Continuing on at: Amyelia

Almost the end of April already. How the hell did four months pass me by as if I didn't even live them? It feels like it has all been a dream and tomorrow I'm going to wake up and I'll still be some twelve year old child dreaming of my adulthood. Certainly feels like the years inbetween then and now have been a blur and I'm only beginning to receive the clarity that I kept praying would come to me. I set milestones for myself and only ever reached the point I was awaiting much further down the track. I guess I was never really meant to be in control of anything. Maybe I need to let things take control of me for a while. It's just so much easier that way.

In moments like this, I wonder how people can make me question my own worth when they have no right to. I guess that is entirely my fault. No matter how much I try not to care, I still do. My mind and my heart are in conflict constantly. And it's always my heart that puts me in situations which are not in my control and which, inevitably, hurt me. So why shouldn't I let my head rule? It makes more logical sense and steers me away from harm, and who doesn't want to prevent themselves from being hurt? But then I have to remember, life is pain. I eliminate all the pain and I am...dead. It's a trade-off. The path to happiness is not without trouble. But happiness is all we, admittedly I, strive for in this life, no matter how fleeting and no matter how much the pain to experience it for even a minute in a day. So we are stuck with struggling through our dilemmas to reach that one perfect moment, that one perfect day and pray to some higher power that it will all be worth it in the end. And if we are selfish about it, if our fears make us doubt and if our thoughts turn morbid, then we hope that we can be forgiven. And if that fails, I guess it is in the human spirit to to be able to pick ourselves up after falling and move on to the next quest for happiness.

I woke up this morning and realised something. Things are out of my control. I can't make things happen or not happen. I can't fix certain things. I can't stop some things from existing. I'm just a pawn being led around on a chess board, awaiting my opponent's move, until my time is up. So it's senseless to care, isn't it? 

Now that it's getting progressively colder and darker outside, it's becoming a little easier to embrace that feeling inside. The dreariness of the season seems to have a substantial effect on me for some reason. As if the raging wind and bitter cold reflects my mood. Of course it's not daily, nor is it often. But on certain days, when I sit by the window and notice how a greyness seems to have descended upon all the surroundings, it's easy to fall into morose thoughts. And even if the feeling lasts for only an hour, a day, it is more than enough to wish that it never came to you at all.

It is the curse of being someone more attracted to the darker, more depressing, aspects of life. The burden of always thinking the worst of everything, of expecting the worst out of everyone and of never thinking that anything good could happen to you without some dreadful price that you have to pay in the end. Of course, I'm not the only person in the world who feels this way. But, then again, I wouldn't wish it upon anyone. If, by some power, every single person in this world could be happy, contented and ever so trusting all the time, then that is what I would have happen.

But, as I've always believed, it is only the darkness that can make the light that much brighter. If only it didn't also have the power to dim the glow.

I thought I could use that as an excuse. But somehow things fell into place just as things are falling apart. Now what excuse do I have? I can't justify anything without looking like a fool. And I thought avoidance was the best solution for everything but now I know that I hate being on the receiving end. Enough to never want to have to feel it again. But what does that mean? I don't know where my thoughts are taking me. I don't really care about anybody else at this point in time. But then again, I never was that considerate.

The curse of my predisposition to fall asleep at inappropriate times is now keeping me awake at approximately half past two in the morning. That, and the fact that the chill of winter is now truly upon us down here in Melbourne, is making it exceedingly hard for me to stay in bed without feeling relentlessly cold and bored.

While I was lying in my bed, attempting to force myself back to sleep, I spent some time thinking. Everything that's happened in recent times has happened so fast, even the origins of how it all started seem like a blur in the distance. So many things have changed. Somehow, even though I didn't realise it before, I have changed. Now it's a matter of finding out whether it's a change for the better or a change for the worst.

Like every year that's come to pass in my life, I'm still slightly dazed by the speedy passing of time. It seems like only yesterday I was an eighteen-year-old fool, just out of highschool, my aspirations high and my outlook on life as warped and embittered as is possible for someone of that age. All the things that have happened since then have taught me a lesson I didn't really like learning - estrangement from those who are meant to be closest to you, making enemies out of your own blood, acquiring the realisation that those who you thought were on your side were really never there for you in the first place and, finally, the slow build-up of apathy towards everyone and everything in your life.

I have literally lived these past three years without really experiencing or feeling anything. I've progressed through the motions of school and socialising with a mechanical aloofness that, as I think about it now, was really quite inhuman. My personality/attitude change after entering University even came as some surprise to me. I was no longer brooding and quiet - I talked too much and laughed too loud. I wanted to be around other people instead of only myself, I wanted to be popular - I wanted to be loved. Such foolish notions I had, but I realise now that I wanted to fill a void while at the same time exerting myself doing things which only served to amplify the emptiness in the end. The facade was automatic. It served its purpose for a while even. But that kind of superficial quick-fix never does seem to last very long.

Now I've reached some kind of middleground. I feel, I care, but I have the tendency to slip back into the solitude of my shell. At times things still feel like they aren't real, that they don't matter, that nothing matters. It's a constant struggle to realise that you are alive, that you have a life to live and you are of importance in this world. I am waiting for the day I fall off the fence and finally land on the side which I was meant to be on.  

Upon reaching the core, you realised that the quest had gone stale. It wasn't as palatable as it once was when you thirsted for it so desperately. And now, only barely skimming it's surface, you can already feel an ominous force omitting an energy that is too much for you to handle. Maybe you are weak-willed or maybe you were just foolish enough to believe that you could withstand the hidden secrets of a place you were never meant to find. Maybe there was a lesson to be learned. You never tread carefully enough, you never thought things through too well and it has left you in a situation of failure. And what have you been rewarded with but contempt and bitterness? What were you hoping to find in your search? A hidden treasure, or information you could use to your advantage perhaps? Deceptively inviting was the road that set itself at your feet, and you just kept on walking, step after step, mile after mile, all the time thinking of your fortune. But at the end of your journey you found nothing. A hollow core. A barrier you could not pass by. And bitterly do you weep for the emptiness to escape you.

Why do we do things that hurt ourselves? More importantly, why do we do things that hurt others? With me it seems to be an automatic response to every bad feeling I get and letting go and walking away seems like the most likely answer to everything. Doesn't it make sense to distance yourself from the source of your pain rather than endure it for the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, which might just be a flickering candle that can so easily be extinguished at the merest sign of a breeze? Isn't it fair to give someone the opportunity to end their pain, if you are constantly the instigator?

It's strange how detached you can feel in moments like this. Your anger is half-hearted, your sadness is a display and your pain merely a numbness at the bottom of your heart. And you don't really know if it's a good thing that you're feeling so much without really feeling anything at all. It makes you wonder if creating the drama is just another, cowardly, form of cutting yourself to colour your world. To make sure you're not as dead as you feel, that things do in fact matter and that life isn't just a motion you're waiting out until it's your time to expire. A selfish exploit of others' feelings in search of ones you can really call your own.

You're always wondering does anything make sense? Is there anything worth believing in anymore? Does your life mean anything? Will there ever be a time where you won't have to ask yourself these questions anymore?

And until that time you just...exist.