A Lonely Paradox

Loneliness can be a heavy burden. Stuck in your own mind as it plays its dirty tricks. You want to let them escape, but not a listening ear is around. Isolated and alone, you reach out to people and nobody seems to care. The hopelessness of your situation arises. It's not even worth the effort. It will only make you feel more alone. Each resulting silence screams back at you. Making the loneliness echo in your head. You give up. You resign yourself to being alone with irrational thoughts and dealing with them by yourself. You're lonely and want to be around people and interact with them, but the futility makes it all seem worthless. Why try? Why not just sit and revel in your own shit? It won't make it any better, but it won't make it any worse. Being lonely and isolated is much better than being lonely in a crowd. At least isolation brings about a certain comfort that you're lonely on your own terms. It's not that nobody wants to talk to you, but that you don't want to talk to anybody. A perverted sense of control, because in reality all you want is to be among a group of friends, experiencing joviality or sharing kind words or just talking, but you somehow twist your own mind into thinking that you want to be alone. That you don't need anybody. Nobody cares anyway, right? You'll just wallow in your own self-pity waiting for it to fade away. You're fine with that. What a self-delusion! You don't want it to fade away. You want someone, anyone, to take it away. But there's nobody there. There's nobody except for all those people you don't want to see. Those who could take it away, but emotional fear overpowers your want. Being an introvert only cultivates those fears. You desperately want human contact, but you also desperately just want to be alone. A mental tug-of-war that seems to have no solution but to give up on the day, give up on people, and hold onto the paralyzing paradox until your eyes slowly begin to shut and the world drifts away. You're finally content with being alone. And a new day awaits.

Waiting on Fate

Nothing but the decision of fate goes through your mind. Sitting there, standing there, pacing, just waiting...There's nothing more you can do. You have no control. You just have to wait. Time is your enemy as the seconds seem to creep by slower and slower. What was once a passing moment has now become a tortuous second. 1/60th of a minute. 1/360th of an hour. It just ticks and ticks, the time between growing ever longer.

You could do things to keep your mind occupied on something else, but how long will that last? How long will it be until your mind refocuses itself on the center of attention you're trying so hard to avoid? It runs and runs in a race with your sanity. But, sanity is slow. It can't keep up.

A moment you've been waiting for in alternating states of dread and excitement has reached its culmination, save this one last step. But that last step is out of your control. You've reached the edge. You can either be pushed into the far depths of despair or pulled away into a state of bliss. But until fate shows up, all you can do is stand there as your mind spins in your skull, gaining momentum with each passing thought and moment. 

Your mind is no longer your own. It has become a slave to a fate which has already been decided for you, but of which you don't know the answer. Somebody's coming to push or pull, but when? Uncontrollable anxiousness over this arrival leaves you desperate, but all you can do is wait...And wait. Fate has left you on the brink, your feet stuck to the ground by the weight of your heavy thoughts. 

As the anxiety of anxiousness takes further control, you find yourself somehow contemplating a desire to be pushed over the edge rather than wait any longer. Just one little push or pull, that's all you need to feel the sweet release of either fate.

You desperately look around hoping for fate to show up. But you see only a vast nothingness around you. Nothing but you and your anticipation. Anxiety riddled, unable to move, afraid that you might fall, but willing to at this point. You can only stand there. Waiting.

You are stuck with your own thoughts as you look over the edge, dizzied by the long drop that could be awaiting you. Without control and knowing only disappointment is awaiting, you keep turning your head to scan the infinite horizon. Hoping to see fate coming over the other edge behind you. But each time you turn you see nothing. Your thoughts become even more weighed down. They twist and turn tying your brain into knots. Painful knots that you cannot untie. Knots that would disappear if only fate would arrive. 

But nothing. Nothing but a vast vacuum of humanity, except for you, the tiny particle standing at the edge, simply there and waiting. Waiting at the final meeting place of doubt and hope as they are at war with each other. Sometimes hope rises up and gains an advantage, but doubt ultimately crushes it. Doubt always wins.

Will fate ever show up? Will you ever see it coming over the horizon? You just wait, teetering at the edge, filled with excruciating apprehension coupled with the last remaining bit of hopeful anticipation. This false hope so often slaughtered by doubt only makes the fall seem more appealing. Sometimes you wish you could just fall forward and decide your own fate. But you have no choice. No control. Fate has it all.

Anxiety is twisting and knotting your mind even tighter with every passing moment and it's your only companion. Waiting with you for fate's arrival. You wonder and wonder why it hasn't shown up. Why is it leaving you there, unable to move and without control.

There's still nothing coming from over the horizon behind you and the sun is beginning to set. You will be soon be left in two darknesses until something else you can't control decides to cast light upon you once again. 

Downtrodden, head heavy, feet stuck, you now begin to wonder if  it will ever show up. Why? That's all your mind can think. What did I do wrong? Where is it? How can fate just leave me here? Just to see a speck of humanity carrying fate's decision is all you're looking for. You don't care if they pull or push at this point. You just want it to be over. But fate has abandoned you. Left you standing in quiet desperation. And all you can do wait. 

