'tis the damn season
Why is it that being lonely is often manageable, but when a cure is just out of reach, it becomes so much more unbearable?
My life right now feels very devoid of emotion. I wake up, go to work, work frequently into the night, do some chores or hobby activities for a little bit, go to sleep, and do it all over again. I'm so busy that I don't exactly have time to think about too much, and honestly, I think it has been a not-so-bad thing for me.
It keeps my mind off of things it would otherwise be preoccupied with: my value, self-worth, body image, and how others perceive me. One could also argue, though, that it prevents me from processing stress and feeling the emotions I need to be feeling. But if you asked me on an average day, I'd say life is good, and that's fine for me right now.
Recently, though, I got back in touch with someone I used to be relatively close with in high school. I was happy to have him back in my life, and things fell right back into that familiar friendship comfort. We're separated by many states, but that didn't matter during our phone calls.
Without divulging too much of my dirty laundry, I got to spend some time with him in person during the holidays while visiting family. I wasn't ready to say goodbye, so I didn't. I told him he could drive to come visit me, and we spent a weekend together.
I knew it wasn't a great idea, but I wanted him here so, so badly. Evidently, he wanted me around too. I had one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. He told me he'd never felt so effortlessly comfortable with someone in his life.
Then, he had to leave.
He always had to leave. We both knew that going in, but it didn't stop the crying and the ache I feel in my chest now. As I wash my sheets after days of sharing a bed with someone new, I too feel the happiness it brought me escaping down the drain.
My instinct is to be angry with him, but I had as much a hand in this as he did. I told him to come, and we both knew full well what that meant.
Now I'm left with just my thoughts. I had no doubt that he meant every word as he whispered them to me, but he's not here to reassure me anymore. If it were a different place, a different time, a different life, he said, he would stay.
But that's been the case with many people in my life now. If things were different, things would work. But when you analyze a set of circumstances over the course of years, you start to notice common denominators. In these cases, that factor is me.
In the top corner of my laptop, I just now received a notification with a contact photo of this stupid boy I knew in high school, telling me he made it home safely, and he hopes I'm okay. I wonder if it makes me a bad person to hope he's not. At least for a little bit.
🥜📊
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