in bed, breathing

"Only the lonely
know the way I feel tonight
only the lonely
know this feeling ain't right..."
-Roy Orbison, Only the Lonely

For the longest time, I thought I had risen above love.  I thought I had defeated loneliness and felt content with just being by myself.  I didn't fool or force myself into believing it.  I genuinely thought I was over love, better off even.  Naturally, the pangs of loneliness would pop up on occasion but I always shrugged them off.  They never lasted long enough to cause permanent damage.  I felt I was already about as hurt as I could be so how much more damage could they cause?  I knew I'd never be able to get rid of the loneliness completely but I was confident I could control it.

But now, I feel the loneliness is crushing me like a trash compactor.  Several factors, such as my crumbling faith in God and realizing the youth at work have close knit friendships, have contributed to my ever-increasing isolation over the past several months.  I looked around at work and realized I was one of the older ones, an outsider coming into this group of teens who all started together.  On the other side of the spectrum we had the older supervisors with families and 401Ks.  And I was this glob with nothing to grasp, too old for the young crowd, too young or the older group, suspended in a timezone that no one could relate to.

When I had people to talk to, I could keep the emptiness at arm's length.  I had people I could connect with while in college.  They were in the same situation as me.  We could all relate.  We were wide-eyed and working toward something.  My roommates were good.  I had a few ginger ladies I enjoyed.  And then there was my special gal Chasity, who was with me from the beginning to the end.  And someone else who was with me long before that.  But my roommates got jobs, the gingers stopped talking to me and Chasity got engaged and moved out of the country.  And as for the other one, well, that just didn't end too well...

And slowly, I dropped off everyone's radar.

I knew communication wasn't a one-way process so I did try to keep up with them.  I called, texted, IMed and Facebooked.  And they reciprocated.  For a while.  And then they all slowly faded out.  I suppose without the college connection to keep us together, none of us really had that much to talk about.  It was a cycle I had began noticing early on.  Fellow students talked to me while in class but once the quarter was over, I never heard from them again.  The trend continued when I started working.  As soon as one of the lucky few were able to move away to college or find another job, they stopped talking to me.  I suppose I'm a good coworker or classmate, but nothing more, nothing anyone would want to continue a relationship with once the job ended or the class was completed.

And even earlier than that, I didn't talk to anyone from high school after we all graduated.  I keep up with one or two people but their schedules are so busy it actually is more convenient for them to get in touch with me since I never have anything going on.  It's not that I don't try but they are too busy with their pursuits, which I understand.  I suppose this is what it feels like to grow up and lose contact with people who once held a special place in your mind.  Maybe there isn't such a thing as lifelong friends.  The beauty in being connected to such a wide variety of people is that they open your world to so many different things.  The beast is that, because they all are so different, they end up going in different directions, scattering out and leaving you alone.  And while it's the natural order of things, I believe I have stumbled on my part of the deal.  Friends come and go and usually people make other friends to fill the spaces of those left behind.  I haven't quite managed to fill those voids.

A big problem with living here is there's nothing to do.  I live in a redneck infested cesspool of pregnancy and narcotics.  Girls grow up to become nurses only because it's a relatively simple job to get into.  And the guy's grow up to drill offshore.  And there is nothing wrong at all with either occupation but the sad part is how people can't see beyond the small bubble of their residency.  And so they take those jobs just to remain inside the bubble.  Dreams and aspirations usually fall by the wayside as soon as they graduate high school because it's time to be an adult, to grow up and raise a family and pursuing dreams doesn't fit into the picture.  And those who do pursue their dreams often leave their bubble and never come back.  I feel I'm in a weird predicament because I am one of the dreamers yet I'm trapped in my bubble with those I have no interest in getting to know.

Most of the girls my age are already married or pregnant.  Most of the guys are douche bag hicks.  I have nothing in common with any of these people.  And therefore I have no friends.  And romantic entanglements are even harder to come by.  As mentioned earlier, most girls are knocked up or knocked around by their boyfriends/husbands.  So, there's not a great selection as far as romantic prospects go.  And at this point in the game, what do I even want out of a relationship?  What am I looking for?  To settle down?  To have a few flings?  And what kind of person will it take to revive me?  Friendship?  Romantic relationship?  Sexual compatibility?  Same cynical attitude?  I've wanted it for so long that I didn't put much thought into envisioning what form it would take.  I always assumed a certain way but now I'm just not so sure.

