Day's end

Why did they have to die? It is amazing as I read my sister's writing, how in-touch she was. I sit here struggling to write a few words, desiring to get lost in TV land, wanting to shut down the brain, wanting not to think. But today made that unachievable. Thoughts combine with stark reality to slice through the boundaries I have established for safety. With no safety, no friends to mark time with, no relationships to escape into, I stumble back into the stark, undiluted reality that I have attempted to avoid. It is as though I have stumbled out of a window of pain and into a real world.

 

Here, in the real world, my roles have changed. I am not who I was a few short years ago. Here, I am no longer the brother of Elisabeth, the employee of Sherwood, the beloved of M, H, L, C, K. I no longer have a boat, I no longer have good credit, I no longer can afford even the gas that I use in my car. The medication has not eliminated the pain or the sorrow or the lost feeling I have. If it can't do that, then why use it. No longer do I have a young man's body or the company of attractive women. No longer am I the young man, now I am the old man who is fast becoming too old to date.

 

My brain has slowed and It no longer creates the great thoughts. It is cluttered with painful feelings and undefined roadblocks. How can I become old and wise, when I cannot even remember the lessons of my youth. Gone is the fire of conviction, here is the confinement of doubt. Gone is the drive for self-actualization, present is the fight for a home and food on my plate. Here is the idol of my house. The TV. It is at its feet I pray every day. Watching with anticipation for what it will show me next. I let it rule the world of my son. For now, I need not engage him. He has his pacifier.  What kind of father am I now.

 

So, as I stumble through these days, I wanted to establish a little of where I started from. Maybe, someday, I will be able to comment on the outside world. But for now, I best stay inside my life.

 

I need to feed it, Nurture it, let it come alive again. For at present, I am not much better than my final destination.

 

Death is no way to live....