My Confession

I was born and I became me at some point in time so long ago I can't recall.  What is certain, it wasn't an accident what I became. When I was born I was stamped with an existence that is to be spent alone. To be unencumbered with ties to people, places or time.   I never cared for the company of others, never cared much for material possessions that I owned and I certainly disavowed and cleansed myself of all memories of things, places and people that will come into my life and then quietly leave to pursue whatever endeavor they perceived as essential to their own survival.  I felt mostly annoyed at the deception they permitted within themselves, the deception that they mattered and that their lives mattered. They were searching for meaning to attach to their small lives and experimenting, few randomly while others prepared a plan, with the method by which that elusive meaning would present itself to them.  The meaning that will make all their endeavors worthwhile. The meaning that did not exist. Some became a part of my life for some time while others I simply watched from a distance, hoping they would not notice me. I was not to become what they are. I will not blindly search for that which I know does not exist. I will define the purpose of my  life and I will give myself a meaning that did not involve the great accomplishment all others seem to be working towards. I always preferred dark corners to visible spaces. I yearned to be forgotten so I may be left alone to accomplish my task. Not of greatness and not of continuity. My task was to define me and create a purpose that I can accept.

I could not comprehend either the joy or the sadness that people around me diffused  so effortlessly. Yet, at some point I seem to have recognized that these expressions where necessary for survival.  I had to learn that which I did not possess by instinct. So I learned. I laughed when an anecdote required laughter and I consoled when a misery seemed to be at hand.  When the end of each day came, and I was certain that I was alone, I reviewed my actions and recalled my few utterances from the day before so I may be satisfied that no offence was committed.  Before sleep, I will spend countless hours trying to define my existence in a consistent manner that will lead to the formulation of a purpose towards which I would direct my energy, but to no avail.  Every instance I could imagine introduced some contradiction. The purpose, a true purpose that does not require me to deceive myself, was elusive. Maybe it did not exist. Maybe such idea was incredible enough to not be possible.  I struggled to find an escape from the lie that has become my existence.

In the course of time, the lie that was my existence became the norm.  When in the company of others I would be the jovial, caring and compassionate man everyone knew and loved.  What no one could see is the burning desire inside me that demanded I seek solitude and when solitude came, so did peace.  Those late hours when only the odd sounds of the night, the constant hum of the city interrupted by the occasional cat meowing or dog barking, could be heard and no soul could be felt where my happiest moments.  The moments where no expressions of happiness or sorrow where required. The hours when I could slip deep into myself and wonder at the world around me. My dreams where the waking moments while those moments in the night right before slumber where the most real.  Did anyone feel as I did? I often wondered. And the answer always came, exactly the same every night. Of course they knew, but, much like me, what choice did they have. Survival required the same duties of everyone and everyone had to follow the rules or face extinction.

And so life went.   Dutifully during the day and peacefully in the night.  I embraced my education as an escape rather than from a desire to acquire knowledge.  Studying and understanding required a significant amount of solitude. Through all the years I had the recurring feeling of something lost.  I attributed that sense of anxiety that creeps upon the soul from the depths of an abused reality of the past to the duality in which I had forced myself.  Could liberation be at hand. Is it ever possible to live the life that I wanted, rather than the one to which I was bound by a reality shaped for me by many preceding generations of the people who constructed the lie.  In all my trials I could find no escape. This is the way it has to be done.

I could not fathom what I knew will have to be done. Marriage was the next step of the process.  It needed to happen. I was an aging man now with no wife that I did not desire and no children that I did not want.  Yet the idea of marriage could not escape me. I must adhere to the standards in order to at least appear to be normal. I am content in my own world, but the world as I knew it and in which I must continue to survive would not let me. That hunger of the world around me required that I shall be consumed by its norms.  I was growing tired of the sadness that people showed me when they would inquire about my children and learned that I had none. So marriage must happen and children must be had in order that I maybe seen as normal. That is the world and it demanded it. I consented to the demands as I have always done. I must meet a deserving woman who would be my wife and we shall have a reasonable number of kids, maybe three, I thought. A sense of anxiety prevailed over me.

I was not a hermit or anything of the sort.  I had been with women at different times in my life; some of whom lasted for years while others mere weeks.  I told a few that I loved them even though I did not truly know what that meant or what it entailed. What behavior was expected of a man in love.  I did not know so I could not emulate. Those were relationship that in the depths of my soul I knew can be severed at any point in time and I would move on and continue with the life that I have lived where no past mattered and no future to be realized.

But now it’s different.  The woman to find is one that I will marry and we are expected to procreate together, at least three times by my estimation.  More importantly, it has to be someone who will tolerate my idiosyncrasies. The times I will undoubtedly tire of the incessant need she will have to be in my presence at all times and I will seek solitude but not be able to either explain or convince her of why I would need that. It seemed like an impossible task at first yet I knew it can be done.  Others have done it so It must be doable. Yet, I had no reasonable idea of how I am to convince someone that I am deserving of the commitment that I wanted when I did not truly desire the commitment and neither felt deserving of being its recipient. What I did not expect or did not know at the time was that I am about to fall in love, true unadulterated love for the first time in my life and I am not to understand it until many years later.

In the middle of the room I had rested my left arm around her shoulder and she wrapped her right limb, humerus resting on the small of my back and the lower portions wrapped firmly but loosely around my waist, as I looked down and to the left where she stood, she looked up at me with her great brown eyes, shining with happiness, and closed and open them twice.  two quick shots in succession transpierced my eyes and bounced around my brain activating switches that had been dormant for many years and, as if a a roadway opened inside me for that little creatures message to gently meander through the expanse of my inner self, she rested gently in a space within my chest that I have never known existed. It was deep inside me, so deep and so empty. My heart quivered as if making more room for whatever that was that now inhabited me, I felt dizziness brought about by the immense confusion as to what had just happened.  a teenager had just made me feel the wonders that I have missed in all the nearly forty years that have thus far been my life. The dullness left me and true happiness took me over like a wild storm takes over a twig. I wanted that child in my life more than I ever wanted anything. With her, in that moment, I had formed an everlasting bond. A bond that can never be broken by distance or time. So I married her mother and she became my daughter.