(Written by a young man)

A blessing and a curse – to be capable. To have options. To feel like the whole world is your oyster and you can direct yourself anywhere you wish. And if you don’t get there, all your encumberments, external factors, are to blame. My sick family, my relationship, society and its twisted obsessions with money. Well, that and I am convinced I have an ailing mind full of hesitations, anxieties and atrophies – where does that one fall? Still an external factor?

I wish so badly to be content. To have my day-to-day numbness assuaged and feel whole once again. I desire something as simple as to be able to jump in a pool again, unshackled by my self-consciousness.
At this precipice again. The final illusion – that a romantic relationship will bring salvation, bring back completeness once again with self and other, self and world – needs to be shattered.

I’m only as encumbered by my relationship, by my self-consciousness, by my family, by my ANYTHING as much as I empower it to be so (so I say right now). I could jump from relationship to relationship, seeking over and over a solution to my numbness. But part of my agony over ending things with my girlfriend is that I think in exceedingly equal parts that perhaps things aren’t as ‘right’ as they could be for a life partner, and perhaps it is that I’m outsourcing a solution and getting frustrated that it’s not working out again – that I’m not as ‘known’ as I ideally want to be, and it’s her fault this isn’t solved for me.

The hostile energy built up since Junior High and beyond – when the Original Illusion shattered, the one between self and other – seeking solution in the other. Couldn’t find it in my environment (too provincial), couldn’t find it with my family (negative, too old to ‘get’ it), couldn’t in my relationships (they were crazy, not smart enough, I’m not passionate enough). But the truth is, I’ve been numb for a lo-o-o-ng time. Even back at the age of 20 and beyond.
Writing this out just makes me plunge deeper into the anxiety – making it even harder to face her later with cheeriness and lighthearted appreciation for the meal she’s about to make tonight. I haven’t done a grand (or not-so-grand even), nice gesture for her in so long. I always feel so unmotivated to do so. But then again, I don’t want to end up with someone who fires up my desire to please for a year (or so), only to result in a hen-pecked play on my anxieties later when it flames out. The external may look different, but the internal could very much be the same.
The suffering – the illusions; the ‘it always being better some other place, some other time’; that someone else will *know* me well enough to bring about my wholeness again; the constant consciousness of the other; my own inhibitions to be a part of this world, silencing the constant perceived judgement of the other; living without relying on the conduit of another to recognize myself; the fear and anxiety over any wrong move taking me away from the truest, fastest, most correct path to personal salvation.

The salvation – freedom from fear and anxiety; freedom from self-consciousness; my own personal heaven. I wanted to write ‘my own separateness, my own identity’ for that last one, but I can dimly see the contradictory nature in wanting to both be in the world, but defined as an identity within it. Not ego identity – perhaps that’s a common way of being ‘the rock’ in the world – but more of someone with personhood, not so easily sucked up into the vacuum of other’s experiences. My own mental and bodily safe haven.