Defining Moment(s)

I have come to the conclusion that the defining moments for a day are those moments when I crawl into bed, lay on my back, and let my mind go in the darkness of the night. Most recently, I've been seized by something much like fear.

This conclusion just feels right.  It feels like I've stumbled over a truth; that I don't have to investigate the particulars any longer.

There are so many nights when I put off going to bed despite being exhausted. I've mentioned this before, but never quite could understand why I engaged in this behavior.

I am, on these nights, the most strongly seized by that feeling of fear, of despair, of anxiety. I think a good explanation of my bedtime procrastination is that I don't want to experience that defining moment, I don't want to experience the fear that is now part of my daily life.

I do not feel success, joy, or happiness - there are no good emotions within me.  This goes for feeling any sort of victory as well; those emotions, feelings, of success, of achievement have become completely foreign to my mind, my spirit.

I feel only failure; abject, undeniable, failure in each and every aspect of my life. Failure oozes from my pores, it's odor rises around me, blankets me, smothers me. I'm close, so close, at all moments to taking the necessary steps to get out of Sharon's life: I'm nothing but a burden to her, I am nothing but sheer dead weight.

She will not be able to build herself a decent life as long as I am here. 

I'm living in what amounts to near complete isolation these days. I can't tell you how long it has been since I've had an engaging adult conversation - probably since Kerrie abandoned me. Many others have abandoned me as well; so many, in fact, that I fear to even approach another human: I know, deep inside, that anybody I approach is somebody who will abandon me.

I cannot find fault with the ethics driving these people. They are absolutely correct in their perceptions.

From my internal perspective, as hard as life is now, I don't think that I could live with significantly more abandonment. Indeed, I feel that would push me over the edge.

As odd as it may sound, one thing that is of utmost importance to me during these days is the love of my dog pack. There are times when I realize that were it not for them, I would most likely choose not to live. But their simple love, their trust, their everything carries me forward through time, for better or worse.

However, one other thing bears consideration: I am, just like those who have abandoned me, perceiving my imminent death. I wonder if I am detecting a change deep within me, a change which is, in effect, death awakening from its 56 year slumber, stretching, wiping the sleep from its eyes, and preparing to feed upon me.

On People

There are, recently, many times when I've wanted to just say "Fuck people" and remove everybody else from my life with the press of a button. This want, this desire is not so much something arising from a need for satisfaction, but rather from desperation: most people who I let get close to my heart these days actively seek out ways to hurt me.

After they have satisfied themselves that I am sufficiently hurt, I am abandoned, no longer of any use to them.

There is a dangerous cycle building around these hurts and rejections: not only do I suffer from the original hurt being caused, but with such hurt and subsequent abandonment, I close myself off more and more. After all, nobody - and that includes me - wants to live through hurt. Nobody wants to be confronted, time and again, with such emotional pain.

The only way I can decipher to avoid this pain is to make certain that nobody can get close to me. Only by keeping people at arm's length am I able to insure that I won't be hurt.

When I finally do drop my guard - because nobody can stay on guard against all that is human forever - and let somebody in, I bring a healthy dose of fear to the relationship.  This fear, which I attempt to live through, precludes the enjoyment of a normal relationship, a normal relationship. I might drop my guard, but I never drop my guard fully, and in attempting to preserve my inner self, again, I act in a way to poison the friendship, the relationship.

It has become a vicious circle of sorts: I am hurt by many others. I shut down, and refuse to let others get close. That small percentage with whom I risk myself either repay my trust by hurting me, or I manage to keep them at arm's length, not really enjoying a relationship of any type, but rather struggling through something out of a deeply felt need.

Knowing this does not help to fix this.  As long as I live, I live the life of a trapped, caged, rabid animal.

Finding peace

I am, these days, trying to find some peace, trying to understand what is happening to me psychologically, and trying to come to terms with an existence that has little reward for me. I sat in my little office this afternoon and evening, and worked on sharpening and maintenance of a couple knives.

