understand? To comfort? To hold? To love? STOP!

There are no others. There is only the darkness. The void. They’re wrong. They’re always so, so wrong. No matter how much I beat. No matter how much I thrash. The grip is too strong. The teachings too ingrained. You can’t escape what you are. What other have chosen for you. Wish with all your might. Wish until the stars themselves die. You will be you. I will be me. Pain will be pain. Suffering will be suffering. Alone will be alone.

The plan is laid bare.

The truth is maddening.

LET ME GO!!!

Rescued From Oblivion III: We all fall down.

Ashes.

Ashes.

I don’t know what I’m doing any more. I’ve been trying so hard for so long to be everything to everyone and now I don’t know how to be me to myself. Everything that I am exists in relation to how others see me. What others want or need from me. I don’t know how to do this any more. I want to get out. I…

Whatever.

I wonder if I’m even going to post this.

Sure. Why not? Not like anyone cares. Not even me.

Rescued From Oblivion II: quiet

Not talking.

Not moving.

Not breathing.

When it’s quiet that’s when things go really wrong.

Disaster after train wreck after insert-euphemism-for-everything-in-my-life-has-been-steadily-falling-apart-with-no-time-to-rest. Oh sure, I’ll have a day or two here and there to make me believe that everything is starting to calm down, to sort itself out finally. But no, that’s when the real fun starts. When I realize that the universe was just saving up the good stuff or taking some extra time to really figure out the best way to stick it to me.

There needs to be Novocaine for emotions. I’m just so exhausted and wiped out and… I don’t even know anymore. I just want some quiet, inside and out.

I can’t have that though. Nope.

Burning in Numb

Has it been six months already? I can’t tell anymore. Days pass like dreams. I’m usually completely ignorant of even what day of the week it is let alone the date.

More than half way through December is it? Not a damn thing has been achieved. I feel a quiet desperation. Longing for a time when I could still feel beyond the exhausting stiffness that all envelops me today. Is there a reason that I exist or is existence a means unto itself? I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.

So things ended up following the path of least resistance. We’re still “together”, whatever that is worth. Fear of change and the unknown can be one hell of a demotivator. The motions haven’t changed, burned into my very being at this point. I don’t know if I could change anymore even if I wanted to. Yes, I have become a living, breathing human trope. A caricature of my own hopes, fears, and dreams. Do I hate myself? Do I hate what I am? What I have allowed, demanded, that I become?

The holidays are upon us. A time of joy and happiness and camaraderie. Such alien concepts to me now. I don’t feel sadness, loss, unless I think about how I don’t feel said sadness or loss. Does it work that way? Is it supposed to work that way? It does for me. Or doesn’t. I suppose it depends on your perspective.

Nothing around here says “holidays” at all. Just the usual daily grind of oppression. I think I may actually prefer that. I don’t have to feel anything new. Don’t have to expand my existence in order to accommodate it only to have to deal with my sagging understanding the rest of the year. Keep things tight and taunt I say. It makes it that much easier to slit your own proverbial throat when you know every inch of your desiccated humanity.

I’ve been too long. The filth accumulates on my skin like a slick, beige nightmare. I don’t even know if I can recognize myself any longer. Dark matted hair, sunken eyes, a blank expression of exhaustion mixed with a twinge of exasperation. Come, sweet death, the song whispers.

Why does it run from me then?