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Just waiting 'til the shine wears off

What's the price you're willing to pay for happiness? Does it matter when? I'm at the last stage according to the Wikipedia entry. Except the Wikipedia entry calls it severe. It's just splitting hairs, anyway. But what does it mean? What does really believing it have to do with anything, except that this is the stubborn stolidity of the other kind, the kind that refuses to budge, the kind that's really hard to overcome.

How would you react if I told you you've wasted the last 10 years of your life? Well, not wasted, but they were a waste either way. All lies. The first fear? Lies. The follow-ups? Lies. The whispers? Lies too. The hours and hours you wasted keeping the fear in check? Yes, those too. And the years I skipped in the middle of those? The ones I can't remember because, well, there aren't any markers I've left and it's too late now. They're wasted, too. Somewhere, some part of me is thinking that there are pins in my head pushing down on some part of my brain causing this, but that would just be the effect, not the cause. Something triggered it. And I know I'd like to take it all back. Never have believed it in the first place. But I don't know the trigger, and so I must be at fault.

How do you make peace with the fact that everything good that you ever thought would happen to you has already happened? Am I willing to pay for those good times, times I didn't realize were that good, by living out the rest of my life dutifully? Were they even that good in the first place? It's deadening, thinking that. People say the birth of your first child takes your breath away. But I can't look that far in the future. I need a small sign, something to tell me there are small things coming up that can make me smile.

I did get lost. This is more than just the disease.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Attempts at reassurance inspire the brain to automatically scan for any possible exceptions.
4:42 AM
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