Loose ends

[Tobin S.]

After a fun and relaxing weekend I woke up this morning at 6 to prepare to go to work. I had a strong, negative emotion filling my head, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly.

I went outside for a smoke and as I sat there trying to figure out what the feeling was, it dawned on me. It wasn't the Monday blues. It wasn't hate, fear, or depression. I felt like I had been abandoned or neglected. It was totally at odds with what is going on in my life right now. This past month has been one of the happiest times in my life and I'm certainly not feeling neglected by my fiancee. We work the same hours and spend most of our free time together.

No, this was an old feeling from the darkness of my past, maybe going back to my early childhood. It just struck me how little I remember from before I was 20 years old. I was 20 during the onset of my illness. It's like my illness changed me so radically that I became a totally different person and the memories that did remain were someone else's, like a fictional character from a book maybe.

When I recognized what the feeling was I began to feel a strange sort of relief. I came in and told my fiancee that I'd had an epiphany. I don't have to feel like a neglected child anymore, starving for love. My insecurity, sadness, and pain have no place in my life now. I don't have to be stuck there desperately trying to figure out what's wrong. I can be free.

Who knows what might happen now? I'm becoming filled with the desire to create again. I've got an old six string that I've started picking again. I also have this computer and a word processing program. I am happy and optimistic. I've got a fresh, blank screen and an urge. This is where it all starts. I've created a new life for myself since last June. If I have the will and the ability to do that, what might be possible?

[mopinko]

1. maybe you should write a book. a novel.

model your characters after your mother, yourself, your fiancee, and your illness. make all the things that people did that hurt you have a positive outcome. say the things that you can't say, or they can't understand, and have those things all work out for the better. or punish them in an appropriately nonviolent or metaphorical way.
and kill off your illness.

glad to hear you are so happy my friend. wish you more and more of the same.