“You’re reaching.” she wrote.  A gentle reminder that I was once again allowing my desperation to influence my actions.  Eventually I cut myself off from her because I didn’t trust myself to not repeat that behavior.  I didn’t want to burden her and embarrass myself further.  She was actually much more irritated about it than I had expected and I may very well have damaged that connection permanently.  Such is price I pay for indulging what I know is foolish behavior, when I allow the emotions I keep so well in check to bubble through the cracks and control me.  That wouldn’t be the last time they would cause such damage.

So what happens?  How does the one who some say seems so strong and often emotionless crack and screw up like that?  As I’ve mentioned before, it’s because after so much time, desperation temporarily sets in and I start to really feel alone.  I say often that I am good at being alone, that I like being alone.  Everyone who knows me knows that I like my space, there are very few people I care to spend more than a day or two with, and much much fewer whom I can tolerate for more than a month.  But even though I actually do have people I could call, they are not really my people, at least not yet.

Allow me to try and make some sense of this.  I’ve spoken before of cycles and I know where I’m at in mine.  Before I was isolated following a major change and the same has happened again.  Those I was close to the during the previous cycle are essentially ghosts now (there are notable exceptions, but none are in the foreground due to circumstance) and though some who were previously in the background might be moving to the foreground, right now is a transition… a very, very quiet transition.  I have no room to complain, my life is good, my job is good and I have some really great people in my life.  But make no mistake that I am quite alone and sometimes, late at night or early in the morning when I’m starting or ending my day and there is nothing to distract me, I notice how very silent it is, and that silence is very, very loud.

So what did I do when this solitude began to set in and I wanted to reach out to everyone I could?  Well, obviously I became intentionally introverted.  For years I was one of those people at the center of the parties.  I would arrange massive gatherings, bring people from all walks of life together and usually serve them ridiculous amounts of alcohol until crazy shit happened.  It was great for a time, especially when many of those were my people.  But eventually the novelty faded and I began to question the point.  Most recently at the turn of the year I examined a similar event and realized that for what I put out, I wasn’t really getting much back any more.  Unless I actively pursued these people, I wouldn’t see them, hear from them and if I reached out and they responded, they were doing me a favor. In fairness some probably don’t even realize that dynamic exists, but then, that’s the point.  They don’t really consider it, they don’t really consider me.  So, I basically said “Fuck that.” and withdrew.  I made it a general rule that I would happily address those who addressed/invited me.  If they did not, then we all have our priorities, and I simply wasn’t one.  It sounds a little bitter, but it’s more a resignation that (especially for me) things change and nothing is permanent.

Understanding the way of things doesn’t always make it easy though.  My inner-voice tells me to simply be “patient” (wisdom springs from experience and patience after all…) but sometimes lately I like that word a little less every time it is whispered to me.  It is restlessness that sets in after a very long time of enduring something.  It will ebb and flow and fade, but sometimes it does get difficult, and that’s when I begin to reach.  That’s when I get myself into trouble.  But until the universe throws me another inevitable curve ball (it loves doing that…) I will remain withdrawn and selectively accept the company of those who seek it from me.  I don’t owe the world anything more than I am willing to give and the universe will put me where it needs me anyway.

It’s a fight though… to not try and shatter the silence with something, anything.  The last cycle I was put into a position in which I didn’t have a choice but accept somebody that I knew I probably shouldn’t have… and at the same time another far more important person was beginning to be alienated, eventually seemingly permanently (thus far anyway…)  So I will try not to reach and I will focus on not repeating my mistakes in whatever form they present themselves in this time.  I will wait and be patient until I can remember how to wake up and find my way out of the silence the right way.  I will be stronger, I will endure and I will try not to lose all of the person I was when I was happier.  Things change and nearly everything is temporary in this, so I will endeavor to control the one thing in this world that I can: me.