I’m so insanely lonely and desperate, my mind is fixating once again on the last time someone seemed to really care about me. It was so long ago. I suppose it’s that she was the last person to give me a sense that she saw something really worthwhile in me. Like I was actually valuable. Like who I was had some significance, independent of the roles I play in the lives of others. Like she actually really liked me for me, and wanted to be close to me. I miss that feeling, so fucking much. I can’t imagine ever feeling it again.
And my mind clings to that memory. Like there has to be some way back, right? Some way to turn back the hands of time, over 20 years. Of course there isn’t. But there has to be, right? Because that feeling seems like the only meaningful thing, right now. If I could just go back, then maybe she could save me from doing this to myself. Somehow stop me from going down this path. Guide me back to the reality I should be living in, where all this is a bad dream.
Ok, so no time travel. But what if I somehow tracked her down in the present. What are the chances she could still see anything worth caring about in me? Slim to none. I’ve strayed so far from who I should’ve been. Crossed so many red lines, and just kept on walking. Let whatever potential for good that she saw in me go to ruin. That boy is long dead. And she’d already moved on long before I got to that point anyway. Buried whatever feelings she had and got on with life.
So, no one can save me from myself. No one can see what I am without being disgusted by it. I’m alone, and will always be alone, and will only become more so as the years pass, and the few people bound to me by blood die off.
Unless I can do something to let go of this longing for connection or somehow address it, I’m thinking maybe it’s time to start moving towards the exit. 6 months or so, spring or early summer. Time to “get my affairs in order”. It’s not that I want to, exactly. I’m still terrified. I’m still dragging my feet, putting it off, avoiding thinking about it. Hoping that something is going to come along and save me. But realistically, nothing is going to change, unless I can somehow drastically change my own mind. It’s only going to get worse. And I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to be this anymore.
2 comments
Torturing yourself over past mistakes, wanting to go back to some arbitrary point in time to fix things… I get where you’re coming from.
I’m not saying it’s easy, but there must be a future that you’d want to see. We always look back at the past and the mistakes we’ve made and tend to not think of the future as much because it never truly comes until it’s the present, but the future is something you can work towards all now.
I’ve never had the details like I’d initially thought, but I have an idea of where I’m trying to go in my life. Ending things won’t give me the chance to get to that future.
It won’t be perfect (nothing is), but I know I can reach some semblance of content.
Men don’t need much to be content. We mainly need to get ourselves in some level of order, then everything else starts to line up.
I believe you can still make something of yourself in this twisting gnarled thing that is life.
No, that’s the thing, the only future I really want is one where I don’t have my past. Which is obviously a problem. Otherwise it relies on finding unrealistic levels of acceptance and trust from others. Even if I could somehow find someone who could look past all the shameful shit I’ve done and see something worthwhile in me, that would require me to put an extraordinary amount of trust in them and put myself in great risk. So that’s not really a future that appeals. I can’t imagine ever being able to put the fear and shame to one side and really live again. So I don’t feel like I have anything tangible to work towards.
The only places I want to go in life are unrealistic or fantastical. They don’t make logical sense, and when I think about trying to work towards them, it all falls apart.
As far as I understand it, contentedness is mainly a struggle against your own capacity for dissatisfaction. You can be content with very little, if you have the necessary disposition. Or have everything you could possibly want, and still be discontent. But I think in order to be content, I’d have to let go of very fundamental ideals relating to human connection, acceptance, intimacy, comfort etc. I’d have to be happy to be utterly alone, without this constant feeling that something is missing. I would need to become an island, self-sufficient in my meaning and cut off from social judgement.
Not saying that’s impossible, with the right experiences, or enough years of meditation/asceticism. But I don’t think I want to stick around that long. I don’t want to go through the struggle on the off-chance that I find some way to stop this from hurting. It doesn’t seem worth it (to me.) Better to skip to the end.