thoughts

it means something when you find that you were the hope that you kept in your heart.  not the situation, not the relationship, but you.  you generated that hope, you held on from the inside of yourself to the world around you.

it means something entirely different, when you lose the hope from inside you.

i don't know what to do, exactly.  i am too old for drastic actions based on something that i knew was never going to bear fruit.  i guess the thing is, maybe i was never meant to do much of anything.

i can't discount what i have managed to physically do.  i have books, i have written.  i have poetry, i have performed on stages.  i have a child, she did graduate.  i have a job, i have to be to work at 4pm this afternoon.  i have things, not many but some.  and all these things are by the grace of God, and i know this to be true.

right now, i feel empty.  i could lay in this bed all day and that would feel completely right and fine.  i won't, though.  in May, emotional upheaval cost me a preferable job.  yes, i was going through physical discomforts.  yes, the gout had spread in ways i never thought it would or could.

even this morning, i woke with a foot cramp.  i'm finding that breathing exercises, controlling my breath and holding the oxygen, helps to alleviate the cramp far more than any moaning or massaging.  but the pain i've gone through on this job has been worse by far than what i went through working for Amazon.  and now, i have to accept that my future lies here, past this place i'm at.  it surely does not lie behind me.

i'm on point.  i'll live.  it's not the dumbest thing i've done.  i don't feel bad.  i'm not going to exist in someone's emotional void.  i'm not going to ride the amusement park attraction of someone's lack of a center in their own life.  i'm not prepared to do that.  i'd rather just move on.  i have things i have to do.

but i feel so empty.

a good deal of my tomorrows always included Rachel.  time to spend, time to talk.  a plan to plan.  what now?  time to let go, time to acclimate to needing her not in my life.  a plan to remove the hooks.
and there is, finally and truthfully, no one else.

i cut those ties in an effort to be true to how i felt.  i don't at this point even know if that was real or projection.  how i felt, i mean.  but i do know that i didn't hold on to side shit, because i wanted something with Rachel that was worth sacrificing for.

truth is, all my whining here means nothing of substance.  she stated it as plainly as could be.  "I know I don't want what you want."  i don't believe she even knew what i wanted, other than a life together.

i'm just tired of looking into a lonely future.

i'm just tired.