I don’t feel like living anymore.
Now that’s not a cry for help and no need to put me on a suicide watch. It means “the they” have won. I’m beat. Beat down.
I used to suck the marrow out of life. There was no challenge I wouldn’t accept and very little I didn’t want to do. Early on I set my eyes on hang gliding. Haven’t done that one yet and I have yet to “jump from a perfectly good airplane” either. But I was fearless and I have done much!
In the 9th or 10th grade I was at a school dance taking a break from the noise of the gym and talking with friends in the hallway. Something landed in my hair and I turned around and mouthed off at some muscle bound nimrod that had obviously thrown whatever it was. The first punched landed before I had fully turned my attention back to my friends and I momentarily blacked out as I slammed up against the lockers. Just as my vision returned I took another punch to the face and discovered blackness again. I received about five consecutive hits just under the left eye. Blackness returned to light just in time to see the fist, blackness, repeat.
I could not get a punch off and could not get my arms up to block the punches. I could hear a voice, “just walk away.” Is that where I am in my life? I am definitely taking repeated blows. Am I to “just walk away?” And for the literal readers, no, not family. I would never abandon family. I mean dreams. I mean desires. I mean Willy Loman. I mean Sam Lowry.
One week later, my blackened eye was traveling to Virginia to embarassingly visit relatives.
I don’t feel like living. I don’t want to hang glide or parachute anymore. I don’t even want to leave the ground. And I am tired of having to explain my blackened eye.
(Of course this post is a result of exhaustion, stress and economics. Let’s see how my tune changes if I ever get back on top.)
Man, don’t let that chump get you down. There is nothing admiral about someone who blindsides you in life. It’s actually called a sucker punch and it’s says a lot about him that he can’t even give you a fair chance to defend yourself. I bet he probably has a history of family violence or he obviously has some self esteem issues as well if he has to go around beating people down so he feels better about himself. From what you wrote you sound very intellegent and if I had to guess that may be why he attacked you. There is something about you that he doesn’t have, why else would he want to hurt you?
I’m sorry that it happened to you, unfortunatley that is how life teaches us to change. People generally do not change until something extreme happens to them and this is extreme.
Since this has happened you are probably going to do one of two things. One, you are going to recoil inside yourself and decide that life isn’t fair and you don’t want to be part of a life where you don’t know what’s going to happen to you and you are going to get a fist in the face at any given random moment. Or two, you are going to realize that it was a very unpleasant situation, but it was also a very uncommon situation that isn’t going to happen again because you’ve learned from it now.
You’ve learned that you have to be more careful when you are in the midst of an out of control ogre, even if you are not in direct communication with the threat, to be aware of where a potential treat is and or if the threat will hurt people around you at all times. This would allow you to continue your life, just a little more carefully than you did in the past. Also, you may want to consider some self defense training.
When I was younger I was attacked by someone that was actually smaller than me and I was beaten down terribly. That really effected my self esteem. I wouldn’t speak up at all to people and I was afraid to draw attention to myself because I just really felt like I let myself down. I thought I could of handled it much better, but I didn’t so I thought I was a coward or a failure. But feeling that way really has a negative effect on ones quality of life. You can’t exactly grow and embrace life, get a girlfriend, get a job, make your family proud by hiding from life. Which, you really can’t hide from, you just adapt to. Martial arts really boosted my confidence in myself, it taught me some very valuable work ethics that I still apply to my life everyday. I also feel like I can protect others if I need to and people generally feel safe when they are with me.
If I was there in that hallway and I saw that guy blind side you, I would have beat the sh*t of of him. I’ve been there and it’s a terrible experience that I wouldn’t want anyone to have.
Stand up and grow from this, learn how to defend yourself or simply learn how to be aware of your surroundings. Protect yourself and protect those around you. Believe me, the world needs more vindicators.
Thanks Rick! Great words. Now the actual event happened in the early 80s. I was simply waxing poetically with allusions to my current situation (one I’ve placed myself in but a situation none-the-less). That would be the little things like spending 10 minutes composing an introductory letter to a potential client and as the mouse moves to the send button the power goes out; the client needs the email but I have to leave the house and don’t have time to wait for the powe to return. Clients that make promises on which I make decisions only to have the promises broken. And larger things that I should not go into details.
These are the metaphorical beatings. But they are the substance of life. They actually make up the living part of life. Above when I said “I don’t feel like living” I had run into yet another road block on a project should have long since closed. I was referring to letting go the elaborate dreams and simply becoming that 8-5er that robotically does his job to satisfaction, makes sure his family is taken care of, but accepts that his glory days are behind him and that he is now to live vicariously through his children and that he should do everything, no matter how humdrum, to see that they have every opportunity to live to their fullest; his pursuit of unobtainable dreams at their cost is unacceptable.
Bah. That’s straying from the thought. Again, it was a poetic scribbling of a tired, stressed out, temporarily depressed person that was meant to use an old story as a metaphor for how we are beat out of our dreams into robotic, stereotypical, beaucratic roles (Lowman, Lowry).
I am going to re-read your words several times wholely and deeply. Thanks again!