Sometimes I feel that I don’t exist. That I am invisible. I wake up, go about my day, try to get in touch with people, see my reflection in them, but everything I do passes by without a trace. Everything, except work. Work is special, rewarding. With every line of submitted code I see the trace of me. I exist. It’s the time off - weekends - that are hard. Vacations - unbearable.
I feel completely alone. I want to scream. To show the others how much it hurts. To show that I am trying. To show that I exist. To be noticed. Or maybe, I just want to show you that you exist too. If we share this, then we exist.
Lonely. Nobody wants to hear that you are lonely. I have been lonely most of my life. My family did not talk to each other. As a child, I happily replaced the human connection with computer screen. Growing up, I tried to make friends, but I always felt wrong. I never felt understood. Always an oddball. Clumsy. Grey. Invisible. First I felt that I am boring everyone in the room. Then I removed myself out of that room. Out of most rooms. 24 hours in a day became too many. If only I could sleep most of that time.
Alone. Everything that is important happens on your own. Or rather, no matter who is next to you, you and you alone have to deal with it. Your entire support system: friends, therapy, family (for the lucky ones), dogs, cats, turtles - they support. Hopefully they can be relied upon, so as you are crashing down towards the bottom of the abyss the net will catch you and hold. But it is you that is crashing. It is you who are pulling on the net, trying it, testing for weaknesses, pulling deeper and deeper. It is you they will blame when the net breaks. Too heavy they will say. Too much. I have my own shit to deal with that too. Yeah right, it’s hard. I can’t help you.
At least that’s what I thought. Until I met a friend. He, who tried to meet me at the bottom of the abyss and show that there is a way up. He, who helped me to start weaving the net as I climbed back up. Many years ago, probably close to a decade now. A whole decade of climb. At the bottom I only saw darkness. As we climbed I started to see the light ahead. And light grew, and grew, and it keeps on growing still. But every time I think I see the sky, I see more walls on all sides. More climbing.
I am tired. I don’t want to climb any more. Hope. I think it’s the hope that is exhausted. A hope that one day things will get easier. They probably won’t.
That turned out dark.
What is it that you are dealing with that is making you so unhappy? My mother asked some years ago, after about a decade of smalltalk. Why are you so angry? Well, guess why. And I am angry. And I am finally showing this anger because it has been brewing since I am alive. Did you ever think you want to harm your father? Did you wish he would just die and leave you alone? I did, I think, since I was six, until I no longer had to see him around me. And then a little longer. This much anger. I kept it within and let it destroy me. And now I scream, and I will have to keep screaming because it hurts.
It hurts to be a queer boy in a society which celebrates it, but also wants nothing to do with it. We see you. But don’t get closer. Too weird. I love your nails. Don’t get closer. Too feminine. Too sensitive. Too much. Like a fox, everybody likes a fox. Until she starts to walk towards you. Don’t. Get. Closer.
So yet again it’s just me, alone, with me. A boulder hanging over that abyss on a silky web that still holds.