I think I may be having the crisis you’re supposed to have when you turn 30, only I’m two years too late.
After I broke it off with my fiancé five years ago, I swore off men for three-and-a-half years. I was tired of the lies, the bullshit, and the unwillingness to compromise on their part. I only had sex three times during my downtime. It was empty, meaningless sex that left me unfulfilled in more ways than one. I had no emotions and only a spark on humanity left in me. I was a shell of a person. After one of my best friends saved me from myself and I looked back on how I used to be, I swore I never wanted to return to that state of being ever again, but I have.
This time it’s worse. After my friend saved me, I became the person I had longed to be that was buried deep inside me and silently screamed to get out. I became the strong, strong-willed, confident person who truly loved myself for the first time. Shortly after, I decided I wanted to have emotions again and that I was finally ready to start dating again. I got both a short time after that and boy was that a mistake. I immediately had second thoughts about wanting to have gotten emotions again. The pain at the very end of that relationship was unbearable to a degree I never knew existed.
Even though that relationship ended (neither of us were to blame for that. Outside forces beyond either of our control), I still wanted to try because I found out I could love somebody again. I met another guy a few months later and began dating him. We had great conversations, but that’s about all. His reclusion and severe depression from his bi-polar disorder, which he was on medication for, didn’t help the situation any. I wasn’t as hurt this time, but I still wanted to try. And then along came someone so refreshing and different than anyone else. I fell for him hard. I was deeply in love with him. My world flew into an emotional downward spiral when I found out he didn’t feel the same way, even though I thought he did.
Having emotions has caused me nothing but pain in my life. Sure, there’s the short-lived joy and happiness thrown in there occasionally, but overall, just pain. With all the guys I’ve ever dated or fell for, it seems I was only there to help them go through whatever it was they needed to go through and then it was over and they were gone. I’ve spent so much of my life helping people and the only thing I have gotten in return is to go home alone and sad at the end of the day. The guys that said they loved me didn’t and the ones I fell for couldn’t return the feeling. Emotions are what broke, shattered, and destroyed this once strong, strong-willed, confident person and caused him to be a fragile shell of his once-former self and have zero self-esteem. This gets a person thinking.
I have come to the conclusion that I am unlovable, plain and simple. I must be some kind of monster, an abomination, a waste of flesh that sucks away at the world’s precious oxygen. Really, what other explanation is there? I must be about as lovable as cancer, botulism, and the bubonic plague all rolled up into one hideous mess. I know I’m not perfect. I know I’m not the best-looking guy. I know I don’t have the biggest dick. I know I work weird hours from much of the rest of the world. But you know what I do have? I have a heart that is overflowing with love and nowhere for that love to go. I have an incredibly romantic side that is unappreciated. I have the willingness to go out of my way to compromise and help make a relationship work, even when that willingness isn’t returned. I have arms and a body made for cuddling that lay cold and dormant on long winter’s nights. I have lips made for kissing tears and pain away and making you feel good about yourself and expressing my love and care, but they grow ever more dry and chapped from inactive use. None of these things I have will ever see the light of day.
I feel like Buffy from the episode “Once More With Feeling”, the musical episode in season 6. I’m just going through the motions of life, but not living in it. I want to feel alive, but I can’t because I’ve been pulled from “heaven” and am now in hell. I have no clue if this is really me right now. I touch fire and it freezes me, not burn my skin like fire should. I troop and deal, but don’t acknowledge the million things or more I should find joy in.
So, here I am at a major crossroad in my life. Do I go back to being emotionless, having only a tiny, burning spark of humanity left in me that burns in my core so hot that I want to gut myself to get rid of it? My life was better in some ways then. I didn’t worry about being lied to, dealing with bullshit, being told “I love you, but I wish…”, etc. I didn’t feel the pain that existed within me. I didn’t feel the loneliness that surrounds me like an oversized suffocating blanket. I didn’t feel… anything. Or, do I keep my emotions, knowing that nobody out there will ever truly love me for me, allowing the pain and loneliness to build up until I can’t stand it anymore and hide away from all of humanity forevermore?
As with all things in life, this may just be a fleeting moment in time and will pass. Then again, I’ve been hurt so many times in my life and have no desire whatsoever to ever keep cycling through that pain again. Which path to choose? Only time will tell.
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