An Evergrowing Abyss of Unanswered Questions

It's 3:07 A.M. Here I sit in a dark room with a glowing laptop upon my thighs; typing my thoughts in an attempt to organize them.

After all these years and all the long hours of pondering, self reflection, self contradiction, and an ever growing list of questions with no answers, I wonder if I will ever find what I'm looking for. Maybe I never will and all I'll have left are a bunch of useless questions, burnt bridges, and untied loose ends. I actually think I'm going to drive myself mad on this monotonous journey to find a self that I've never even known.

I ask myself the same questions over and over again. I stay up all damn night till the wee hours of the morning, interrogating and grinding my brain for answers, so much so, that I think it's become mush. Every minute I'm alone I'm left to face my vault of a mind; a vault in which I'm embarrassed to say I've yet to crack. Whether it's a two minute bathroom break or hours of solitude behind closed doors, I find myself frantically searching for reasons why I am the way I am. Reasons why I am so welcoming to people who don't care but so determined to push away the people that do. Reasons as to why I'm so comfortable with confining all my problems into a compact metaphorical box to be tucked away there's no room for it. I suppose it's not so much reason but rather explanation I seek.

Most importantly an explanation as to why I am so distant from my family. I suppose I found myself seeing it as it was their obligation to love me. An obligation out of blood that I inherited and blood that we shared. Without it, there was no tie and there was no love. But seeing as there is no way of severing such bond, they are my family and no distance will change that. A family that I know loves me and a family that I once had a place in- a place I pretended to belong in hopes of truly feeling I did, but I never quite ended up believing it. I ask myself all the time why that is; why that was. Why I've never felt like I've had a home and why I feel like I'm still searching for my place in the world. I don't, nor will I accept my mother to be an excuse I can fall back on, for it cannot be as simple as that. I know my father would disagree; I know he'd say that using my mother as excuse for my mistakes is the bane of my existence; he'd also include some jargon about how I still use the tools from the tool box she once gave me. I know he thinks very little of me, and I don't blame him, because he doesn't know me. He doesn't know the truth of everything I've gone through and everything I fought tooth and nail to keep away from him and anyone who rifled questions my way.

He only knows a frustratingly stubborn little girl; the epitome of a nightmare; the true reason for hair turning grey. The little girl who couldn't see two feet in front of her and open her arms to his unconditional love. He wouldn't know how she tears up thinking about him or how badly she wishes she could find the answers within herself to give him the peace of knowing that he didn't fail her. He wouldn't know that she included him in her prayers every night and thanked the Lord every morning for his saving grace. He wouldn't know any of these things and so much more, and if he were reading this right now, he probably wouldn't believe a word of it because he only knows the girl who was a liar, a con artist, and a chameleon to her surroundings.

An old psychologist/ therapist/ whichever the title, once told me the reason I feel so distant from my family is because the establishment and the structure was all new to me. He told me that because I spent a childhood being shunned, moved around constantly, and without any structure, that it was normal for me to feel the way I was feeling. Normal. 

It still makes me chuckle. Before you think I'm a sick bastard, laughing at the fact that I've got no relationship with a family that has done me no wrongs, bear with me. Normal isn't exactly my forte. Not only do I not believe in the term anyway (who is to say what is normal and what isn't), but in reference to normal in the eyes of society and the way things are supposed to be per-say, I'm far from it. So I chuckle at the words of someone who spent at least eight years of his life getting a degree to listen to my problems then tell me what's normal, what's not, and to finally trick me into thinking he helped me solve my issues. That's what psychologists do. They trick you into thinking that you need their help, they get your money, and all they really do is give you tissues for the tears and guide you to finding the answers within yourself by yourself, essentially making them a useless third party in the whole process if you ask me. 

Of course I found no answers then because I wasn't open to looking for them, but now that I am, it burdens me a great deal that I still can't find them. I've had to have spent hundreds of hours searching every fold of my brain to decipher my shameful actions and emotions, yet despite how many times I look, I continually come up empty handed. Not literally empty handed, as I've come up with a handful of hypothesis' and theories, but I don't accept them. They aren't right to me. Here are a few examples and my thought processes behind them:

1. The reason I am the way I am is because of my mother. Aside from the physical and verbal abuse, the constant yearn for her to love me, and the nomadic ways of life with no structure or settlement, this must surely be why I am *ahem* fucked up.

