I don’t know what I have to do. What do I have to say or write for someone to notice me? Why do I have to lie during the day and only feel myself at night, caught in the hit, hearing the voices, lying and crying myself to sleep in a world that never seems to understand me? Never seems to get me. Never seems to see me. Never seems to fit me. Never seems to want me.
I went to a Purim party the other day, decked out in my suit and hat, trying to play the part of the good chassid with what I have; and the first question I got asked was if I was in a costume. I should have said that aren’t we all in costumes, or maybe it’s just me. Faking it until I make it. Trying to act normal when I’m not, trying to be the ideal when I have fallen so far from grace, acting like I believe when I am no longer sure of anything in my life. Putting on the face of someone else over my own, someone who has goals, and dreams, and hope. Anything to hide the man underneath, the man who has given up, the man who no longer has the will to fight the demons, the man who’s biggest accomplishment is taking the next step on the long death march towards the inevitable.
I hardly write anymore, because I’m tired of sharing myself with others. No one seems to get it. No one seems to care. I see advertisements for how to write more catchy posts, use buzzwords, hell even write the damn article for you; but what’s the point in creating another lie? I am who I am, this despicable and pathetic shell of a man, clinging to the darkness because hope is untenable, and the light too blinding. I can see the views I get on these articles, and I understand why no one wants to read them. They’re sad, they don’t inspire confidence, they don’t have a positive message; I don’t leave you with the false impression of redemption.
This life I live, whatever it is, is the only one I have. I have seen so much change in the past year, and I thought by now I wouldn’t miss the numbness of the hospital bed and medicine times; but that would be another lie. I have a wife, a job, a place to put my head at night; but I am still so fundamentally unhappy. I look at the mirror and hate the man that I see. I look into his eyes and see everything again. The horrors, the pain, the suffering. I look down and see my scars, and I feel my body over for the ones you cannot see. The years of mental anguish and pain whipping my back, hundreds of nights spent caught in emotional turmoil cutting into my flesh. I feel the scars on my soul from knowing that there is a life I could be living and I am stuck here.
I will never escape this, this madness. I will never be able to tell the truth to anyone again, not because I do not want to lie, but because I don’t understand it anymore. So many things I see, and hear, and feel aren’t real but are so entrenched in my reality that I cannot explain it to someone else. I cannot look at them in the eyes and let them in. I have to hide it away, or write it away, because I can barely stand myself to talk about it. No one wants to see another suffering person, they want to feel good. They want to feel hope. They want to see some glimmer of light in this increasingly dark world.
I am not here for that. I am another part of the darkness. I will lie to you, but only as much as I lie to myself. There is no hope at the end of my road, only the accomplishment of living when you don’t want to anymore. There are dragons at the edges of my map, but they’re something I made up. This will not end happily, it will end with drudgery and best efforts.
I have to keep walking, one step at a time. Not because I believe that salvation is around the corner, but because I just don’t know any other way of living. I will live for now, at least I can hold onto that.