From now on our troubles will be miles away

"Love is what's in the room at Christmas if you stop opening presents and just listen."
Bobby - age 7

Almost year end. Let's review!



Downs

• My little GoTruck has died.
• Old girlfriend has shown me the line.
• I'm working roughly 12 hours a day.
• And for the 6th year in a row, I'll be alone Christmas morning.

Ups

• I'm still alive.

There, that's out of my system, ... well, a bit of it. Relatively speaking, I'm not doing too badly. Not that anyone cares or that it matters to anyone else but me. When you think on a "relative scale", everything boils down to "1"'s and "0"'s. Pass or Fail.

Even though it is not statistically sound that clinical depression cases rise around the Holiday season, it happens. Most are easy to spot. Listless, isolated, focused on what is driving them insane. Most are... others, like me, after years of living with it, have adapted, shifted and created a new lifeline, one filled with the sour, empty feelings. Left alone long enough, anything's possible....

What do I want for Christmas? Something material? That's an easy one. I want what only one person has ever given me. I want someone, "anyone" to give me physical proof (not more words, sayings, quotes, theories, etc) that someone cares. Substantial, tangible proof that I am doing all this FOR something.



...or a new truck.






Ciao

True

Waiting. Waiting for what though? The road is still fog-covered and the windshield hasn't been cleaned for years... you can get used to seeing things out of focus over time apparently. Lacking. Missing something important. Only really me when I sleep, but the dreams tell me otherwise.

Yesterdays tears cannot be cried again, they don't exist anymore. Mourning my memories and predicting the future. Destiny making me react against my wishes.

Silence. That is all there is. Wanting and hoping and believing and a million other useless words that mean nothing. What there is is not named. Cannot be named. Those that have seen it, lived it and known it cannot speak. Their minds are elsewhere. In the past.

I hope you are well, my friend. I hope you woke up today with random, frivolous thoughts in your mind, spoke words that didn't have to mean something. I hope you don't wander past the wall. Things there are best left in the dark. Unnoticed and unknown, by all but me.






Ciao

No one's really sure who's lettin' go today

I thought it would hurt. Hearing about you that way. But it didn't. Was I distracted by something and it just didn't sink in? Or maybe it did, but the me "Now" just doesn't care. I hope it isn't the latter. I wish it wasn't the former.


Not that it matters. Because it should, but it doesn't.


I'm just glad it does hurt, somewhat. I haven't died inside if the pain still stings. I'm just numb. In shock maybe. "Reality cheque please!"
I heard a woman's tears of happiness today, because I did what no one else did, or could. I listened to and heard her. Her name was Eleanor. Contrary to popular belief, there IS a major difference between the two, and how each person interprets that is different. If I was dead, inside-out, I would have become one of the overwhelming masses that only hear the words, not the meanings ... only say the words, not the meanings. I'm glad it stings, it means I am still alive.

.....being alone..... being alone only hurts the person involved, no one else. And there are many, many Eleanor's' in the world, waiting for someone to listen, waiting for someone to hear them. The hurt isn't all that being alone consists of though. Being truly alone is being yourself. The only person that can hurt you, is you. The only person that can help you, is yourself. By listening, and hearing. Understanding.

To Hell with the hard ass. That's a mask. A shield made from broken dreams and sour memories. If you somehow look past that wall, the emptiness is never ending. I have my walls, my masks, my shields ... but they are made of the memories of "getting over" the emptiness. The only thing behind my mask is me.

This only leaves me with one question.

Why can't people listen with more then just their ears?






Ciao