An Echo

in our life we say, there comes a time, there comes a day...when all is over, said and done...no words spoken can mend, no promise made can assure...our eyes are opened, we've met the end...
It is not the quantity of friends that we have that is important, but rather the quality of those friends we do have...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Lost in a Moment of Loneliness...

One of the most basic feelings is that of loneliness, at that point in our lives when there is not escape from it. You have done all you can do to ward it off, fight it from taking over your thoughts and twisting your soul until it screams for the want of another to fill it. Such as it was that first time I met her. There is only so much you can discuss with a three almost four year old boy until your mind screams to be released from the adventures of Sponge Bob Square Pants, Clifford the Big Red Dog and Bob the Builder. As you can see discussion are limited and the mentality level starts to sink to the point to where you find yourself wondering what you can create with a box full of Legos.

Exhausted after a long day of work and an evening of trivial conversation concerning those above mentioned cartoon characters, quietness finally set in and my mind mulled to a consistency of warm pudding, it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I did not find someone to talk to, someone I could relate to on a level higher than that of a toddler I felt that I would not be long for the sane world. I felt my level of comprehension concerning anything to do with current events, politics, global warming, religion, relationships or anything two rational adults would talk about would be met, digested and responded to with the mentality of a four year old. It was at that point I decided I needed someone to talk to so I entered a chat room on the internet.

As I sat there reading the screen and listening to what people had to say. I got to thinking that maybe conversing with a four year old wasn’t all that bad. I thought I was amongst adults, some what educated individuals capable of a cohesive thought. But it seemed I had landed in a room full of lemmings and vultures. They were either following someone over the edge of a cliff or they were scavenging upon the emotions of another. Either quick to exploit or to follow, I was amazed and baffled at what was being played out before me. It did not take long to see that most in the room were not capable of an original thought and if they had one I wondered if they would have known what to do with it.

Remember, I said most, not all had the mentality of a cantaloupe. I have been very fortunate in my patience and persistence to have met a few that I have come to respect their opinions and their insight. There is one that through a commonness and mutual interests that we shared came to mean more to me than I could have ever imagined. One I found that in my search to fill the loneliness that was eating at me had become more than just someone to talk to, more than someone to share a few hours together and I found myself slowly getting lost in them. It was at a moment in my life when I felt I was destined to live a life of loneliness that we met.

At first the conversation was nothing more than the polite exchange of who we were our names, ages, location and marital status. I wasn’t seeking a relationship with anyone, all I wanted was someone I could talk to and carry on a discussion with and use words bigger than two syllables at a time. Someone who shared some of the same interests I did and who didn’t use net slang or abbreviate every other word, someone who could actually think for themselves and had independent thoughts of their own. Someone who could challenge me, make me think and use my brain as it was intended to be used. It was hard in the beginning, we were half a world apart, different cultures and a completely different social structure, but with a dogged determination I wracked my brain to try and develop something between us.

I had mentioned at one point during a lull in the conversation that they were not a very open person, that they were a tough nut to crack. I was informed that that wasn’t the case at all; I just had to ask the right questions. It was at this time I felt as if that tough nut was starting to crack and I patiently persisted in my endeavors to get to know this person better. As time went on and we delved deeper into each other’s lives, I found that we shared the same views on many things and a lot of many different levels, especially with that concerning family. Slowly as this person emerged from that shell they were encased in, I found in them not the simple person they had first professed to be, but a very complex individual, one who more than just challenged me, but was an enigma, a puzzle that I found I was beginning to think about more than I should have been, as I said, I wasn’t looking for a relationship and I really didn’t think it would last long at all. After all, this was only the net and I felt sooner or later they would meet someone else on here and move on. In the back of my mind I had already set myself for this to happen and was prepared for it. It was what happened that I wasn’t prepared for at all.

