Mournday
Dearest,
How different the world looks now. How dingy and silly. Things that I once thought necessary and required now just seem trivial and pretentious. I watch the lonely people hurry about on their errands that really aren’t important. Not aware that all about them an uncaring world continues on without them. Every body is an orphan, every one is alone, filling their empty hours with nonsense and busy work. I thought they’re searching for meaning, but they’re not, they’re attempting to manufacture meaning. Trying to justify their empty activities with plausible reasons. With scarcely a thought for the future, and no thought at all for the past, a past filled with mistakes and heartaches, the future they tell themselves, will be better. “I’ll be smarter, more careful, I won’t let that happen again.” They will, it will happen again, as patterns repeat. Templates set down by their own patterned behaviors, their own dreadful habits, they run in circles trying to out distance the pain.
I wonder, will I be like that? This moment I spend but a brief interlude between tragedies. A quiet time of reflection on the frivolity of life, my short-lived respite before plunging headlong into the chaos once again. I grow older, as good and kind people around me do not, but no wiser. I have learned no secrets and conquered no great obstacles. I waste my precious hours on regret and sorrow. What is it that I actually want? Is there a thing I want to accomplish? I have many questions but so few answers; I barely even understand the questions now. The more I learn, the less I know.
I am invisible. I walk among them unseen and unheard. I watch children swiping grapes as mother selects oranges for her bag. I watch employees stocking shelves diligently oblivious to the customers around them. A short, plump woman bangs her cart into my side, she mumbles “Sorry, I didn’t see you”, my point exactly. Those I love die and yet I am the ghost? I am only half here, perhaps. Yet I am here, am I not? Lately, I am not so sure, perhaps the part of me that remains is not worth noticing. That insignificant part of me that is not really me at all. Does everyone feel this way?
The evening shadows are crawling across the room now. I live in those shadows, sometimes I feel that I am but a shadow. A shadow of my former self. My shadow is now my only company, at least it doesn’t complain or dawdle when I need to run an errand. If I were to lose my shadow, like Peter Pan, I suppose I would be devastated. Tomorrow is back to work. That should put an end to my pointless pondering.
Till, Your Ken
How different the world looks now. How dingy and silly. Things that I once thought necessary and required now just seem trivial and pretentious. I watch the lonely people hurry about on their errands that really aren’t important. Not aware that all about them an uncaring world continues on without them. Every body is an orphan, every one is alone, filling their empty hours with nonsense and busy work. I thought they’re searching for meaning, but they’re not, they’re attempting to manufacture meaning. Trying to justify their empty activities with plausible reasons. With scarcely a thought for the future, and no thought at all for the past, a past filled with mistakes and heartaches, the future they tell themselves, will be better. “I’ll be smarter, more careful, I won’t let that happen again.” They will, it will happen again, as patterns repeat. Templates set down by their own patterned behaviors, their own dreadful habits, they run in circles trying to out distance the pain.
I wonder, will I be like that? This moment I spend but a brief interlude between tragedies. A quiet time of reflection on the frivolity of life, my short-lived respite before plunging headlong into the chaos once again. I grow older, as good and kind people around me do not, but no wiser. I have learned no secrets and conquered no great obstacles. I waste my precious hours on regret and sorrow. What is it that I actually want? Is there a thing I want to accomplish? I have many questions but so few answers; I barely even understand the questions now. The more I learn, the less I know.
I am invisible. I walk among them unseen and unheard. I watch children swiping grapes as mother selects oranges for her bag. I watch employees stocking shelves diligently oblivious to the customers around them. A short, plump woman bangs her cart into my side, she mumbles “Sorry, I didn’t see you”, my point exactly. Those I love die and yet I am the ghost? I am only half here, perhaps. Yet I am here, am I not? Lately, I am not so sure, perhaps the part of me that remains is not worth noticing. That insignificant part of me that is not really me at all. Does everyone feel this way?
The evening shadows are crawling across the room now. I live in those shadows, sometimes I feel that I am but a shadow. A shadow of my former self. My shadow is now my only company, at least it doesn’t complain or dawdle when I need to run an errand. If I were to lose my shadow, like Peter Pan, I suppose I would be devastated. Tomorrow is back to work. That should put an end to my pointless pondering.
Till, Your Ken
Replies
Ken,
There were times early on when I thought I was invisible. I think it is a universal truth of those who grieve. Yes, I too noticed the pointless meandering of people doing trivial, meaningless things.
\"Look at all the lonely people\"...
Believe it or not I think this journal post is a turning point for you. Questioning, searching, looking for the what\'s next.
Blessings,
Linda
This sounds so like I feel much of the time. Even when I am in a room full of family at times I just feel like the unseen entity. But that walking around a store full of people and feeling like no one knows you are there - me, exactly.
Hope your return to work brings back some kind of \"normal\" if there is such thing.
Best wishes,
Angie
Yes Ken.......we have all felt like that.........just exactly like that.
Ken, It\'s like you see inside of our heads. I know that I don\'t care about material things anymore. I care more for family, want to hold them close. You\'ve had a reprieve from the outside world for awhile, now it\'s back to reality. I think you do get wiser. I think we all get wiser, with tragedies around us.
Take care, Paula
Yes, Ken I have wrote about that feeling before at the grocery store. Once I said just being in line I have thought people would cut right in front of me because no one saw me there. I can see peoples lips move but barely make out what they are saying as they come around the corner and bang into me and stare at me like I am nonexistent in the store I have been at for years. I think where is this place I am at? Who am I? Why did I even come here? I cant even find anything anymore....At a place I used to only get things for him now I am here getting things for me?? How do I do that? Totally weirds me out...~Christi
Ken, You have such a way with words. I think we all feel like you do but don\'t know how to express it even to ourselves. I find myself questioning the meaning of my life. Why am I here and Rodger is not. He was by far the more productive member of our family. What is life about anyway? Diane
It\'s all those meaningless errands. People going about their business. The world still turning. Yet my world is shattered. You\'ve hit the nail on the head. This journey sucks!