Reflection

Doctor’s appointment downtown meant an early rise for me today. Walking the waterfront when alone is so intensely peaceful. Foghorn blaring periodically to cut the silence. Water like glass, without even a tiny ripple. Fog hovering about 30 feet in the air, enough to give me a view of the masts of a fishing boat off in the distance.

Being here always makes me smile, and gives me a general sense of the fuzzies.

I also, despite being with my boys, people I care about so intensely, feel acutely lonely lately. In part due to so many changes in my life; the redefining of relationships with people I have been cleft to for so long. It's not a new thing. For a few years now I have felt alone, even when surrounded by loved ones. It's like there is a barrier of glass; I know its there, but I can't find it.

If I could I'd take a bloody pickaxe out and pulverize the fucking thing.

Part of me is coming to realize that the walls of glass are likely things of my own design. And that the thing I yearn for does not exist. That intangible connection so deep that it is impossible in practice. Something I conjured up in the haze of a dream and steadfastly refused to let die with morning light. Unrequitable perfection.

Entirely unfair, if I dwell on that thought. Can't help but to wonder how many times I have been holding up that dream in an unfair comparison, a measure by which to rate all others. The setting of an absurd standard.

What if this is all there is? It is a thought that has plagued me near constantly for some time now. My inner demon battles the happiness to be found in front of my face; brandishing the sword of futile longing as though gratification might actually be possible.

I've felt this lonely once before. Al through my childhood I lived certain in the knowledge that I was utterly alone, when one really examined it. No one understood, then, all that I was, either. People may, indeed, love the Me They Know. But I have never genuinely shared with another being all of me. The risk in that is far too great.

I am beginning to understand that it is not only unfair, but in fact, it is entirely unrealistic of me to hope for a person who meshes with all of me. I've been so close to perfect happiness so many times, and manage to always find some flaw; something lacking. I’ve teased myself before with the hope of something that, in the end, proves evasive.

And the dilemma remains; do I lower the bar of exalted standards, and accept that the completeness I seek is a fantasy? Or do I swallow the self imposed isolation, resign myself to its familiar ache and step ahead, searching for the unobtainable?

A bond, so complete, that remains, as always, just out of reach. I was once told " you will never stop asking "what's the point?", but, someday, you will stop expecting an answer". It's not yet 'someday'. I dearly want an answer.