Days come and go and most find me deep in thought, true. Most often, my mind is all abuzz with thoughts bent in so very many different directions. Wishing for, I don't know, something... anything. Life puzzles me. And all the more so, lately. Had quite a brilliantly awesome conversation with a friend here at work this morning... and am glad of it. Perhaps I've been a little too quiet most recently. It helped to just get some of what's on my chest off, yes... but that introspection? Now redoubled. And so, though my mood has been somewhat lifted since this past weekend, I find myself slipping back into melancholy again. Second-guessing things, I guess... as usual. It's just... well... I'm still so desperately seeking my way... a way. I pray that it make sense. I need it to. Struggling ahead, all the while trying to lead by example, one gets weary. And too oft it still seems that though both my words and deeds are indeed noticed, they continue to go... unheeded. There are so many things in my life that I want to change, need to change, but... I... I just don't know how. Trying to take the necessary steps seems next to nearly impossible. And getting those I love most to follow with me just looks more and more... improbable. To passionately care so much about everything? Even those things which others don't think matter much at all? Honestly? It hurts. Still, everything matters... everything. "Be the change you want to see in others?" Does that work? I mean, truthfully? I wonder. Yet, I continue to continue. But I feel so lonely. And I'm finding more and more that Life is its deepest at its most bittersweet. Indeed...
I wonder. Does anyone else really and truly experience the same type of loneliness? When surrounded by family and friends... loved ones, to be sure... why is it that I ofttimes feel so very, very alone? A deep-seated, abiding, and desperate loneliness. Perhaps it is that I don't quite feel at home within my own skin. I'd wager that I never really have. Perhaps, like certain folk suggest, it's just that I think too much. Always asking questions of my questions. Searching for answers, for... meaning. In everything. Maybe all the years of abject rejection cloud my mind. Maybe all those hurtful things - blatantly deliberate or merely inferred - dig their claws deeper into every passing thought. Like anyone else, I'd just like to be heard, acknowledged... understood. But even when the dearest of friends say that they do, indeed, understand... I'm still left feeling so cold and very alone. I say that my soul hurts. It does. But when I try to explain, mostly I just end up feeling all the more marginalised. Small. Forgotten. And, ultimately... foolish. Peace and joy seem far removed and fleeting in these times. And so another Sunrise dawns and I find myself mostly teary-eyed at its promise. Should such bitter loneliness like this linger so? I truly wonder. I can say that it seems to fuel my melancholy... causing me to withdraw at times. At others, it boils over into heartbreaking dirges which no one will ever hear. Or occasionally finding its way into poetry and prose so powerfully poignant that I have no choice but to put it down onto paper... or type it out here in the virtual world's representation of such. But it never fully goes away. Temporary cessation, maybe... but it always comes back around. And sometimes... with a vengeance. Still, I battle on... winning the small skirmish on occasion. But the War? It is far from over... and I am but a weary soldier, trying to find his way. Help and Godspeed, I pray...
Here I make Confession, such as it is... if any would listen. It is said that Confession is good for the soul. And indeed, I sincerely hope that it is. I find myself filled with a frailty that I cannot rightly explain, broken-spirited, so very tired of the Battle, weak and weary... depressed beyond consolation.
For what it's worth, I don't understand exactly why I feel the way I do. Chalk it up to Life in general, I guess. Dark night of the soul, dour-minded... call it what you will, but I feel that if I don't get some of this off of my chest in some form or another I'll most likely implode...
I sit here and I wonder. I wonder about so very much. My mom once told me that I was "too good-hearted and much too naive". Maybe she's right. And I can't begin to tell you how many folk have said that I was "overly-sensitive". I guess maybe they're all onto something that I've tried my damnedest to deny. I've tried to let things go, honestly... but it still hurts. Everything hurts. And I just feel so all alone. And tired. And smitten to feel this life so deeply...
Sometimes I just want to run away. But to where? Where could I possibly go that the demons wouldn't follow right along behind? O Infernal Shadows and Shades. I'd just carry them with me like all the words and the pains and the scars. Those still piercing arrows ablaze... ever burning heart, soul, and will.
But who will listen? More pointedly, who really and truly cares? Nothing that I say or do matters all that much regardless. And all it ever appears to lead to is more and more ill... ever-deepening wounds. When I do speak about such things, this bitter poison only seems to spread. And as I would not wish this Darkness visit upon another... and most certainly not because of me... my lot seems to be to soldier onwards alone, keeping so many things to myself. But living so... one-sidedly takes its toll, I promise. Why does it always have to be like this? But then again... what does it really matter anyway?
How should one keep on going when Life just... hurts so much. Honestly, there are days when I'd really just rather not be here. And lately those days seem to keep stretching out before me endlessly. Heartsick and abandoned, I just don't feel like trying all that much anymore...
More so than I could tell, the following song sums up fairly well almost exactly how I feel. Though, I only wish that I could carry on "indifferent to the loss"... for some reason, I just can't do that.
So I confess to taking everything to heart, to hurting, to being confused, to feeling misunderstood by those closest to me, to feeling alone and forgotten, to being empty, to being needy, to being too good-hearted, much too naive, and overly-sensitive...
And for so very much more that I haven't the heart to speak of...
Restlessness. In some form or fashion, a keen restlessness always comes back to me. Certainly books and movies and even video-games play some role in all of this. And I am not so strong as to keep it all at bay overlong. So it haunts me relentlessly. I guess it always will...
This past weekend, I was confronted with it yet again...
Somberly wistful, I yearn for something that I've never known... and yet something that seems to call to me, indeed has ever called to me, from far across the Sea. How can one feel so strongly the need to return to a place which one has never been? But I feel it... and deeply so.
Ireland.
Seems that everything this past weekend conspired to open me up to a simple truth that I can no longer ignore. My heart belongs... elsewhere.
Truthfully, after delving into something decided Irish... this always seems to happen. My wife, Jessica, rightly surmises that these leanings always lead me towards an increasing melancholy. She pointedly told me after a certain movie that we watched that, "Home is where the heart is." And shes' right, you know... of that I have no doubt. But my response to her was quite telling... as I hadn't even realised that I'd said the words until they were said. "I know," I said... "so why does mine feel that it belongs over there?"
I have no answers. I only know that I long to be there. And I feel it in my bones, my... blood. Will I ever feel so... wayward? Until I finally touch that blessèd soil... I believe so, yes.
I most definitely hear the call, but don't rightly know how to answer...
Please don't think that I wish my heart to be apart from my family. This is not the case, I promise. Heart for and with my family is something decidedly different altogether. And those that know me know how ardent is my heart toward them. I hope... indeed, I pray... that they understand and bear with me. To those other of you who read these words and who will... please pray for me.
