Missing Connection

I am tired today. Sleep has left me and all that is left is a series of tosses and turns and counting how many hours until I need to wake up. The morning comes quicker than I would like but that is life and I just need to accept and caffeinate. I am unmotivated this morning. So much to catch up on but little to no desire to tackle it. Somehow, I will manage, and I will get through the day just like I get through every other and I will get in bed later with the hope that sleep will find me. I woke up melancholy. I know that I had dreams, but I can’t remember them and the feeling that is so prevalent today is a profound sadness. I am so, so sad. I imagine you are tired of reading how sad I am, but it is what I am experiencing today and most days lately. And while I would prefer to feel any other way, the only thing I have is to let myself feel it all and be uncomfortable.

I miss connection. I miss deep conversation. I miss a time where all I could envision was connecting emotionally, craving it in fact. I had that and I systematically destroyed that. One interaction at a time, one manipulation after the other, I lost the thing I desperately crave. There is that saying "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all" I don’t know whether to scoff at that or to accept it as truth, but I do know that it is something that has been floating in my head recently. Is it really better to love even if you lose it or is it better to figure out how to keep it before it is ever lost? I am committed to sorting that out. Grief has a way of highlighting things when you least expect them. You could be sitting and all of the sudden a song comes on and it takes you back in time to a place that brings you both profound sadness and complete joy. You don’t know when it will come or how hard it will hit so all you can do is brace yourself for impact. I feel like I am constantly bracing for impact. I wake up every day hoping today will be the day that I feel better and when the day is over and that feeling remains, it becomes a little more and more discouraging. So, all that leaves me with is despair.

Can you grieve and be happy simultaneously? I think that in the depths of grief is it hard to see that there is light and happiness in your life. You become all consumed with the grief and at times forget that the world around you is buzzing around. It doesn’t stop because you are lost in your grief. Add to that having to be responsible for others, for managing your day-to-day life and all of the sudden you are doing everything you can just to survive long enough to make sure no fires get too out of control you can’t put them out. I am that person right now. I am managing to keep the flames barely lit and getting by just enough to function. I am seeking so much more than that and the only place I have left to find it is within myself. I have sought for this outside of myself for most of my life and I have failed each time. Waiting for someone to rescue me when in reality the only person who could ever have rescued me is myself. I am more self-reliant than I have ever been and while it is scary as hell it’s the only option, I have left myself.

When you sabotage everything good in your life, all you are left with is yourself.

I feel like I ramble a lot. Someone I love once told me that I wasn’t rambling but rather being vulnerable. That vulnerability creates intimacy and over time that builds trust. I wish I had done something with that information. It’s probably the most valuable piece of advice anyone can be given. I wish that I practiced vulnerability more consistently. It truly is required in order to have the kind of deep connection I am seeking. I knew that all along but rather than foster that I hid behind lies and choices that shut down connection right in its tracks. And I will not excuse that away for some self-righteous stance. The thing I am craving, the that I miss so much, is the thing that I pushed away over and over again until there was nothing left. I had to know that at some point with all the pushing I was doing that it would be cut off. I mean, I can’t be that entitled to think that access to something as precious as emotional connection would remain intact with little to no effort on my part. The sad reality is that I was.

What happens now, I don’t know. I know that I am working tirelessly to fix these flaws that I possess. That I have acknowledged that I am in need of some serious adjustments to the way that I operate in order to be inviting of genuine connection. I know that without acknowledging this and not just once but repeatedly will hold me accountable to myself. That without that accountability the potential for change is limited. My only wish is that I had been willing to do this from the start or rather that I wish that I had continued doing this work. I have always been rough around the edges, and I was changing, albeit it slow, I was changing and then slowly but surely, I let out the darkest parts of myself and then justified it was circumstantial. I wish I had exhibited humility and humanity before there was nothing left.