Dark Matter

...this is not an easy write.
the best writes usually are more difficult.  i wonder why that is?  why is it that the most profound pain causes the greatest poetry, the most loved songs, the most profound books?  of course, without pain, there would be no Blues.  there would be no kiss sweet enough to dispel heartbreak's burning grasp.
i had lunch with Lonnie today.  it was a moment of admission, and a nice good push from my impulse engine, to start me heading toward another black hole.
we spoke of how things are at this time with R, and believe me, I miss her a great deal, but that's just the deepening of my feelings for her.  we spoke of the things that i do with other people now, things that he remembers me vowing not wanting to do, almost swearing that i would never do them.  i had to admit, by way of amending what i could of years of damage, that i was...lying.
for years, for all the years i have been back in this city, and for several years before that,  apparently.  and again, what comes from pain, what loveliness is born in futures wrung dry of experience's blood?
Lonnie has been one of the best people in my life.  the condemnation that i have had to revise so recently, the condemnation of so many who were 'not there for me', has never included him, but he has been my best friend and therefore the brunt of most of my fears.  I have been in a struggle from the birth of Sydney until now.  I have been out of sorts with my own mind for a decade and a half, because of the factors which have come into play.  before Syd, i was a guardian to children, able to be objective and give lessons without true consequence to myself.  before Syd, i could close the world out for periods when the ridicules and the humiliations grew too heavy and too hot;  i could effect my retreat and return when i chose, to deal again with the terms of life that i had to live beneath.  but with a child of my own, a child born of my seed...there is an inherent responsibility that is born with that child.  and i could no longer run.  and i could no longer hide.  and all the anguish of my situation with Syd's mother had sickened me about myself and about people.  and all the women who came into my life after her were kept at a distance, so as to allow me to deal with Syd and to minimize the need to run.  and when distance couldn't be maintained, then i simply shut off my heart.  and one day, the switch to my heart began to mis-function. instead of being able to turn it on and off, it turned itself on and off at the worst possible times.  when i was at my low point, for instance, in columbus, with no decent job, with bills up to my neck, with a car that was constantly in a state of disrepair, i was on the verge of simply killing myself and sending the children away.  Lonnie and Mike, another friend who is now a casualty of my mental state, came to help me get back to youngstown with Syd, and De'ja went back with his mother, their mother.  i had failed De'ja, i had failed Sydney.  when i got back here, i  had to all but beg my father to allow Syd to stay with them, with all willingness to live in my car or find a shelter, just so long as i knew she was okay.  i had become nothing again in my parent's eyes.  i was a failure and here i was, needing a father who had placed in me that he had no intention of holding my hand forever.  i had tried to make that a non-issue, but i'd failed.  when i got work at West, i saw light in the tunnel.  it was a job, if not a great one.  it was money, wherein we could find a place of our own, we could build again, we could do things that we couldn't do in columbus.  and then the health began to fail, and the job fired me in a cowardly, underhanded way.  failed again.  and the anger and the hurt and the fear built something out of me that i didn't recognize.  i was ashamed, down to the seat of my pores, down to my soul.  i was ashamed of myself, and i couldn't deal with the shame, despite a wonderful counselor and being back with my sponsor.  so i started to numb with food.  always does the trick.  and i withdrew inside my head and heart, and i let no one any closer than they had to be.  i sought hostages, like R the first time around, but i think God was protecting people from me to a great extent, because denial to one used to living in it is like a gun in the hands of a trained assassin.  i was not kind to Lonnie, and he backed me off and i had to consider whether it was more important to be a self-righteous asshole and lose my friend, or to let go of that part of me and keep my friend.  again, i learned that i could change, but it wasn't enough for me to be honest about the pain and the fear.  so i would simply try to keep myself from feeling the feeling of being a failure.  i would decline when Lonnie would ask if i'd like to do certain activities, but i never told him, until today, that i declined because i had a feeling i'd never be able to 'balance the books' so to speak.  i would never be able to be for his family what he was for Syd and I.  i would send Syd to do things with them because i wanted her to do them and i didn't have the money.  and each time i went deeper into myself and ate a little more to numb a little deeper.  these are the results of silence, then.  this is the truth of when you hide inside yourself and pull everything you can down around you to camouflage yourself so that none can find you.  you find yourself buried in shit and alone.
i confessed this to Lonnie in a general way, and we spoke about it.  but i am still not right with it.  it's like finding i sleepwalked on the busy highway.  i don't feel better about being alive because i don't know if i will be next time and i don't know how i got so far out of control.  it is a dark matter, the same as the inside of a black hole.  it has a gravity that is greater than its mass and it can pull a lot of things in.  i hope that i have enough in me to break the gravitational pull and find some safety in distance.  we'll find out soon enough.