Steeped in loneliness, so solitary I can feel my heartbeat behind my eyes. I can hear my bones creak when I listen close enough. I can imagine my own intestines, twisting and digesting with a mind of their own. The visceral churning is constant, I’m hungry for something that has rarely been satiated in the past.
I think back to a rainy November afternoon. We played gin rummy, and I won eight times, while you didn’t win once. Yet you remain patient while sipping your milk from a wine glass. Occasionally, you’d pick up your guitar and strum, alternating between belting about how you loved me and crowing about how this was all going to end soon. I was so blind. I was deaf, I was mute, I was rendered completely useless. I felt for you the way Camus loved Maria Casares. You felt for me the way a vulture loves roadkill. It hit me on the way home from New Haven. Our clothes were soaked in rain and reeked of cigarettes, you found a half eaten pizza atop a trashcan and devoured it. I cried on the way home but you didn’t notice. My hands were frozen and I couldn’t feel my right ring finger but I continued to chain smoke in your passenger seat. The second time we met up you gave me several gifts from your latest excursion through abandoned houses– trinkets, books, etc.. You were prolific with your love letters and your writing was maddeningly intoxicating. When you took me to meet your parents, you showed me your fondest childhood memories and they became mine as well. When we both got covid and couldn’t see each other for 6 days I thought I was going to go insane. “Please never leave me.” you gasped into the phone. “I won’t.” I promised. A week later you broke up with me.
What was the point of all of that? I try to take it in stride. I like to think of it as proof that I am not impossible to love. But it’s hard, it’s hard to reason with sudden abandonment as an adult, especially when you were abandoned as a child and never given the assurance that it wasn’t your fault. Part of growing up is trying to learn to give yourself the love and assurance you’ve been desperate for since you were old enough to recognize emotional negligence. Whats harder, however, is wrestling the constant craving for self sabotage. Self sabotage is the most insidious behavior pattern known to man. It breeds resentment, it hurts everyone involved, and the only thing you can do is remind yourself that absolutely no one is benefiting from your suffering. When imbued with the idea that abandonment is imminent, it becomes a race to the finish line. Who can abandon you first, the other person or yourself? How will our subconscious push our loved ones away today? I’ve become good about catching myself, but every day is only one battle of the war on companionship that rages on inside me. But where does the guilt stem from? What happened to me that makes me feel the need to martyr myself? Why do I believe I deserve to suffer? The moral perfectionist in me is an abusive figure. It demands all my time and energy, it spits in my face and tells me that if my father couldn’t stand to be around me as an innocent child, who in their right mind would ever tolerate me as an adult with a past riddled with mistakes? The fact of the matter is that, despite not showing it, my father did in fact love me, and that everyone makes mistakes. Every single human on this earth has made a billion mistakes each. Believe it or not, I am not the main character here. The world does not revolve around me, and its just not that serious. When I think of treating my friends the way I treat myself, I get nauseous. Whats the difference between my mistakes and theirs? Nothing at all.
Please, for the love of god, be kind to yourself. Compassion for others starts with compassion for yourself. Don’t hurt others because you’re blinded by your own suffering. You are deserving of love, forgiveness, and kindness. Please remember that. Thank you for reading.
Phrenectomy 