As days turned into week and weeks into months I had found myself lost in someone I really didn’t want to return from. I was on a path now where I was being pulled deeper and deeper into someone who mesmerized me, held my attention as no one ever has. They were unique and unlike anyone who had ever entered my life before. They were witty, educated and mannered. I am not saying that no one in my life did not have those traits, what I mean it was the way they expressed them that I had not seen before. Like a gem they had many facets and each one sparkled as it was revealed to me.

Eventually a relationship as beautiful as rose started to bloom, but just as beautiful as it was, there were thorns and I soon found out the pain something with such beauty can bring.

I remembered when I confessed my feelings to them, how I was starting to feel, how they made me feel and what I felt developing, I was asked if I was sure about what I was feeling and through a couple of week long separations I had found myself lost and feeling those pangs of loneliness in my need to be with them and I knew then what this was I was feeling and I again assured them that I was sure of this which I felt for them was true. I asked if they felt the same, if these feelings I harbored were felt by them. I don’t know was my answer, but I know I like you and like talking to you and I find myself looking forward to seeing you, it is becoming a tradition for me. It was Christmas Day when I was told that they too felt as I did.

It seems that is the pinnacle of all relationships, the summit, the apex and the acme of all you strive for when you feel and see in a person that forever you have never seen before in another. I have heard all my life that there is only one that will come into your life that you know in your heart is that one, that you will never see another as you do in this one and that if ever lost you will never find it in another. This is what I had found in this person, a tomorrow of forevers. And it is here I have been pricked by the thorn on that rose.

I do not know if it was out of complacency or the eventual lull we all experience in a relationship that I confused with losing this person, feeling them slipping from me and in some kind of desperation I started to lie to them, to hold her attention. I did this without realizing about the consequences once those lies caught up with me. To be something or someone I wasn’t in order to hold this person and pull them to me. We made plans for our future, our tomorrows and as these plans developed in our hearts I started stacking lies on lies assuring them that all of this would come to pass and our forever would be soon. I knew they were smarter than the lies I told but their trust in me had temporarily blinded them. Even burdened with the guilt I felt, I still kept to my lies knowing all along that what I was doing was destroying not only myself, but this one chance in my life to have someone in it who loved me. I told them I felt as if they were pulling away from me when all the time it was my lies pushing them from me.

When all the lies were exposed, when all was laid on the table and sorted I did not offer any explanation to my lying, I accepted responsibility for what I had done. Where most would have turned and walked away in shame, it was that same shame I felt that made me want to seek their forgiveness. When anyone else would have walked away from the one who had lied, they are still there, untrusting, but hoping that in all of this there is still something there. Who is the bigger person in all of this, the confessor of the lie or the one who still sees some hope? I think we both know who it is and in all of this they still hope there is something in it.

It is almost midnight and the library will close soon, so Better get this posted and get home...or as much as a home as I have now

2 comments:

Jazz said...

The opening of your blog is very familiar. So many lonely people reach out.
The chat room is also familiar, as you say, the 4 year old offers greater conversational abilities.

But, when you find one. One gem amongst the rocks in the mine, you suddenly become like the person lost at the sea who suddenly finds something that floats. We cling on and don't like to let go.
Unfortunately as you have discovered, lies just water-logs it and slowly you no longer hold it, because it sinks from view.
All you have left are the wishes that it would float again.

You need to find direction to land. Once your feet are on solid ground, you have no need to cling to floating things and what you find here to embrace will also be on solid ground.

You explore your action, your past and yourself. This is the start to find the ground beneath your feet.

Never give up, never go back because what was, no longer is.

Good luck for today and tomorrow.

Momo.

Smiling Pig said...

"no man is an island unto himself" as it is said, sooner or later we pull ourselves from our solitude and seek a kindred soul, someone we can relate to and share with.

I never really lost sight of where I should be, I got lost in the moment and in feelings.

It is strange that it is when you do not seek a treasure that you find one.

Thanks again Momo...you're another teasure that I have found...

Ron

An Echo....

When you find you are lost, always go back to where you started...