Fragmentations

It’s quiet. You’re laying on your couch staring up at the ceiling. No text messages to remind you that you're alive; nothing on television to numb your mind... just the ceiling. You close your eyes and start to remember. You don’t want to, but for some reason, in this moment, the memories come flooding back.

You remember that last time you saw the face of true love. You take yourself back six years and remember looking into your mother’s blue eyes as she stares at your father taking his final breath. And all you can think is that this isn’t happening. Not to us. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. How did it come to this?

Flash back one year. You’re praying to a God you’ve long since forgotten. Praying for Him to send you someone to love you. Someone to ease the pain that is slowly eating away at your soul. Just somebody to help you deal with the pain of watching your family slowly disintegrate. Someone to bear your emotional burden, while you bear the emotional burden of everyone else. Flash ahead one year and your unanswered prayers have been replaced with prayers to ease the suffering of someone else.

Flash forward 48 hours. Your prayers are answered.

Flash back to your father’s funeral, listening to your best friend from childhood, in tears, talking about playing in the snow when you were kids. You watch as your friend, whom you haven’t seen in years, weeps for your father, and the youth and innocence both of you lost. And you remember how you never wept for any of it. And to this day, you still haven’t.

Flash back to that day in the snow. That great winter storm, captured forever in faded photographs and fuzzy memories. Just two carefree kids with their whole lives ahead of them. Flash forward to present day; your carefree friend is a drug addict, and you, well, you just don’t care.

And you think about the last time you did care. The last time you felt something for someone. It’s been so long you can barely remember, and when you do, you remembered why you forgot it in the first place.

Flash back to the love of your life. Your high school sweetheart. Your best friend. Someone you could talk to for hours without the conversation ever getting dull. The woman you knew better than she knew herself. The only woman you ever truly loved. You see it in her: your future. For the first time in your life, you feel like it all makes sense. And all those unanswered prayers were not falling on deaf ears.

Flash forward three years. Your future is married to someone else. A victim of shortsightedness, denial, and complete lack of reason, she cries to you for help. You, the same person she recklessly threw away. And you can’t help but think about your mother’s eyes that day and how you know that you will never find a love like the one your parents shared. Because it simply does not exist in this world anymore. Not to you.

And you? Well, you’re bored. Bored with all these people and their fake problems, and the senseless drama that they have created for themselves. And yet, you still listen. Still that emotional rock that people depend on. A favor that never seems to be returned. Patience is a virtue, but common sense is a blessing.

Flash forward a couple of years. You finally start to come out of your shell. You put yourself out there for the world to see, not really caring what anyone thinks. You are you, for better or worse. Pride and ego have long since disappeared, but a shred of optimism still remains. You begin searching for kindred spirits with whom to share thoughtful and intimate conversation. You discover that meeting people is easy... but usually not worth the time and effort. Self-centeredness has become the norm, and it has made everyone very ugly.

Years go by and this becomes the trend. People take what they need from you and move on. Disposable, taken for granted, used, abandoned; these are common themes in your daily existence. You camouflage your feelings with your charm, wit and bizarre sense of humor. People feign interest in you because you amuse them, but very few ever bother to dig deeper and see through the silly façade. And why should they? People would much rather laugh than think. Or care. Indifference is a disease that has infected everyone. And by this point, you have pretty much resigned yourself to the fact that you always give more than you get; in any type of relationship, with anyone you meet. This will be your life from now until the end, whenever that may be.

Flash forward to you sitting in front of your computer, typing a blog that no one will read and asking yourself the obvious question: Am I the only one who feels this way? And your jaded self answers: The only thing more irrelevant than that question is the answer.

Flash back to right now. You open your eyes. All those little fragmented memories of your life are gone in an instant. Gone, but not forgotten. You stare at the ceiling and it hits you. What seemed so cloudy then seems so clear now. Everything you’ve experienced had a purpose. Everything you’ve endured has a reason. All those trials, all that pain has molded you into the person you are today. In spite of it all, you know that you’ve done pretty well for yourself. And even if no one else notices, or no one else cares, you are happy with the person you’ve become.

And that’s all that matters.

- B


"Life is a tragedy for those who feel and a comedy for those who think."
- ancient Chinese fortune cookie