This seems to be the most sensible answer but I hate the very idea of giving my mother even the credit of this responsibility. Not only do my cheeks tingle with disdain at the thought of her, but the thought of her destruction having a big enough fallout to still have a say in my life makes me shake my head no. I cannot fall back on this excuse anymore. I refuse to. I owe it to my father and myself, to discover what's misfiring in my brain that makes the contradictions in myself and my feelings viable. At this rate and speed, I ought to just admit myself to an anomalisitc psychology research unit to let the experts figure it out themselves.

2. Maybe I am just a shitty person with no morals, no heart, and no sympathy for my actions and how they affect others.

Debunked: This cannot be because I have a very big heart and abundance of sympathy. I feel terrible for removing myself from a body of people who care about me, want the best for me, and loved me without fail. I search for answers more so for them than I even do for myself anymore.

3. Maybe I'm depressed.

Maybe. Not sure if I believe in that to be a valid diagnosis though. Kinda stuck between believing it's an actual medical condition and that everyone experiences the symptoms and feelings that would describe the sickness at some point in their lives (losing interest in things, sleeping too much, not sleeping enough, losing one's appetite, etc), but others cope differently (obviously, that's what makes us individuals).

4. I spend too much time thinking and not enough time doing

Although this is very true, it doesn't change the fact that any actions I could force myself to perform would not be authentic, but would rather be exactly that- forced. So this theory as to why I am the way I am, just arises another question in itself and that is: Why would I need to force myself to make an effort to patch relations with my own family members? My own father? Shouldn't that just be a given? If I'm so afraid of being alone, why am I so content with separating myself from those who care about me? You see that? Questions upon questions. I could keep going, but you get the point.

Within every theory, every thought, every question, arises new questions. More questions and contradicting emotions that leave me still with no answers and a continually expanding abyss of no answers.

So at the now 4:06 A.M, I confirm that the only progress I've made in this per usual quest for answers, is that I've finally accepted I'm simply just f**ked up. 

Ok. That's a lie. I've known this for a long time. I've accepted the fact of the matter, and denied it, then accepted it again, only to then later again deny it. The process is redundant and the literal definition of insanity. 

On the plus side I did just think of a new theory to add to my list: Maybe I am actually the product of a multiverse, created when a different version of myself made the decision to be a complete and utter dumb ass who stomps through life causing destruction on my selfish journey to make sense of things, and if that's the case, then that would mean there is another me in another multiverse who is the antithesis of that. Which in that case would mean she is not destroying things, but doing good things, making good decisions, and has a strong unshaken relationship with all of her family. Without carrying on this pity party any further, one can admit how pathetically unrealistic and a gigantic waste of a time that series of thoughts just was. But hey, that's why they're just thoughts right.

On a real legitimate positive note, I am thankful for my health and a functioning brain that allows me to pick it for that in which I seek everyday. May today be the day I find what I'm looking for. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then may the next day lead me to the promised land. 

Empty

I'm alone but without actually being alone if that makes any sense. Not sure why I even formed that statement in a question-some manner because it does make sense. I can only speak for myself as I can vouch for none other, but I have concluded that surrounding yourself with a bunch of people doesn't fill the emptiness. In fact, if anything, it intensifies it.

Here I am, surrounded by a bounty of people, great people, so many people and yet I'm lonelier than ever. I'm not sure I can pinpoint a time I've ever not been lonely.

Have I always been lonely with spurts of a feeling that fills the void, or do I just feel spurts of lonesomeness because that's a part of human nature? I'd like to assume that everyone experiences this feeling at some point in their life but I also worry that maybe I am part of a select percentage consisting of all the broken and unfix-able people who feel lonely until the day they die.

I give endless chances to the wrong people and I push away the ones that are actually willing to stick around and help me sift through the ruins. I push people away that I can see myself opening my heart to because my heart is already an open sore, bleeding disappointment from the few people in my life that I can't seem to close the door on despite every bit of logic that tells me I know better.

