Personal Journal

Nothing

There’s this line from a song that I just love. It’s from the band Temple of the Dog, and the song is Say Hello To Heaven.

The line is this:
He came from an island, and he died from the street
And he hurt so bad, like a soul breaking
But he never said nothin’ to me.
Say hello to heaven.

I love that line “he hurt so bad like a soul breaking.”
I think I feel that way a lot. It’s really a constant visitor in the thread of my life, long before Jean died. Now that Jean’s gone, I feel that way pretty predictably. It is accompanied by a lethargy of will, at best, or a driving desire to do myself more pain, emotional, physical, or mental.

I can accept that an outsider could simply define the problem: You are experiencing depression. I can nod and accept to that. But what does it mean? What am I supposed to do with this? Everything is supposed to mean something. Maybe this is twisted, sick, and or wrong, but I’ve always prided myself on my ability to withstand physical and emotional hurt, especially emotional.

Someone would ask me “Why?”

Well, its my ability to endure suffering that I believe makes me special in the eyes of my god. Somehow, someway, this is my purpose – this is how I do good for the world, by absorbing pain. This is what brings me closer to the Lord. I crave my own literal or figurative stigmata. I seek affirmation for my life.

Underlying it all is the question of why I had to experience so much pain to transcend from child to adult. And I figure if I keep pursuing it, someday I’ll have a spiritual experience, and maybe it will make sense, or provide me with a moment of clarity.

My problem right now with my feelings of pain and depression is that I’m really being alienated from my world. I’m different. I feel removed from the world. I don’t get angry about things, or really sad about specific things (I’m just generally sad, mostly about jean, and then generally about existence). There’s little that makes me laugh (although sometimes someone can do it, and that’s still a treat).

I don’t want to live a life. I want to stay in the house and vegetate and not exist. So here I am at work again, just wishing there was a way I could justify leaving. I’m going to stay my four hours, because that was a commitment I made to myself. And I think if I cn start making that commitment, whether I want to or not, I can give myself a new reason to feel good about myself.

That’s what I’m trying to do. Push my limit, as someone said. Respect it if it insists, but I set a goal, and I need to believe my goals are attainable – I need to believe that they are important to achieve, even if the only reason for that is because I made them my goals. So I shoulnd’t let myself down.


It is never too late to be what you might have been. -- George Eliot
Courage to start and willingness to keep everlasting at it are the requisites for success. -- Alonzo Newton Benn