Untitled

Sometimes you give and give and give and they're all too glad to take. But when you need something, even the littlest thing, they will never return the favor. Yet, you keep helping. Everyone around you tells you to give up, you deserve better, she doesn't want help, why keep trying? For some reason I can't. I know I'm being used. I know I should never expect anything back. But I just keep giving; heart, mind and soul. So many tears, so many fears. Fears that she'll get hurt, both emotionally and physically, and fears that she'll lead a terrible life full of bad characters and bad decisions. I was supposed to get her out of that life. That's really all she ever wanted from me, but I failed. Now I'm trying my best to make up for my failure, but she won't let me. She wants to make bad decisions. She wants to keep people in her life that are bad for her. I try and I try and I give and I give. I get nothing for it. Not even the satisfaction of making a difference. Not even any friendship in return. I'm just there to be used as needed. Yet, for some reason beyond all reason and stupidity and hopelessness, I always will be.

Letting Go

Despite all your efforts to keep them afloat, sometimes you just gotta watch them sink to rock bottom before you can help them up...

I just had to give up on someone. Somebody that I really care about and want nothing but the best for. I cry for her, stay up at nights worrying, and spend whole days depressed when she's having problems.


But now, I just have allow her to make bad decisions and wait until the consequences force her to decide to help herself. I tried so damn hard. I thought she wanted my help. It sure seemed that way the night he bashed in her windshield with his fists. The night she called me over to be with her and I went despite all advice from everyone around me. I stayed until after 1 a.m. when she was starting to fall asleep.


The next day, I went shopping for her, brought her lunch, and spent all day with her because I didn't want her to be alone and she had stayed up all night cursing this man and dealing with the cops. Plus, the windshield was too cracked and broken to drive the car to work. I stayed as long as I could until I had to leave and some other people came by to bring her dinner. I texted to check on her when I was able again...She never returned my text. It was somewhat late, so she must've just been asleep. She got a ride to work the next day from a co-worker.


Just a week before this incident, she called me sobbing from a bathroom stall. He had left her at a bar with no ride and had seemingly left her for good. As would happen the next week, she cursed the guy and said how terrible he was. She told me she was running background checks on him and didn't trust him. I heard all kinds of terrible things about him. So I figured it was over. Who just leaves someone somewhere without a car and never returns? She was crying and heartbroken, I had never seen her like that. I went home after she had calmed down and she was scared for my safety that he might return.


He had also left her car dismantled and with a broken radiator. I spent the next day calling around looking for used radiators and offered to buy it for her, but she seemed to lose interest the next day.


That following day, I found out that I couldn't cover her vehicle and had to take her off my insurance. I texted to tell her I needed to talk about something. She replied "What is it? I'm tired and have to be up at 4a.m."


So, she has no car, doesn't need a ride from me, and is leaving for work at 4:30 a.m. Using my basic logic skills, I figured out that she must have someone staying the night. I waited until the next day to bring it up.


The night of the bar incident, I stayed up checking his public records. I knew he was a bad guy already but found out even more. And it was scary. She was lucky to get away from him.


But, come to find out, my instincts were true. He was back. I texted her telling her how stupid it was, that he's an alcoholic, that it'll only get worse, he's a criminal, etc...


She didn't care. She took him back.


Not more than a week later I get a call, "You were right."


He had smashed her windshield with his fists as she was driving. He had been drinking all day. The cops were called and he was forced to leave. Glass was all inside the car. She went off about how he better not even try to come back. She was gonna get him good for doing this. Press charges, get a conviction, send him to jail...


The judge gave him 48 hours to have the windshield fixed. This was a Wednesday. She called me Thursday afternoon and wanted me to drop everything I was doing, use my AAA card to get it towed, have it done for a $100 and he would pay her back. Yeah, right. He owes $50,000 in unpaid taxes and child support. Owes $756 for a battery charge from 10 years ago, $260 for a public intoxication charge, and owes money all over town. I refused. She went on to tell me that I'm never there for her and that she doesn't have any real friends. And this is supposed to be about HER best interests. In my mind it was.


From what I heard the night he had smashed the windshield, I thought she wanted this guy charged and held accountable. So, I told her instead of letting this guy off for $100 that he'd never pay back, I would pick her up and drop her off on Friday and be her personal taxi all day. She said okay. We could get it fixed Saturday after the 48 hours was up and he would be charged. I kept texting her about making sure to only let him leave voice mails and return only with texts, so there's records of everything. I was playing lawyer and kept coming up with and texting ideas. She just started ignoring me. In hindsight, I realize she was probably already with him the entire time.


I went to go pick her for work Friday morning, as was the plan. Got up at 4 a.m. and drove to her apartment and knocked on the door. Guess who answers the door? At five in the morning...


He doesn't really like me ("faggot" is how he likes to refer to me), is apparently a former professional fighter, and obviously has a violent streak. I've never been in a fight in my life. And here I am face to face with this criminal, next to a third floor metal and concrete staircase. Luckily, nothing happened.


I just left and texted, "Are you f'n serious?" "Do you want him there? Should I call police?" "You are ridiculously stupid". May not have been the right thing to do, but I was angry, confused and just all around dumbstruck.


Then, all day Friday I hear about how I need to stay out of her life. That she's a grown woman and can do whatever she wants. All I had been doing was trying to help. I thought she wanted this guy out of her life. But, it turns out, in the course of an afternoon, I had somehow turned from a co-conspirator making sure this guy got held accountable into a burden getting in the way of her having meaningless sex with a violent and alcoholic criminal. My bad.

The Ocean of Human Emotion

Every action is a rock dropped into the waters of human consciousness that reverberates and meets the waves of other actions to create a worldwide ocean of shared emotion. Some actions are small pebbles and some actions are huge boulders.