You are here.

I don’t know if there is any rhyme or reason to it. It starts in the gut, rises up into the chest, surrounds the heart and presses against the rib cage straining to be free. It cannot escape so you choke it back down and try to find some purchase to pull yourself through. Everything fails. Social anxiety. Please don’t engage me. I don’t want you to see the darkness inside me. I am ashamed of the storm clouds in my belfry. These purple machinations of madness are for me and me alone. I am haunted by the past, dreadful of the future, spinning daisy chains in my mind of oh how I wish my world could be. I need to be loved and I need to love. For the past 10 years it seems I’ve fallen all over myself to push away anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to love me. There is a poison inside, a thick black tar of self-pity and fear, an adolescent mind in the body of a full grown man. Self-loathing is second nature to me, isolation my defense, solitude my crutch. In the deep cold of a star-struck night I feel connected for a few moments. I see the universe rotating overhead, planets shining, a bright white moon superimposed against a sea of blackened purple space and time.

“You think too much.”

“You are too sensitive.”

“You are too needy.”

If it weren’t for my little furry family of dogs I think I should have expired. Truth be told, it’s money matters, a brooding, self-centered sense of entitlement, a bitterness. I’ve got so much ugliness in my craw to release, so much phlegm and rotten dogma. I’ve knelt and prayed for hours on end for women I once loved, for them to be happy, for them to find some joy, love and peace in their lives. Almost without exception these prayers have been answered. And I am happy for them. I am happy they’ve found someone to share their lives with. But inside I am so very small and I think, “But what about me, God? Can’t I have someone too? Can’t I love someone and allow myself to be loved by them?”

I have slept alone for years. I wake alone; make coffee alone, soldier through weekends alone, holidays and years pile up like slabs of ice on the bank of some lost creek. At times I make peace with my loneliness, take pride in it. Other times I am filled to overflowing with sadness and longing. I stuff it down, way down, further now, be spirited away self-pity. Damn you covetous heart! It’s easier to allow yourself to turn to stone. It’s easier to turn again and again inside oneself. It’s easier to block out the world, to lay fresh mortar in the cracks of the wall. I am bitter over my career, what it’s taken from me. Nights, weekends, holidays…year after year, decade after decade serving smiling families and nuzzling couples. After the shift you go home to leftovers and an empty house. It’s madness. It’s untenable. And now I’m in this place, this place that is supposed to be my home, my motherland and I feel as ostracized, incomplete and unloved as ever before. There are moments of peace sure, ephemeral time-ticks of non-polarity, of oneness with my station and fellows, but they are few and far between. The standard is melancholy, not just a surface affliction but a deep, abiding sadness that has been extant since childhood and that I believe I was probably born with, a dis-ease with the human condition.

I really have no right to bemoan my lack of female companionship. I have reaped what I have sown. I have been reckless, thoughtless, unforgiving, cruel and merciless. Ask anyone who has had the misfortune of trying to love me. So many wonderful women have crossed my path. I’ve taken their love, balled it up in my hands and tossed it aside. By rights I DESERVE to be alone. I deserve the pain. Never mind that my cruelty and insensitivity were born from childhood traumas out of my control. One must grow and evolve, throw back the security blankets that once served so well. These blankets have grown so comfortable even as they are slowly suffocating me. I am so lucky to live in this place, lucky my grandfather purchased this land and that my parents kept it. I’ve not known what the hell I’ve been doing here. I had no real plan. Just move up here and figure it out later. I’m glad I didn’t know how I would be affected. I’m glad I didn’t allow the fear of the unknown to dissuade me. As fortunate as I am for the right to live here on this land there is so much for me to do to continue living here and I often feel overwhelmed. There have been many challenges and I feel I’ve risen to them. As one problem is solved a hundred more arise in its place. I am very far out of my comfort zone and of course, this was one of the chief reasons for making the move in the first place.

At night I step outside as if onto the surface of the moon. The only electric light I can see is that of a satellite in the sky that beams down television programs to dishes across the countryside. There are no other lights visible save for the lamplight creeping out of the windows of my house. When the moon is out and bright the mountains and fields and streams glitter in the lunar light. The mountains are dark and lovely against the heavens. Constellations make their ways across the universal sea. I stand on my two human legs, vapor from my breath rising hot from my face into the cold ether.

Sometimes the only answer you will hear is “You are here.”

“You are here. The rest is up to you.”