I know who I am. I know that, deep down, I am a man who wants to love the whole world. I’m a man who wants to feed people, to give them relief from the pain of every day life, even if it’s only for a meal, a hug, and a prayer. Where others may want to hurt, I want to heal. There’s no ulterior motive to that, it’s just what I want to do. Even as a child, and I’ve mentioned this before, I would go around hugging people, from family members to complete “strangers.”
Oh, I should note that when I type it out in reference to other people, “strangers” always has quotations around it, because I don’t believe in the term as it is used. No human being is a “stranger” to me. None. Calling someone a “stranger” is the fastest way to separate them from you, to keep them beyond arms length, and to justify all manner of behavior because they’re not in the circle of people to be loved, or trusted. So I do not believe in that usage of the word, never have.
I do have mental issues, I know this and I accept it. I have anxiety, depression, I can be paranoid to the extreme (likely as a side effect of other undiagnosed issues I don’t have the money to work on), though I never act on it. Beyond the mental issues, I also have some social quirks. I am an introvert. Being around people makes me nervous. Being in public places causes severe anxiety. This is why I know how powerful love is, because it is able to overcome these issues and allow me to approach people as if I were the most extroverted human being on the planet. You’d think I was a game show host and tour guide with how amiable I am towards people I’ve never met.
So I know who I am.
Yet I am often afraid. While I run on my own internal moral compass, and understand that I will always be here for me, one of my greatest fears is that the love I offer others will be rejected, and that I will also be rejected. I faced rejection quite often as a child. I was bullied, ignored, reprimanded for things I never did, mocked by family, and often Othered by people who just couldn’t tolerate my personality.
My deepest, darkest fear is that I will die unloved, and alone. That I will be rejected, wholly, as a person, and that my death will be seen as welcome. I have harbored this fear for most of my life. Even as a child, I feared such rejection. I have always possessed dark thoughts. I hate them, I abhor them, but I possess them. I don’t talk about it much, because in our society it’s taboo to discuss the darkest thoughts you have with others, especially if you’re still a child. People don’t like to talk about things like that, at least, in my experience.
So I carry these with me. I wonder if it is the burden of all human beings to carry such things, or if only a few really do. I don’t know, because I don’t really ask. I’m always afraid that if I ask, if I broach the subject, I’ll be seen as abnormal, as undesirable, as someone to fear, to be hated, to be shunned. That the stigma will so effectively cut me off from humanity, from human kindness, love, and compassion, that it would effectively kill me, because it would.
So I contain those thoughts and feelings, and I try to repress them until they’ve been squeezed into the tiniest singularity. I’ve become more free with my emotions these days, in that I openly love, cry, and show as much affection as I can, because that *is* how I feel. My friends, I love people so much. From kids to senior citizens and everyone in between, I love them all, and want to make them all safe, happy, and I want them to know they are loved.
Still, the fear exists, and while I do know who I am, I wonder if I am already truly alone and just do not realize it. Only time will reveal that truth.
THE DARKEST THOUGHTS BEFORE THE DAWN