It's as if I'm so used to pain that I've become content with it. That pain itself is what actually comforts me and happiness that scares me because it is so unknown. Now how could that be? You may be asking yourself how it's possible that one could be more welcoming to pain than joy, but we are a species of habit- if you were to become conditioned to pain and how to cope with it on a daily basis, you too would be scared to open up to something more. Opening up to the chance of happiness is standing on a tight rope in the Grand Canyon leaving it up to complete faith that the wind won't blow you over.

I actually believe I am afraid of being happy because anytime I feel even an inkling of happy, my world seems to come crashing down in ways I didn't see possible.

No matter how much I try to decipher my seemingly magnetic draw to pain, I can't figure out why I'd be more willing to open the door to a man with a dagger than a man with a bouquet of flowers. Regardless, I suppose I've gotten to the point in my life where I expect the worst and that's what I will get until I demand better.

That said, I'd like to say I know what my next steps to a better life full of love and void of loneliness are, but I don't. I'm frozen in time. I go with the motions day to day and leave my life in the hands of fate. I embrace the pain. I embrace the loneliness.

Upon the beaten path I am complacent in a state of non existent nostalgia.

A Post About An Old Post

entry from a newly found old notebook, written on an unknown date

"I sit in my bed, yet another night with my back toward my roommate and my face staring at a blank wall where all of his pictures used to sit. I took them all down when I got back from the airport and now I like the blankness better quite frankly.

Sitting here looking at this blank white wall, I can relate to it. It's empty, lonely almost. You see, me and this wall have a lot in common. I can vaguely hear my roommate talking to me, but it's muffled and I don't care to focus in- so I don't. Day by day, I sit staring at this wall. My roommate eventually stopped trying to reach me, my friends stopped texting me, and my teachers stopped emailing me. In fact I stopped going to class completely, for I was just too busy.

Staring at the wall.

I stopped eating, nearly completely. I was wasting away- literally. I lost twenty pounds and I looked skinnier than ever, considering my new diet consisted of alcohol and the occasional grilled cheese.

I'd go out and drink myself to oblivion, and quite honestly, I think a part of me hoped that I would be able to just drink myself to death. A painless death in which my last thoughts wouldn't be the ones that drove me mad. I'd part quietly from the world, unnoticed and the slate would be wiped clean. Just like my blank white wall by my bed side.

In fact, a part of me was envious of that wall. It could hold whatever it wanted upon it's surface and it could be taken down at any time. If a picture was there, but it no longer belonged, it could just simply be removed. All of me pleaded and wished that the pain and memories could just be erased like such.

I stopped listening to music, because all my favorite songs brought back the sharpest memories. I stopped eating because I had no appetite. I stopped talking to people because I'd find myself drowning out the noise and lose track of the conversation. I isolated myself from everyone and everything. I no longer cared. I no longer tried. I just existed.

I would literally sit in my dorm all day and go for long late night runs, when the motivation would strike me and no one would be wake to see me. I tried to run away from the pain but no matter how fast I ran, the pain just ran faster. No amount of alcohol could stop it either. Nothing could stop my mind except that damn white wall. I know I've stressed it a lot, and have been a bit redundant, but the truth of the matter is exactly that. My days had become redundant, not that they aren't anyway, but each day was literally the same. I looked terrible. Everyone around me could tell I was deteriorating except me.

Freshman class president, with all the friends on campus, the most outgoing, happy and bubbly person all my peers had known to be, had vanished. People stopped saying hi because they got tired of not hearing a response. I got so sick of the pitiful looks, therefore the reason I stopped leaving my dorm completely.

Out of all the things in my life that I'd been through, it'd surprise anyone to hear that this was what broke me. After all the trauma, the pain, and darkness that I had risen from, it was a boy- heartbreak- that made feel so very unfixable."

It's crazy how we stumble across things that we had forgotten about. I forgot I had written this, but this is an entry from one of my journals. It's hard to fathom that I once felt like this, lost myself like this. It's made me realize that I'm actually still looking for myself.