Awaking a Sleeping Beast

March 14, 2013 35 Comments »

horror

The beast is awake…

Why is it that when I meet someone – that’s when I feel most alone? The brain is a funny thing. I don’t really think about what I don’t have until it’s put in front of me and I can get a taste of it again. Then the desire to have it is all of a sudden present again. Sure, I’m talking about relationships specifically in this instance, however it pretty much applies to everything in my life.

The only reason that I was able to downsize and sell all of my stuff is that I had been away from it for 16 months – I had forgotten about it and my desire to have it any longer had disappeared. On another note, I don’t miss hangers until all of a sudden I get to hang up my clothes – then I think they are the best invention ever.

And so it goes with my love life.

I’m absolutely fine being on my own and really seldom ever feel lonely. I’m pretty good at making friends, entertaining myself, and using my keyboard to really sort out any deep thoughts and conversations with myself. I’m not saying this is necessarily healthy – but I’ve been getting by like this for a long, long time.

But then he comes into my life – for a brief moment. All of a sudden I’m painfully aware of what I am missing. Going through life alone can be challenging at times – and exhausting quite frankly. Yet until this moment, I rarely think about everything I have to do on my own or the lack of compassion in my life as I’ve been surviving this way for so long.

But now those thoughts are awake in my brain.

I try to avoid him at first, as I know that even though his smile seems inviting and comforting pain will ensue. I’ve spent my whole 30’s avoiding pain pretty successfully – I know the warning signs. And here it is – right in front of me – joy and pain – all wrapped up in his smile staring at me. Tempting me yet again.

He delves in with personal questions different from the standard questions of what I do, how I live, and how I survive. He digs deeper into things that people generally don’t ask and every answer I put forth I feel like I’m sinking – deeper into a hole that I don’t want to be in – leaving me vulnerable.

I start to really listen to my answers and evaluate them from an outsider view and think – this is really fucked up – traveling around the world aimlessly for 6 years – even I start to wonder what I’m running from. But instead of being appalled, he’s interested and I get a little glimmer of hope. Maybe, just maybe my girlfriend is right – maybe people who do crazy things and follow their dreams escaping convention are sexy and intriguing.

I try to overlook the potential heartache and jump in – somewhat cautiously at first – but the sweet nectar of companionship soon envelops me and I start to let my guard down. It’s lovely to be held, to let go – just for a moment and share responsibility with someone – even if it is only for a few days.

I don’t even know if it’s him that I yearn for or I’m simply yearning for the closeness and the ability to share half of the load for a bit. It’s hard to decipher in these fleeting moments.

I feel exposed, I feel needy, and I feel like the dormant emotional side of me is waking up after a very long hibernation. I try to tell it to go back to sleep – but it’s too late. It’s there – awake – staring at me with a look of anger for letting it sleep so long. To ease it’s anger I remind it just how hard it is to get back to sleep after it’s awake. It nods in agreement, fully alert now.

Before I know it he is gone satisfied with the thought of waking this monster inside of me and then falling out of my life as quickly as he came into it.

This is the life of a nomadic solo traveler. Constantly moving, homeless, emotionless, loveless. But I know in a few weeks this will be just yet another painful memory and I’ll go back into hibernation – my independent side will once again put on the armor and keep moving on – solo.


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