So, in stories, sometimes on TV or in a movie, there comes a time when a character is having a terrible nightmare. The nightmare is symbolic of the stresses of life that they are feeling. One of these common trope-like nightmares is the one where someone is going through some change, and the person having the nightmare is not certain how to handle it. So they dream that the person that's changing turns their back and starts walking away. Typically what follows next is that the character having the nightmare dreams that they are running as fast as they can to catch the person who, despite their efforts to catch up, only end up getting further away. Somewhere near the end of the nightmare, the person disappears completely, and the dreamer tends to find themselves alone and faced with a situation (sometimes being engulfed by darkness, sometimes attacked by a monster, it varies) before they wake up.
I know that I have seen this idea of a nightmare several times represented in a variety of media. I had not really given much thought to this nightmare, or the feeling associated with it. For whatever reason, it never seemed more important to me than a simple plot point meant to indicate the amount of stress and uncertainty that the character experiencing the nightmare was feeling.
Recently, however, I have started to realize how much this is a nightmare that I would have had, were I only a literary character in some tale. Growing up, I have had many acquaintances, and a few friends. The connections I built with people, however, often did not stand the test of time.
Geographical changes, or simple divergence of personalities tend to have lent the relationships built something of an expiration date. Life events that I was partially, or even sometimes completely, unaware of in another's life have contributed to many of my so-called friends moving on. And while this is probably to be expected (let us face it, nobody stays the same forever)... this has also led to something of an issue for me.
As it has been, my life has been a rather surrounded-by-people-still-alone kind of story. I spent much of my youth feeling unliked by my peers. (I was picked upon rather mercilessly for most of my early primary education.) Sometimes, I became friends with someone, and the meaning of those relationships to me was greater than usual because of how isolated I felt. Ultimately, most of these friendships were limited, and expired before I had even understood why they were special to me.
In my teenage and early adolescent years, I struggled to live this double life, as feelings that I developed were frequently rejected by the ones I trusted and cared about most deeply. I was often reminded that the feelings I had were not valid, and because of this I had a hard time connecting to others, and even some of my closest relationships began to feel hollow and meaningless. Around this time, I also began to attempt to end the double-life I was being forced to live (by circumstance), but every attempt made seemed to be of little worth, or landed me in big trouble. It was most likely not helpful that I spent a large swath of this time as a rather gullible, naïve guy who trusted people more than he should have. (Honestly, the trust I had for people was mainly because of my desperate attempt to connect with someone when I knew, and did not want to accept, that trusting people could hurt me. What can I say, I was highly idealistic.) As time went by, I was frequently challenged to question if the feelings I had were valid, just because if they weren't, my life would have been so much easier.
As I entered my mid-adolescence, I faced quite the opposite problem. I had managed to end the double-life I had been dealing with before, but had come to distrust pretty much everyone. (Hurt me once, shame on you, hurt me twice shame on me.) I did not give up on trying to form bonds with others, but I faced the grim truth that the bonds I formed were not these great pillars of strength to endure the ages. Yet, even with this truth staring me in the eyes, I found myself desperately seeking to form bonds, which for some reason seemed to become easier. My guess is that these bonds came easier because I expected practically nothing from them.
Now, entering my early adulthood, I am faced with something else entirely. The same nightmare that has graced so many forms of storytelling has barreled into the forefront of my mind. The past several years have been a very difficult time full of firsts, and new transitions. It has been exciting, and difficult. Wonderful, and filled with some of my greatest sorrows.
So, now I have once again felt the deep pressure of the sense of loss and loneliness that has become a companion to me. Strangely, this loss is one anticipated, and not yet fully realized. For that very reason, it is practically as if the anticipation of it is the nightmare itself. The nightmare that comes before the waking to the truth, which is often the same as the nightmare, but far less figurative.
