I've Been Withdrawing

I have been absent on Facebook lately. I can’t say that I haven’t lurked, but I haven’t interacted or reacted or participated for a while now. I don’t want to keep going on about my present state of mind or my troubles. It is torturous just being me. I don’t want to infect anyone else with my negativity.

I’ve been here before, but it’s worse now. I used to always have at least one real person in this world who was here for me. One who actually knew me and cared about the little things that constituted our life together. Even though I was the caregiver, I feel like she actually cared more about me than I was even capable of. It came naturally to her, whereas I feel that I am missing an empathy gene or something.

I don’t share much on Facebook these days because I would rather people imagine a more favorable version of me. Any one from the past will do, the one you remember that made you want to even be my friend in the first place.  I want people to think of me as someone who is wiser or stronger than the miserably failing human being that I have become. I am not learning my lessons in life and am stuck in a rut of my own making.

I don’t share my feelings of weakness on Facebook because I don’t want to elicit the usual round of  “thinking of you” “so sorry for your loss” “prayers and hugs” “sending love your way” and the like. If anyone has sent them, they didn’t get here or maybe I just missed them, too subtle for my perception. I am pretty thick, so it’s possible. I need someone to throw a brick with the words “I love you, dummy” written on it and hit me in the head.  I know I would at least feel the brick.

The last eight years have taken me down quite a lot. I have lost my ability to feel joy. I don’t know that will ever get that back. I can say “I had fun” or “I enjoyed that” if I attempt to engage in some activity that is prescribed to make me happy, but they are just words. I experience pain, sorrow, loneliness, fear and the range of negative emotions in their rawest, purest form. But happiness and joy are just cardboard cutouts, unreal ideals to me.

I don’t share these things because I want people to think I’m better than this. That I’m not a self-indulgent, depressed person who is unable or unwilling to fix himself and get on board with life. Truthfully, I don’t want to move on. I just want to curl up and die and it’s not happening fast enough. I am too cowardly to hasten it by deliberately doing myself in, so nobody go calling the cops or anything. They’d most likely be of more assistance in actually hastening my demise by filling me with bullets for reaching in my pocket or failing to comply with some command.

I think of Sharon, how she clung to life and appreciated it even when it seemed everything had been taken away from her. For the last two days of her life all she could do was breathe in a panting, labored struggle. But she kept on for as long as she could because, why? I don’t know. Life wants to live? Then what would make me want to give up so easily? Am I just that unappreciative of everything that I have and the things that I can still do? I feel like I’m already dead inside or at least crippled to the point of non-recoverability.

I’m having a hard time convincing myself that anything I do is worthwhile. When Sharon was alive, I guess I had a purpose. If I did all the little things in a day that sustained her, I could say I was doing something meaningful. But see how that turned out? The end was inevitable, nothing could have kept it from happening eventually. So why does my life have to keep trudging onward? Can’t we just call it, already?