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5. Gridlock


Sometimes there is no way out. Without help.

Written Monday, February 24, 2020 / Day 196 / Afternoon


In assessing my plight, I am constantly tripping over myself in attempting to arrive at some resting place. Most thought patterns end up in a tangled mess in my mind as I try to contemplate what is going to happen.


In the background silence of my life, the loss of conversation, the lack of interactions - the continual treadmill of emotions - there is this calling to a coming state of life.


For now it is always shrouded in fog - not visible in any way - yet I know it is there.


As far as I am concerned, my resounding affirmation of not wanting a future continues with a strength that amazes me.


It is like the gas stove that is useless unless the pilot light is lit.


For me - mine is out.


And if I have anything to say about it - that light will continue to stay out.


As each day becomes the past - I look back at how many I have accumulated since this journey began. There are so many now - I have a difficult time looking back over all of them. Of course, I have told myself I will not re-live sadness about situations that are now resolved. Situations that are over. It’s like a left over casserole - it’s been sitting around too long to be appetizing. Eating from that dish would just make me sick - and for what reason should I eat of it?


Yet, as I realize that six months plus have elapsed I fear perhaps what many in this situation fear - forgetting what is past.


I have realized that I have my sweetie with me - in my very thinking - and there is a comfort associated with that idea.


But at this point I am perhaps sad because the reality of our relationship has faded over this time as any aspect of our lives does.


I think of the little boy who was talking to his father about flying on a trip in an airplane. The little boy was fearful of the idea - no matter how much his father attempted to comfort him.


Thinking that it would be an encouragement - the father pointed to a plane flying over them in the sky. Describing all the wonderful things he could find to encourage his son - but despite all of his efforts - the father could not help the boy understand.


Finally, the boy pointed to the plane in the sky and revealed his fear.


“I don’t want to fly on a plane because then I would have to shrink and become small!”.


From the boy’s perspective, the plane he could see in the sky was so small he could only think that to be on the plane meant having to shrink down to a tiny size - and that idea frightened him.


Likewise, I see my past in that way right now.


As time moves on - the past that filled my life, my sweetheart who was a part of every aspect of that life - just becomes smaller and smaller as we head away from that time.


I am already saddened and then on top of that sadness - I see what was everything to me - reduced to a small point of time in the past. The present pushing all of what was aside to make way for its all absorbing future. That future which to me has no identity, no personality and - no purpose.


For now.


Apparently this struggle may just be a part of what has to happen. Although I am still too connected to everything that was everything to me. This is the most difficult aspect of today.


The waves of this loss continuing to echo into my present while seemingly diminishing at the same time. I have a difficult time trying to decide what is worse. The loss itself - or the distance that I am now past the loss.


I ran into Joann’s picture in a box of artifacts I was arranging. That’s all it took to immobilize me. To take me down the path of longing for her voice, her touch - all that I know is gone for now.


These are the most disarming moments.


I just hang on - as I have mentioned in the past - to the One who has seen me through to this point. He has me. He will get me through the gridlock as only He can.


Because I know I cannot.

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