The sound, the feeling through my hands, the change in the blades' edges, the smell of the oils: all this, and more, bring my mind, my heart, a certain peace, a calm, an acceptance. There is an element of nostalgia, of looking backwards over my life to days long since elapsed, days when my life was so much better.

Days when I was not afraid as I am now. Days when I simply did not wonder if today was the day when something catastrophic was going to happen which either killed me or caused me so much harm that it would become even more difficult to live.

The days I live now are lived largely in isolation and fear. I am isolated from other adults with whom I could talk. I fear that I am reaching the end, that the grave is looming ever so close, ready for me to climb in, and to stop breathing.

It is well-nigh impossible for me to convey how difficult my life has become, so I'm not going to waste anybody's time in reporting on it. Suffice it to say that I am not sure I have the strength to continue.

When I find myself drifting through multiple realities, and fighting with the overwhelming difficulty of talking to anybody, I jump to thinking of the desire to die, the desire to end the fear, the heartache, the hatred. I jump to thinking of how much people must truly despise me to be able to treat me as they do; I jump to thinking of how I have nobody in my life to support me.

I jump to thinking of how easily people lie to me. Of how people tell me things like "they are true men, who know how to live, while you clearly don't know how to live at all" while they are lying to me about donating $75 for cancer research. I find that, no matter how quiet I may be, I just can't bring myself to lie about helping with cancer research with something as simple, as easy, as donating $75.

Yet these "true men", these men from the Land Down Under, are able to lie to me about such things, and they even claim that such lies make them true men.

I find that I simply do not understand any of this. I find that I don't understand how other "true men" can tell me how I should live my life, that they can tell me I don't know how to live. I don't understand how they believe that they can tell me how to conduct my life, and that I should be more concerned about the impact my life has upon them.

There is so much that I don't understand. There is so much that the simple act of sharpening a knife, of hearing the blade moving back and forth, gives me some peace from these people.

The lonely time

I am going through a period which I aptly think of as the lonely time.  It seems rather universal. The only thing I can conclude is that I will die alone, as I now live.

I've written about the people who have made it quite clear that I am putting their own self-interest at risk by choosing to live a certain way. In making that decision, I am, according to these people, putting myself at risk; I need to think of what impact that will have upon them emotionally, and I need to stop acting selfishly.

I've yet to hear any of these people thank me for keeping their emotional well-being in mind as I learn more and more about this cancer, and how it works.  I will never know if that's because they disagree with my approach; if they feel I am lying when I relate how terribly I've been treated by doctors, if they feel I am egotistical to think that I might know more than a hematologist about what is taking place in my body.

Not that long ago - sometime over the Christmas - New Year season - a couple friends reached out to me, and suggested that we all get together. That they fly here, and spend a few days. I was very excited about this; I was extremely enthused. I of course told them it would be simply great, and to keep me posted.

I walked around the house for a week or two, thinking of little else but spending some time with these people.

There never was a follow-up phone call. There never was an email. I talked with one of these people recently, and timidly brought up the topic; I was told, essentially, that they had better things to do than spend time with me.

At least I can understand that. I've maintained for quite some time that nobody really wants to spend time with me, a worthless fucktard who is dying.  I get the frighteningly clear impression that I am taking a bit too long to die for their happiness to continue without interruption.

All I can say is that with any luck I will in fact die soon. I cannot begin to convey how completely and absolutely demoralizing it is to wander through my days and never, not once, talk with another human being. To not hear the sound of another human's voice for weeks at a time becomes...the best way to put that is perhaps to call it what it is: "Surreal."

I have moved into what I fervently hope is the final stage of my existence, that stage which immediately precedes a sudden increase in the ferocity of the attack by the cancer of the body. That stage which won't last all that long. That stage which will be marked by a sudden increase in the negative symptoms of the cancer.

That stage which will end with peace, but which will also hold so much pain as I struggle to reach that place of peace.

My Online Life, Part 1: A Boy and a forum

The following post has been updated (updates appear at the bottom of the post).


My Online Life, Part 1: A Boy and a forum