My Truth

It’s strange how a lifetime of first thoughts can change. It took a few months, but I no longer wake up and wonder, “Will today be the day I meet, him?” Him being the man I was created for. All my life, since my earliest memories, I had this knowing I was meant for someone else.

I don’t feel as if I need completion or as if I am a partial without him, but I do have this knowing I could be so much more, with him. I could be extraordinary instead of utterly average. I also know I am perfectly capable of loving someone who isn’t my soul mate, and in return I am completely worthy of being loved. I don’t have any of those normal complexes. Apart from my aging exterior, I have very little self-doubt, and I think I’m a pretty cool girl. I like myself just fine.

None of that has anything to do with my desire to be seen or found by, him. I don’t set my self-worth on that kind of scale. Sadly, all I really want is to be loved and understood. I want harmony and agreement with a person I can call my own. Oh, also mind blowing sex, but that’s not the important thing here. I’ve even made contact with one other I could feel at an emotional level. I spent two years in a cyber only relationship with a man I knew was a soul mate. Even in knowing that, I couldn’t be with him, and I want it all, not just pieces and parts I find in different men. I want the whole package, heart, mind, soul, body; all or nothing. I am better off alone, than grasping at something unattainable.

Then last February, I met a man. A much younger man than myself, but the instant knowing knocked me over. He was him, in the flesh, there in person. My heart settled. My mind cleared. The static evaporated and I was instantly, so much more than I had been just moments previous, and I could feel him empathically. The narcotic of my choice is this kind of soul connection, and it was instant on my part.

In our beginnings, I felt extraordinary! I felt divine and everything made sense. All the previous—why didn’t that work out?—became clear. It was him I’d been waiting for. His desire became my fuel and I wanted to live like I’ve never really felt before.

We tried, and I briefly thrived. None of the in-between is very important, but it became clear I wasn’t his, her. I never considered it wouldn’t go both ways with how intensely I felt. I wanted to be his, her, and I tried everything I could to tell him and show him how I felt.

When I was hurting, I told him. That in itself was me showing how much I loved him, how much I cared, and how much I wanted this to work out. The old me would have stuffed and shrugged it off, and eventually I’d have grown cold and apathetic towards him. That was how I’d operated all the years before and with all my past relationships. That was why, before him, I never felt the kind of pain that comes from a truly broken heart.

This time I was doing it differently. I was going to show him all my soft spots, all my little bruises, and I was going to communicate all my need. I wasn’t going to be cold and self-contained. I wasn’t going to bury any of it, or fake my way through anything. I felt real, and I wanted this thing with him to be real. I was refusing to drown in two inches of water. I was investing time and love and every cent I made to prove how much I loved him.

None of that worked in my favor and now he is not in my life. I guess I was too real, but I don’t have an answer for what my alternative might have been. I have to be real. I have to value my own worth, even if nobody else does. I don’t have much worth left to value and I really am a nobody in this world. All I wanted was to be a somebody to him.

So now I wake up every morning with a different thought, and it sounds dire and suicidal, even though I am anything but. I know what suicidal feels like, and trust me, I am not. Yes, I am depressed. Yes, I am alone and flailing in a life I don’t want to live. I don’t have much of a reason or incentive to even try that hard, and I am feeling about the opposite of extraordinary.

My first waking thoughts have now morphed. I no longer wonder when, he, might appear. Instead, “I wonder if today is the day I will get to die?” I’m all too aware of how easy it is die, and I always think; “Maybe today is that day. I can only hope.” I don’t have a death wish, but I am not that invested in being alive, and I believe there is a big difference.

I hear a lot of talk about living in and speaking our truth, even if it makes others uncomfortable, or they end up rejecting you in the process. That’s what happened with me, but I don’t see a substitute for being desperately honest. I refuse to live in denial. I did that for the first half of my life, and I ended up suicidal. Now though, even though this will make many feel they must give me a reason to want to live, I don’t see it that way. What is a good reason to live? Others who depend on you? What about you? Honestly, the second I am permitted to move past this existence, I want too. I want to let go of whatever it is holding me here; whatever tests I haven’t passed, I need to pass them so I can go. I simply do not fit here. There are none of my kind.

I know we loose things and people in life, and life goes on. New puppies make us grit our teeth, kittens romp, miracle foals are born and new friends appear. I’ve even learned I can write many different stories and produce entire books. I know how to speak horse, and I can help a prey animal find balance and sanity in a world full of predators. I have an odd skill set and my resume is one of the strangest you’ll ever read.

I have a mile long gratitude list and I am thankful for everything and everyone in my life. I’ve learned to adore every moment I am permitted to do what I love, (be with my horses and write), but that doesn’t make me want to stay here. It makes me okay in my moment and it gets me through a day, but my first thoughts are not candy coated. The next day always looms and I must survive through it.

On the far off chance there is another, him, out there? I don’t have the energy to crawl out of my cave to be seen or found. And if the current, him, didn’t come and drag me out by my hair? Then the odds of a, new him, finding me, are well, you can do that math. I can’t really trust my heart ever again. I was patched up when I started, and now I’m held together with sticks and glue. 

I’m already feeling defensive about this blog, which will make me publish it, but I know most will miss my point and misinterpret this entire essay. It’s why I write, period. To make others think past their stale perceptions. Some thank me for putting words to the intangible desperation they feel. Others just see through different filters and will chastise me for my lack of enthusiasm at being alive.

All I’m doing is, voicing the hollowness of my existence. The lack of meaning and the devaluing others inflict upon me. I try and put all that into words, and maybe someday that will help someone else not feel so alone, but in this moment, I am, and since I am a writer and a poet, it is my duty to at least try and put it in words.

This is me being real. That is my honest truth. I am voicing my pain and wish to escape. I am not looking for solace, or a reason, or any comforting words. I am not suicidal, I am just being honest. This is my truth.

~Payne Hawthorne