11/14/22

I've realized that I don't often write when I'm feeling down or having a difficult time. I may feel so many things so intensely — anxiety, fear, depression, anger, hopelessness, sorrow, loneliness, loss, etc. — but I can rarely seem to find the motivation or words to express them. All those negative thoughts and emotions act like a dark cloud that blocks anything creative or memorable from shining through. I usually just sit and think and brood or try to distract myself until the darkness lifts and then carry on from there, leaving gaps where so much is lost and often left unaddressed. But I want to find a way to express those times as well as when I'm feeling hopeful or inspired. These last couple of weeks have been that way, especially this past weekend. Life has me so busy lately that I haven't had time for church or much else besides work and chores. I've been feeling quite tired and burnt out, stretched thin really, and was looking forward to this weekend. I made plans with some friends to get together on Saturday and was hoping for a relaxing time. It started out well enough. We met up at Imperial and had a beer before heading over to Reel M Inn for their fried chicken, catching up on what's going on in each other's lives. I had a good enough time before heading out to the Coffin Club for a show. Another friend of mine, Zach, who's in at least two bands, was DJing there, and I invited my friend Aaron out so that I could give him a shirt from the Batushka concert I've been holding on to for him. It'd been so long since I'd been there, and I was enjoying the atmosphere only a gothic dance club can provide; but I could also feel this underlying layer of sadness underneath threatening to overwhelm me at any moment, like it'd been building and building and waiting for a crack in the dam. It might have been primarily due to the intoxication from drinking a little too much, but by the end of the night the dam broke and I felt myself being emotionally overwhelmed. Everything flooded up. The homeless people I passed on the way to the club and how strongly human bodies can smell when not constantly tended to. The thought of aging, sickness, death, and decay. How everything in the world eventually breaks down and comes to nothing. Questions like, "Does God really exist?" or "Is there any real meaning in life, or are we just here for a short time and the best we can hope for is to get as much pleasure out of it as we can before we die?" My friend Aaron and how much more mature and further in life he is than me despite being a decade younger, having things I sometimes wish I could have: a wife, a house, a good job, a new baby. My other friend, Zach, and how he's so fucking cool and creative and how I wish I was more like him. The passion my other friends like Wilton have, enjoying everything in life they can even though they've lived hard lives too. And then I thought about all the people surrounding me at the club, with their makeup and outfits and the way they undulated on the dance floor to the rhythm of the music, while I was too shy and timid and just watched from the corner. I was envious of everyone who, despite the hardness of life, was living so hard and so fully in the moment while I was sitting there having the deepest of existential crises while simultaneously enjoying life vicariously through everyone else around me. Yet also realizing that they're all doing the same thing as me: trying to play the character they see themselves as while doing their best not to suffer, but never truly being happy either. Just roles in a play that no one will remember a hundred years from now. It was even worse once I got home, lying in bed and wondering what the point of it all was, thinking about the pain and sadness of dying, desiring to be a better person and live a better life even though I knew that the next day I was going to be the same damn person I was at that moment and that tomorrow was going to be just like every other. I wanted God to speak to me so badly in that moment because I felt myself slipping away and I couldn't find anything else to hold onto. And the only thing I heard besides the deafening silence was the beating of my heart that I'm scared will one day stop forever and end my short, meaningless, wasted existence. Then I thought that maybe it's because I'm not doing the right thing, that maybe if I devoted my life to being a monk I would find the meaning I've been seeking, but also knowing that I'm probably too scared to take that step, that I'm a coward above all else. I recall essentially admitting, as they do in AA, that I was powerless in almost everything, and praying that a power greater than myself would help restore me to sanity and wishing to turn myself over to that greater power knowing that I'd probably resist it. I eventually found sleep, however the next day I couldn't will myself out of bed and spent the entire day lying around and watching the new Star Wars show Andor, contemplating how contradictory everything is (e.g., how the majority of those in power see revolution as a threat to their society while the majority of revolutionaries see the current power structure as oppressive; and once revolutionaries achieve their goal of revolution, they act in many of the same ways as their oppressors to maintain their own vision of society; or how I ask for help I actively rebel against). I'm feeling better today, but I'm still haunted by that silence, which felt so empty and terrifying. And I'm still struggling to find my place in the world and rediscover some meaning in it. My faith, courage, and optimism have been shaken deeply and I feel like I'm starting my journey all over again. Instead of submitting to the unknown, I find myself wrestling not to deny it.