Fickle

Every so often there comes a time in one’s life when one realizes, fears, more like it, that one might be completely alone. Sometimes just for the night, the weekend, or perhaps, for life. This can happen for a variety of reasons but more often than not, there is a very simple cause that sets in motion such an averse and disastrous consequence to both your self-esteem and your personal happiness as a human being. Usually it is just as simple as the fact that on a particular night everyone else in the world seems to have plans except for you. I feel like this happens to me often. I realize that this might happen on a particular night because everyone is either a) out of town, or b) has plans or is invited to something you are not/ cannot attend for whatever reason. At a time like this my mind begins to get particularly fluttery and a bat is set loose in my head to wreak havoc by pooping all over the inside of my head as if it were a cave. I begin to freak out because I realize that I could very possibly be a loser and that all my friends were really just my friends out of pity and then I think that no one has ever really wanted to hang out with me, save for my little brother who idolizes me for the simple reason that I am his older brother. Then I think about how I have never really been loved in my life, which by the way is a complete lie, and then I think about how no one gets me and I am the oddball, the loner, the weird guy, who will most likely move to Wyoming to live in a teepee and smoke peyote. None of these thoughts are remotely true but they feel true at the time and that’s the problem with feelings is that they are never rational or scientific and they are very unrealistic but because you feel it, it effects your whole being.

This morning I woke up with that idea firm in my head. Everyone I knew had plans for the weekend or was out of town and I was sure that I was going to be left alone. I was sure that it was going to be a bad day. Depressing, yes, and not a good way to start the day but I figured the sooner I accepted this fact the sooner I would have some morbid satisfaction in it. Yesterday was not a good day. I had an off day at work and it was one of those days where I was sure everything was going to fall apart. It was a day of existential crisis as I went through the day knowing that life was meaningless and cruel and certain I would be wandering sad streets of isolation and desolation for the rest of my days. I went to sleep listening to sad music and raking up as much self pity as I could muster. I knew for sure that no one ever really loved me that I would end up alone with nothing to fill my heart with. I knew that I was never going to “make it” or have what they call a “relationship” and was certainly not going to have it “together.”I had no idea what career path to take or even what my purpose was in this life. I could not muster up any hope at all that life would work out and that I would be fine. I knew that my world was going to slowly crumble around me until I was nothing but a crumb from a once delicious and tasty Peanut Butter cookie. My roommates were out of town for the weekend and I knew that there was no one else I could hang out with.

I planned on going to work, not enjoying it and the spending the rest of the afternoon/evening reading and writing at the Ace hotel while drinking Vanilla Smirnoff vodka from the bottle someone gave us in our fridge. I contemplated whether or not to take the vodka with me and mix it in with my coffee, allowing for the possibility of me to pass out on the second floor of the Ace hotel, or, wait until I got home to start drinking and then pass out to a funny movie in hopes that I would forget how much of a loser I am, drinking by myself with no one to hang out with. I was certain that the day was going to be a disaster. At work I formed a list of all the sad music to buy for the evening to keep me in a constant state of tragedy. I thought about a band I saw last weekend called Bon Iver and how the lead singer/front man wrote the album by taking his heartbroken self to a remote cabin in the woods of Wisconsin. I thought about how I wanted to got to a remote cabin and spend a year in isolation.

Without really thinking about it I was planning how to spend my day of tragedy and self pity by doing all that I could to saturate myself with the feelings of loneliness I knew for certain would haunt me the rest of my relatively short, but nonetheless presently long and hard existence. I knew for sure that it was going to be a bad, lonely weekend. Rather that fighting this idea I figured I would embrace it. But luckily, yet also ironically saddening, this did not happen. It was a relatively good day.

Work was fine. I had quite a few people to hang out with and I think thing with the particular girl I’m interested din may not be completely lost after all. At the end of the day I could honestly say that it was good. I did not wind up getting drunk by myself and embracing loneliness. I ended up having a good night and that feeling of hope I was sure had fled slowly returned.It makes me wonder because some days I have no idea how to process life. Some days are good and some days are bad and it seems that I have absolutely no control over it. Yesterday I was ready to take my own life and today I’m thinking that life is actually a very beautiful and rare thing that I wouldn’t trade for anything. It reminds me once again of how fickle and human I am. I wish that I wasn’t. I wish I was a constant beam of light like the North Star, never moving and always glowing. But some days I have absolutely no self esteem and no confidence or hope in life or humanity at all, and some days I feel confident and alert ready to inject myself at whatever life throws at me.

Some days I have hope that it will all work out and other days I am certain that I will end up alone and become one of those old bitter men with a cane that little kids are scared of. Yesterday I was not vibing life at all and right now I am honestly pretty stoked on it. I have no idea how to process life. I wish that I could file it all away and organize it so that my head would make sense and the bat that is constantly beating and flying around up there would die. But I don’t think I will ever be able to file life away in a nice little boxes and filing cabinets. My files will be all over the place because life is messy and I think you can categorize and label very few parts of it. I guess I am okay with this, it is freeing in a sense. To no longer spend my days trying to make sense of everything and reduce everything to a math equation. It is a freeing thing to rejoice in the complexity and mystery of life, of love, of God. It can be very frustrating otherwise.