Community for the Dead

What in the hell has been bothering lately?  There is something seething below the surface and I'm not sure what it is.  Actually it's been building gradually for weeks. 

The triggers?  People, places, things...Everything.  And then...someone that I don't even know, but have felt the yearnings for years to want to know him, died recently.

Why does that bother me so much?  Another lost opportunity?  Or was it because he was only 43 years old?  Or was it because he was part of a community of people that rallied around when he passed?  When that happened, I suddenly felt like I was on the outside looking in.  A reminder that I was still not part of that community, a community that I have always felt was my place to be but could never allow it in the past.  Now I have given myself that allowance but I've been limited physically by things I cannot control.

I'm not part of any community.  And when I mean community, I mean a community of real live people.  Not virtual, abstract, text on a screen type of community such as only the Internet can give.  Yeah, there are real people behind that text, but they can never manifest any nuanced social or physical reality.  I need to be part of a community where we are in each other's presence.  Feeling, seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, tasting, and otherwise experiencing each other.  But that's not all!  I must be more than a mere acquaintance. I must be a friend. Perhaps even a lover. Perhaps even more than that!  Perhaps what I'm looking for doesn't exist!

All of the activities, working late, dressage, walking, yoga, trips to the city, museums, blogging, etc. I do them to keep busy and to keep my mind off of what I don't have.  My hope is that it gets me out there meeting new people and making new friends, but all that it ends up doing is reminding me that no matter what I do, where I go, or who I'm with, I'm never going to be accepted as a friend by any of these people.  I want and need a deeper authentic connection with people but it seems that desire pushes people away.  That authentic part of me that no one is willing to accept, it becomes the big elephant in the room and forever creates a wall.  Could I be expecting too much from the term friend?  Perhaps I don't even know what it means.  On occasion, I discover what is being said behind my back about that big elephant.  They say one thing to my face and another to everyone else.  That burns my trust. So, perhaps I'm the one now creating that wall.  Walls are lonely.

All I can feel right now is that I'm growing weary of the loneliness.

So, here I am, wondering what is to become of it all.  What is to become of me?  I'm only 40.  My life could end in a heartbeat.  Literally, it could.  I have a broken heart.  It has landed me in the hospital three times in ten years.  And as of October of last year, I can now lie still in my bed at night and feel it stop beating every few moments.  This is followed by a rush of adrenalin and a hard thump as if it had just landed from tripping.  The sudden drop in blood pressure makes me light headed and tenses me up. I no longer have the physical energy I used to enjoy before. 

One of these days, it's not going keep beating and there isn't a god damn thing I can do about it.  It will be days before anyone notices that I'm gone.  Perhaps a few weeks before anyone comes looking.  Will there be a rally for me?  Why should I care?  I'll be dead.