Half Life

It’s exhausting putting on smiles when all you want to do is curl up in a dark place. I could barely keep it together when we pulled up at the office this morning. I felt the tears brewing behind my eyes and all I wanted to do was sob. I know Andy feels helpless and I try to keep the despair from him. Sometimes I can keep it away from him and suppress the sadness into the furthest corners of my mind. But lately I just cannot push it away. Part of me just wants to sink into the infinite blackness of it and not return so I don’t have to see that look in Andy’s eyes when he feels helpless. Or so I don’t have to hear the raised concern in my brother’s voice, knowing he has shared my grief with my parents and their own inability to really help. I don’t want my pain to be their pain.

This should be a happy time. Autumn is my favorite season. After all it has my favorite Sabbat, Samhain. I should have had time to head to the Renaissance Festival but, due to the craziness that is my horrible job, I will miss out on it again this year. I will also miss out on one of my other favorite seasonal events, Frederick’s “In The Streets” because of my job. I should be lucky I managed to not miss Octoberfest this year of the Frederick Fair. I’m not a “Summer” kind of person, I’m not into a lot of those kind of events so I didn’t care if I worked too much then. I just hate hearing people say “There’s always next year” because “next year” is never guaranteed. Hell, tomorrow is not guaranteed. I’ve experienced too much in the way of sudden deaths this year to take much for granted just to cater to a faceless company that only cares about the bottom line and how much I can be exploited to further the green lining their pockets.

I see it now in my family. I see the years catching up to them, I can fully grasp that they are middle aged. I am nearly the age my mother was when she gave birth to my brother, if that is any kind of perspective for people out there. My baby brother is no longer a baby by any standards, he is turning 20. He’s an adult with a child’s innocence because he simply cannot handle dealing with the outside world. I love my family more than words can express and the people I love are perhaps my greatest weakness because I would suffer the most terrible torment for those I love. Of course that sentiment extends to my own little family that consists of my darling husband too. (I’d probably do anything for my sweet kitty-faces too. Kaylee and Sonic are my little loves no matter how many hairballs I find deposited around my house.)

I see my world changing. I see society breaking down and I wonder if this is what Rome was like as it collapsed. People wielding their religious beliefs like a weapon, slaughtering each other in the name of god and their so called “true” way. People using their religion as a tool to manipulate and dictate to the masses, to steal freedom and close minds to a changing world. Fractured countries impose their corrupt democracy on others where life was already on a knife’s edge. There’s so much banality and little good left in anything. Is there anything left pure? From where I am standing, I say no. I am gifted or cursed to see things from all angles.

I am incredibly melancholy but I guess I will just continue to wear my smile till I can’t anymore.