Not that long ago, I made a friend. When I first met him, I found him quite attractive. I spent a long time telling him how much I did find him attractive, at first. He had insisted that he was not like me, in that his interests, romantically at least, lie elsewhere (hetero, not gay). As I had learned to do in my adolescence, I took it hard, but eventually let it go. Then it came to light that he was actually not being honest... and not just to me, but to himself. He had lied to himself because of the fears he had about what the truth may mean. Just like I had when I was younger, and found myself being assaulted verbally for expressing the confusing feelings I had. So, I showed some support to this friend. I told him that the important thing is for him to be himself, regardless of what others may think. I asked him to do something totally absurd: to question his own beliefs, to think critically about where he was, where he was going, what he wanted, and why. Eventually, he realized that all the time he had spent trying to hide his truth from everyone, even himself, had been time where he could have been learning about himself more. It had not been "wasted", only a learning experience that he wished he had not taken so long to complete. This friend and I became very close, and one day I confided to him one of my deepest darkest secrets: I was scared. Scared of being alone. So often I had lost the people I called friends, and I was now so close to him, I was worried we would also drift apart. At that time, he promised to be by my side. So, with eagerness and hope, I named him my "best friend". Even more recently, things changed for this friend. Something, and someone, wonderful came into his life. And though his time and relationship with me had not lost any value, it was finally his time to move on. So, with a heavy heart, I watched as he turned around and left. It was not as if he wanted to end our friendship, no, nothing of the sort. Instead, he had found something very valuable, and our friendship was not so important as to let me keep him from taking this valuable thing away. In a cruel twist of emotions, though, I felt somewhat betrayed. I felt jealous, envious, and angry. All the time I had spent hoping to have a strong bond like the one he had found, and I was left empty-handed... but when he seemed the least interested to find a bond like that, one had seemingly fallen into his lap. It wasn't fair, I said. But in truth, my negativity about it was the unfair thing. I had no right to deny his happiness, and I had no right to complain. So, I pulled myself together, told him how I felt, and apologized. And although it was not necessary for me to do so, I had done so because I felt wrong about how I had felt toward him. In the end, he still moved on.
Fairly recently, I made another friend. When I first met her, it was due to some unusual circumstances. A mutual acquaintance had introduced us to each other. The primary reason we met was because we were going to work on a project. The project, it ended up, was doomed from the beginning to failure. There were too many things that the project wanted to do, and not enough ideas about how to make the project accomplish them. The regular meetings for the project, however, gave me plenty of exposure to this person. It became clear rather quickly that she and I were similar. Our personalities were quite on par with each other's. So when the project came to an end, we ended up finding ourselves friends. She and I shared our heartbreaks, and our pasts. Mine was told with a dramatic flair, most of which was because of the seeming absurdity of the ludicrous myriad experiences I had, growing up. Hers was less dramatic, but had its own underlying theme. I was like a melody, and she was a perfect harmony. We each deeply understood how the other felt about things in life. In far less time than I expected, I confessed to her the same deep and dark secret I had shared with the other friend (who, at the time, was still around). I admitted that my fear was that I would end up alone. I explained that with each successful time I had deemed someone to be a "best friend", they had without doubt left me. I begged her to tell me if she would stay. I was too nervous that she may take that title, and that once again it may result in someone leaving my life. She and I came to a 'blood oath' that neither of us would move on from the other without saying something. We solemnly swore that we would not let our relationship drift apart, and that should we need to move on, we would give the other fair warning it was happening, and a reason why. No more questions, no more doubts. It came, therefore, by no surprise that when the other friend left the spot of "best friend" vacant, I was devastated. My other 'best friend' gone had hurt, but with time I grew closer to my new friend. After the "oath" was made, I triumphantly named her my best friend.
Now, I find myself living that nightmare. The precursor to the reality, but this time it is not just a dream. Like the "best friend" before, a strong bond like we have been seeking, has potentially revealed itself to her. There is the chance, although not the guarantee, that the process could happen once again. Once again, I could find that my best friend is having to move on because something so valuable came to be that I, while not irrelevant, have become a smaller consideration (thinking of time as a limited resource). So, it is now a dire situation for me. I feel as though I am in a dark tunnel, and at the end of it is a light so brilliant, I cannot see what is inside it. I have met two other travellers in the tunnel, and they have agreed to accompany me. One of them is doing it because I asked him to. The other because she is headed the same direction as I am. Then someone came along, and the person along only because I asked (otherwise, he would have been content to sit and relax) took his hand, and started walking toward the light at the other end. I tried to catch up, but it was no use. Now, it is as if the one who walked with me, because we were both headed to the light, has also come across another person and started walking with them. I find myself running as fast as I can to reach the light, and to catch up to the ever-retreating backs of my friends... and yet the speed with which I sprint has no meaning, because I travel no distance. Yet the figures in front of me still grow smaller and more obscured by the very light I seek.
