I am not prone to blogging. I used to keep a journal, but my enties were sporadic at best and served only as brief statements of reminder. My grammar is not always perfect, nor is my command of the English language anywhere near stellar, yet there have been times when I have tried to express my feelings with more than a mere statement written in a journal. Stephen King has nothing to fear from my forays into the world of prose, but then again, it has never been my intent to become a writer. But there have been times when I have tried to put words to paper in an attempt to convey more than a simple statement of fact - and here is one such attempt - written several years ago during a difficult period in my life when I was feeling truly lonely for an extended period of time. This statement in itself sums up the situation, and suffices to remind me of that period in my life. However, when I re-read my story, the feelings are brought back to me in a way that no journal entry I could have made would have been able to.
For your reading pleasure, or displeasure, whatever the case may be, I present it to you, uncorrected and unedited from the original version.
"Today I woke up feeling as if an invisible demon had somehow invaded me.
I have been trying so hard, so desperately, to build a cage in my mind. A cage to place this wretched thing and chain it fast so it cannot escape. The cage I have built stands ready, but still it remains empty. This demon I seek is invisible. How can I cage that which I cannot see. Maybe I am mistaken? Maybe there is no demon.
Yet I know it exists, malevolent and brooding, smiling in wicked lust as it rips away at the very fabric of my being. It lives and feeds off of my angst. It wants me to cry. And I know if I cry it will feed voraciously, weakening me, so I do not cry. Yet it still hungers. It wants me to give up, to run, to fear, to weep, to scream. Yet I refuse. I will not yield. The cage has been built, the chains are at the ready. But how? I do I wrestle this phantom creature into submission"
I have been running around in tighter and tighter circles these days trying to figure out what is happening with my life and to me as a man. I am slowly, very slowly, starting to realize that by running around faster and faster, trying to find a remedy, a cure to the pain that I am feeling, it has only served to wind me up tighter and tighter. Like a dog on a leash tied to a post chasing its tail, it wraps itself around the pole, it will eventually tighten up to the point it can go no further. I do not, must not, become this dog. I am seriously trying to slow down and start walking the other direction - to start to unwind and find a happier state for myself. To exorcise the demon that has arisen within me. I have found myself missing, wanting a woman back into my life. At first, the talons ripped gently, only causing me pain on occasion. And then they began to dig deeper. Ever deeper. Lonely hurts. It hurts emotional, mentally, spiritually, and even physically - like a dull pain, an anxious feeling of time running away with my life. And I become scared, am I to be lonely the rest of my life?
Why me? I have ran the "motion picture" through my mind a thousand times, and that was just the Saturday matinee!
Why me? What did I do so wrong to deserve this? I cannot see it, but I hear that cursed demon laughing at my thoughts.
Why me? And it laughs again. It's trying to win. It feels as if I am a room. A room without feature. Four walls, a ceiling, a floor, and a single door. It is locked. And I begin to wonder if my demon, yes, I have now come to know that this is no random, ephemeral entity - he has focused his malice upon me. And again I ask, why me? And the walls slowly begin to close in.
A_Non_A_Moose Blog (1)