"We Are Each Our Own Devill"

"We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell"
-Oscar Wilde

I recently had an IM comversation with a girl I know from law school. Her name is Megan. She remarked that I was very good at noticing the bad and not the good things that happen in life. I guess that when you've had the experiences that I've had, it gets really easy to notice the bad. It got me to thinking, something that I am also good at.
That night, I found out the ending to that weird dream I've been having. When I was given the chance to see what was beyond the edge of the world, I turned around. Just as I did that, a voice said, "Just like everything else. Stop looking behind you." At that moment, I realized what this dream was all about. I've been embracing the past and letting it take control of who I am now.

Wendell Berry once wrote, "The past is our definition. We may strive, with good reason, to escape it, or to escape what is bad in it, but we will escape it only by adding something better to it." For me, the past will always shape who I am. It's just that I've been embracing it too much. So much that I can't let go of it, despite it being spike-covered and the embrace is slowly killing me emotionally and socially.

I only have to ability to shape my one life. To live it how I want to live it. To do what I want to do with it. To make myself happy and to be happy doing it and to love life honestly, despite all the painful things that have happened in the past. And what have I done with it? Nothing very constructive. I have to ability to make life how I want to live it, and I have done the exact opposite.

I shaped my life into something negative. I've made my life, as Elbert Hubbard once said, "one damned thing after another." I'm burning inside with violent anger, making it my motivation. I've become bitter at everything, seeing the inherent corruption. I'm making my life Hell on Earth. I've isolated myself form everyone. I've built up walls to isolate myself so I will not get into the same situations that have hurt me in the past. Loneliness and solitude has become a refuge from the world, a bitter poison that destroys me, and something that makes me want to bang my head against the wall, wondering why the hell I am living and feeling this way.

And the price I've paid for this behavior, this insane clinging to the past, allowing it to shape my life into this living hell? I've let too many things die inside of me. Death is not a great loss. What dies inside of us while we live, that is the greatest loss.

I don't trust people; I'm suspicious of them. Even when I genuinely like a person, a small part of me wonders if they are hiding something. I dislike being touched. I find anything resembling affection towards me to be a sign of suspicion. I literally cringe from physical contact. From everyone, including girls. Even when I genuinely and truly like a person and find them attractive and want to be closer to them, I can't. I've built up so many emotional barriers that I find it hard to tell anyone that I like them or even love them. That I have genuine feelings toward them. People say that most people find saying "I love you" to be the easiest thing to say and showing how much you genuinely love them to be the hardest thing to do. Not for me. I find both hard to do. Maybe I'm naturally that way. Maybe I'm not, and I've just allowed the anger and bitterness to kill it off.
That's quite impressive, though something one does not want to happen. Love just doesn't die a natural death. You have to kill off the source from where it comes from. It dies of blindness and betrayals. It dies from illness and multiple wounds. It withers, it tarnishes, it wearies. And when it does, it takes a long time to refill it.
It's so hard for me to tell people how I truly feel. I've become reserved. It is hard for me to tell people that they are near and dear to me. What gives me some sort of pleasure in life. Even when I like them and I want to be closer than close to them, to share how I feel about them. God only knows how many times I wanted to say something to someone and lost all courage to do so, only because a part of me was afraid to say "I love you" to someone. I've lost so many opportunites to do so, only because I have put up all of these barriers and walls so I would not get hurt. It's painful. You want to say things to them, but you can't. And all because I've embraced a painful past and can't let go of it.

And it's hard to let go of it. It's really hard, despite knowing that embracing it has caused so much trouble for me on a personal level. If I do let go of it, what will remain? It's given me an identity and if I do let go, what identity will I have? I guess I will have to find out sooner or later. It will probably be for the better.

That's all for now. Later. Until we meet again.