I am finding myself... left alone again. Not abandoned, merely surpassed. I don't want any of my friends who may read this to think that I am angry at them. I don't want any of them thinking that I would rather they forgo the happiness they may be able to grasp, for my sake. Those ideas could not be farther from the truth, but naturally I do feel concern that it may sound as if this is what I want.
On the contrary, what I desire is that I may come to experience the happiness that they have (and may have) found. Yet I am still here in the darkness of the tunnel. As I said before, the true events that play out after the nightmare have yet to begin... but the anticipation itself may as well be the events should they occur, for the amount of distress I find myself in.
I often find myself wondering if there has been something I have done wrong. Some reason I have been stuck in the darkness of this tunnel. I have asked myself if perhaps one day when I was not paying attention, I signed a waiver of happiness. Something like "I, Zack, hereby relinquish all rights to my happiness, both present and future, and reserve no right to reclaim said happiness at any time."
I have this great weight that sits inside my chest. A deep longing and sadness, that seems to fill my lungs with each breath I take. My heart feels like stone, unmoving, and heavy. Not stone naturally, but scarred from the hurts of my past and my present. Each scar healing over a wound which caused it to bleed and hurt. Each scar made of stone, yet leaving my heart still just as vulnerable. Until the weight of the heaviness becomes all-consuming, I cannot relieve it. I seek desperately to cry, and cry aloud. To let out tears of anguish and feel the rush of endorphins that comes with it. To finally remove the stress from my shoulders, if only for a moment. Yet, this too, I cannot do. The tears refuse to come for me, no matter how I beckon them, until at last I am crushed beneath the weight of my own sadness, loneliness, and fear. Then, and only then, in that moment, the tears I cry revitalize me, and lift just enough weight that I can once again stand. And then, for a time, I can continue my desperate pleas that the darkness engulfing me would dissipate. But the weight returns, and it does so frequently.
The thoughts that come to mind are surely unhealthy. They are surely all lies. But these lies, when reinforced by my experiences, feel as if they are unwaveringly true. "I am not good enough. I am not worthy of being loved. I am a terrible person. Nobody will love me, and nobody should. I am disgusting, and my body is something of which I should be ashamed. Nobody will ever be able to see past my physical body to see me. I will be alone forever, never knowing romance, never knowing love. The people who say they love me only do so because they have to or because they pity me. My worth is negligible. It would not matter greatly whether I am alive or dead. If I were to die, it would ultimately have no impact upon the world. If I were dead, the only people who would show up at my funeral would be those obligated to do so. Life is not terribly important. Life is so painful, it makes little sense to cling to it. There is no chance that things will improve. I must be the best at everything I do to make up for the fact that I am a failure anyway. The only reason anyone wants to be around me is because I can do something for them. I only have value living if someone is using me for something. Nothing I think or feels matters to anyone else. I may never experience any joy or happiness beyond meaningless transient pleasures that come and go. If I were to lose my usefulness to the people around me, it would be better if I were dead instead of a burden to them."
These are the thoughts that consume my waking moments. I try to ignore that these thoughts arise. By pretending they do not exist, I am able to live a relatively normal life. For all accounts, some would even say that the life I live is supremely blessed. I am on track to be debt free only a few years out of college, I have a job with wonderful benefits, and I have all my needs met (physically) and even some of my wants (like entertainment).
But in truth, all of the darkness lies beneath the surface. I am a pool of water, seeming to be clear and glistening and shallow. Filled with light, and calm. But I am actually a cave just beneath the pool, completely obscured from the light reflecting off my surface, and torn apart inside by turbulent torrents, as currents swirl about, breaking me apart, gradually.
So, what I am trying to say here, is that I am once again scared. I do not want to be alone. I want to be desired, loved, important. Sadly, this is not how I feel. I am so happy for my friends, I want them to be happy. I want them to experience joy.
I just don't want to miss out on happiness myself, even though I feel that is my only option.
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