The lack of friendship, as well as romance, has caused a rekindling of that ache, that need to be someone's number one.  I feel more alone than I ever have in my life.  I have no friend to lean on, no partner to stay in bed with, and barely a God to pray to.  I am immeasurably lonely.  In fact, I think it's hard for most people to comprehend it.  Sometimes I don't think I can, either, but when I say it, people don't seem to realize how deep it sinks into me. 

Maybe this feeling is just another pang, just more intense and longer-lasting.  Maybe this, too, will pass.  But I can't help but thinking by acknowledging it, I'm opening the way for more pain.  I also can't help but to think how I'm missing intimacy in my life.  I need to know someone else's lips and love and life.  I haven't had the best opinion of people in general for a while now but I know there's got to be more than what I've observed.  I want to explore that, to feel something more than surface flushes of heat.  I want to be able to talk to someone on the phone or hold them or have them go with me for a drive.  I want someone I can watch horror movies with and talk about death and dreams.  I want someone I can show my writings to, someone I can share a book with, someone I can kiss and cry to.  I've never had that.  No one has gotten to know me past casual chatter.  And that's driven a wedge between me and everyone else.  My blog knows me more personally than anyone in my life and I think there's a great deal of sadness in that.  There's just no one to turn to, physical, spiritual or electronic.  That's not to say I haven't ever come close.  I've almost had that.  But almost doesn't assuage the agony.

I can't deny it anymore, can't turn it away despite my rejection of love.  I'm lonely.  As much as I thought I was beyond human emotions, I'm not.  When I died, I tried to bury all of that while attempting to remain above ground myself.  I'd love to be in love.  I'd love to have someone to love me.  I walk this path singular, solitary, sick.  I wouldn't mind having a hand to hold along the way.  But that doesn't mean it will happen or that I am capable of having it happen to me.  I'm too selfish and full of unjustified bitterness and hatred to have a fulfilling relationship.  I'm too insecure, too indecisive, and too paranoid.  I can't have it all but I crave it so much.  I want to be loved, supported, recognized.  I just don't want to fall into the fire without anyone ever really having known who I am.

I think about the majestic qualities of love, how it bubbles up and grows on a grand scale.  I think about the power of love and how it can change lives.  And that's nice but sometimes I crave the simpler aspects of it.  Really, all I want is to be one of two bodies in bed, breathing.  I don't know what the warmth of someone else's skin feels like.  It's strange to me when I hear it on television or in the movies, how people curl up together and comment on the comforting warmth.  I guess I forgot that bodies can be that way.  I had simply become accustomed to mine running cold.  I just want to know someone else, to experience someone's chest rising and falling next to mine, to share such a small space, to breathe in the same air, to cradle, to be held, to feel connected to something for once.  I want to feel the function of a heartbeat, to know that something is alive within myself and someone else, to feel it speed up and slow down, a crashing thump thump thump against my ear.  A laugh.  A breath.  A sigh.  I want to tap into the most basic of human needs, desires.  And that's a need to feel warm with someone else, to love, to be loved, to be wanted and cared for.

To not be so damn alone.

I want to dive into humanity, to revel in feeling alive again.  I want to be a part of the population.  To love and be loved is not to make a connection with just one person, but to connect with whole world.  You know what everyone else feels, needs, fears.  Even if the feeling doesn't last, if the person walks out or is taken away, you've been there, you've felt it and smelled it and tasted it and had it wash over you and cleanse you and when you walk down the street or shake someone's hand or smile and wave as you pass by, you know them more than you might realize.  You understand them, have been there before, might be there again, can sympathize with their plight.  Because it is your plight as well.  It is the plight of every creature that breathes and even some that don't.  It is love.  It is lust.  It is an intense attraction.  It is the need to feel, the urge to belong.  It's built into us like our blood.  And once you've known true love, I think you are irrevocably changed.  I've stayed the same for far too long.

I go to bed and breathe in the fan to give my lungs something to do.  I stretch out and bury my face into the pillow, tunneling away from the world, waiting until the darkness sweeps over me for one more night.   And I wonder what it would be like to be escorted into dreams, to have a hand pull me into sleep instead of the television, wonder what it would be like to drift back from dreams, ascend to the surface of consciousness, buoyant in my bed and bound by flesh and bone instead of being flanked by microfiber and flannel to warm me.