What is it like?

Just Breathe - Pearl Jam

I read a story the other day as I was browsing. It was about a young man looking out a train window and enthusiastically commenting on everything that he saw. The trees, the people waiting at the crossing the sky and the clouds to his father. His father encouraged him and was enjoying his seemingly infantile musings about such mundane things. A passenger who was sitting in the same area commented to the father that perhaps it might be wise to have the boy assessed. The father replied that he had and today was the first day that the boy could see for they were heading home after a successful eye operation. His son had been blind since birth. 

Cute story and written to evoke some compassion and tug on a few heart strings. But the critical thinker would wonder why the father didn't have his head smushed up against the train window along side his son and really sharing his new found experiences. Also pretty bold of the passenger to make such a comment on the presumption of mental capacity - as a parent myself I would probably deck him before I would waste my breath explaining anything to the judgmental fool. 

But, that leads me to my own blindness. My blindness is not my eyes, it's my heart. I find myself over and over again of late asking a seemingly simple and stupid question. I want to know what it's like. 
- What is it like to have a mother who loves you and is/was a part of your life?
- What is it like to put your arms around your aging father?
- What is it like to love someone who is older unconditionally?
- What is it like to those people's eyes light up with love when they see you?
- What is it like to have an older brother or sister? 
- What is it like to have a younger brother or sister?
- What is it like to have family?
- What is it like to have someone be proud of you? 
- What is it like to be accepted and like for who you are? and what you have become?
- and What is it like to have someone love you and want to be your partner to share your life experiences each and every day of your life with no conditions. 

I had it. I had everyone of these things and I don't know anymore. I don't know what it's like. It's been too long. I remember pain, but I forget the love. I forget the hugs and I forget the emotions. I forget the joy and excitement of sharing celebrations like every day successes and Christmas. Weddings were replaced with funerals. Death anniversaries were celebrated - birthdays largely ignored. In my reality, no one ever gets old. Except for that stranger in the mirror. I am not sure if I even know how to love someone else anymore and that includes me. Being hurt so many times by false characters who only saw me as what they could take from me. I am afraid that I don't think I could love. And it hurts to think that after nearly a lifetime of alone, I will probably die that way. 5 years or 25 years that I have left will be spent like today. Like yesterday. Alone.

I was married, I had relationships but I have something that many people don't. I have the recollection of perfect memory. Everything about those early relationships is written down in the form of diaries. And I've been reading them and realizing how stupid and gullible I have been - wanting to be loved so bad, I paid for it. I was involved in a co-habitational situation and so starved for affection in that scenario that I never thought twice of going to a bar, having a few too many drinks and making like I was single. I could cut myself some slack and presume that maybe there was an intellectual spark somewhere buried deep within my brain that knew that the relationship was a use and abuse situation for him. Get what he needs in a financial sense without really giving a shit for me. It's too late to find out know from the horses mouth but I can say that I am glad that I eventually cut ties with him because he really was a loser. That may sound harsh, but in all honesty if I shared half of the details you would agree. But it doesn't say much about me hanging on for as long as I did. Not the right one for me but I thought it was the best I could do. My drunken indiscretions should have told me something but in hindsight guys are pretty quick to latch onto someone they think they have a chance with even for a single night of fun. It wasn't exactly the free love of the 1960's but we were young and thought we were going to live forever. I, of all people should have known that wasn't the case. But an immature brain and what I believe was an unconscious death wish I did a lot to sabotage my future existence. 

Chillout by Ze Frank

Before you rush off and start to cast judgement upon me I wish you knew me when despite it all I was the Grand Optimist with a willing hand to help anyone (even if it was stepped on afterwards) and a ready smile on my face. "Don't you ever get mad?" I was asked so often by the students I worked with. "No, dogs get mad. Life is too short not to be happy." And damn it, for all my flaws (for physically they are the same today as they were 5 years ago/10 years/20 years) I could still be positive about life and the future. For there was no doubt then that I was going to be a part of the future. Now, I am tired and not so sure that I will be fighting to stick around. For today I am still more broken than I have ever been in my life. And instead of people I care about helping me to heal, many of them are closing the door and then locking it. Not that I think they can fix me but a little support and a tiny bit of understanding can go a long way.

And while I applaud all the money and research that is going into such deadly diseases as cancer and heart disease - how about a little more for mental health. Recently there has been more media exposure on the topic and with it awareness but not acceptance. It is not viewed as an illness but an affliction - "get over your depression." We all have times of sadness. Suck it up. We've all had problems and issues. 

But do you know what it's like to know that there is some part of your brain - some wiring schematic - that has broken and you can't fix it. I compare it to the paraplegic who can see his legs there, where they have always been, but no matter how much he tries, they won't work the way he wants them to. The way they used to. That's my brain. I've been sad before but never to this degree. I've had nearly 3 years to try and understand what is happening and why, and try as I might, I can't make the sadness stop sometimes. Like the tides, with time the wave will subside and calm will return. I hope. 

And just for fun and some minimal understanding of the rest of what I was talking about, stop and look at television and media and consider how many references there are to family and relationships. If you are lacking it feels like a little dig. Like a club that you can't be a part of. I'm not alone. God help the person who is overweight for they are deflecting a lot of unkind stares and comments everyday live and through the media. Not to mention all the studies that have been done that has shown that even potential employers discriminate against the overweight when it comes to hiring. Everybody want the beautiful perfect people in their life. But have one strike against you and you are screwed. (I figure I have so many strikes that only if life was a bowling game would I have a chance at success). 

One of the news stations was doing a story in a school about nutrition the other day. They were filming in a classroom of the school. They filled the screen with pictures of belly's that hung over the top of jeans, of legs that barely fit between the seat and the desk that was designed for smaller students. No faces were shown but I felt the pain of the students excitedly turning on the news to see themselves on the world stage and then seeing the part of them that we taught them to be ashamed of. For the reporters commentary was not flattering and every one of those student knew what they were wearing and they didn't need to see their faces to recognize themselves. That compassion hurts me and the sadness flows. I feel their pain and I empathize. What comments did their classmates have the next day? I could tell you because I have heard them when they were spoken to me.