| Diary Page 30 |
| February 4, 2003 - Loneliness. It's funny, but right now I am not supposed to be feeling lonely. And I am not. Yet I am having a hard time letting loneliness go. Strange but loneliness is like an old acquaintance and I don't know how to say goodbye. The sooner we part, the sooner we are re-acquainted? I hope not. I want to tell myself "Self you are not lonely just let it go", but I guess I am afraid to do that. I ran into someone online who wondered why lonely people don't speak out more and do something about their loneliness. I tried to explain it. While I was doing that I realized that I am not lonely anymore. I was terribly lonely a week ago. I've been lonely for well over a year. How can it go away just that quickly? I don't believe it and that is why I am trying to find it. But loneliness is not there. Or maybe it is, waiting to offer me cold comfort when I am alone again. IF I am alone again. I wish I could stop thinking about friendship so much. But since I think about it I gotta write about it. I was thinking about how long friendships should last. I think there are all kinds of friendships people have over a lifetime. A few times in your life you have a best friend. Perhaps one or two in childhood, maybe a different one as a young adult, a new one in a spouse, etc. You also have some close friends. Some of them you have much of your life and others are there just a few years but they brighten those years nonetheless. Then you may have many regular friends and acquaintances. People who have been friendly to you and people to whom you have been friendly. Well I was thinking about this because if I make a friend I want to keep the friend. I know most friendships end and hopefully they end well. But I make so few friends that I don't want the next friendship to be brief. A few years at least. I'm always finding new things to be worried about. Now I am worried that if I have a friend they will soon be gone and I will be lonely again. It is so hard for me to make friends. Wouldn't it be nice to have several close friends at once? I think so. I think three years or more is good if you have a lot in common and really like each other, is that a lot to ask? Maybe, maybe not. I wouldn't know because this endeavor is rather new to me. Before when I made friends I wasn't actively pursuing them. They came to me by chance to some degree. That was before the loneliness period. I was lonely and sad and isolated for so long. Now I don't feel like I am any of those things because I think I have made a friend. I am excited by the prospect because it has certainly been a while. Well I want friendships to last and I don't see why this one can't last a while but as usual, I am trying to figure out ways it could be sabotaged. That way I know what to expect. I know I shouldn't always expect the worst but it is in my nature. The best I can do is throw all my silly caution to the wind and not think about it too much. Just enjoy friendship. |
| February 5, 2003 - Ahh, it is a balmy 29 degrees/F already and it is only 8:30am. This is promising. I'd like to go to the library within the next week. Anything to get out of this house. If I go during the day when the children are at school then it should be quite empty. I wrote a song today but I know I'll forget the melody so it will be a poem by tomorrow. So far all of my poems have been rather sad. I wonder why that is, since I haven't been really sad at all. Perhaps it is my way of getting all of my fears and negative emotions out in a positive way. Today's poem was about how I feel when I open up to someone and they either don't reciprocate or they don't care. Isn't it terrible to confide in someone or share your heart and mind with them and they don't appreciate what they've been given? Or they don't give you the same opportunity to be there for them? It is totally painful and disrespectful. When I feel that way I feel very sad and my heart feels heavy with the anxiety. So I thought I'd put that into a poem. Well actually I didn't think about putting it into a poem, my brain just turned it into a poem. I don't ever really think about any of this poetry. I just have a thought or a memory and it comes out in verse. I am tired again. I feel weighed down with nothingness. It is a strange feeling and it isn't really possible to describe it. I feel uncertain as to my own feelings. I'm not sad, I'm not angry and I am not moroseful. I am not particularly reflective at the moment either. I want to feel something but I don't know what to feel. I am unsure of what to feel because things could change so easily. Which is better, mood swings or not feeling? Or should I ask which is worse? I am as still as the barren trees outside my window. Later, Same Day - Okay now I'm definitely feeling pretty good. There is still nothing going on in my heart and my mind isn't really stimulated either. Still, this is definitely not bad. I still want to go somewhere. The only real place I go nowadays is to the doctor and I only see him once a month. I don't care how cold it is, I want to feel and breathe fresh air. Besides, the temperature is all the way up to 30/F, surely that is reason to celebrate! Right now I would really like to be in a snowy wood. No blizzard, just a light snow in the early evening, like in Frost's poem. Except I'm not dying. But I do like the imagery of the poem regardless of the meaning. I'd like to just take a walk in such a wood for a little while. Perhaps skate on a frozen lake, except my ice skating skills leave much to be desired. But if no one is looking... I don't think I was meant to live in the city. I certainly recognize all of the great benefits of living in a city. I don't really think there is anything much wrong with cities. But for me, this isn't what I need. I am always happiest in some kind of natural setting. The dirty, hard asphalt can't compare to the feel of fresh, real earth under bare feet. Can't even come close. I really don't feel at home here and I never have. It isn't just Philadelphia. I don't really like the idea of living in any big city. I'd like to visit from time to time. I'd give anything to live near a dirt road where I can ride a bike or take a walk. Or maybe near a forest that I can get lost in. Or even a beach that I can sit by and reflect. Or a beautiful green valley, that is so perfect. I don't require a lot of human company and I never have. I don't want to live in the wilderness because I do like people,. I don't want to get away for reasons of space or isolation, I want to get away for my soul. I live in a rowhome, a house that shares a wall with another house, so on and so on, all in a row. I can hear my neighbors and they can hear me. We have a small concrete backyard and people throw trash in it all the time. Our front yard is very small, it has one bush and one decrepit rose bush that has grown too high. There is no grass in the yard, just hard dirt. Outside my window there is the wonderful view of the back of someone else's rowhome. Dirty bricks and desperate-looking trees trying to survive. A dirty alleyway separates the backyards. The nearest park is one of the most pathetic things around. Everything is dying and prostitutes and drug addicts live there. Children don't play there anymore. Every time I walk through I always walk really fast. I don't think I could handle it in my current condition. Well this is my home. I have lived here since I came home from the hospital. Here in this house, in this neiighborhood. When I was a child I spent little time outside except for meetings, the ministry and school. Now I spend no time in this neiighborhood. I don't have fond memories of it. All I have here is my mother, father and brother. And we have been trying to get out for years, but never found a way. I wonder where they'd like to live? |