Squinting Until My Forehead Hurts

This is what happens when sadness overwhelms me and I cry and I can't stop. All I can see, 360 degrees around me, is the barren wildernesss that has become my life. What's the point? What's the effing point to life when it it is full of nothingness? I still don't see suicide as the answer but there is Nothing -- NOTHING -- that makes my life worth living. I've been holding onto hope that my life will get better,  with a firm grasp at first, then ever more loosely with each realization that nothing has gotten better, just worse and worse and worse until I'm barely holding on by the edges of my fingertips, wondering if I should end the pain and let go. I don't want to let go. I don't want my life to continue like this anymore, either. I've long said that a person never knows how strong they are until they have to be strong. I feel like I'm on the verge of finding out where my strength ends.

All I want to do is sleep. I have such interesting dreams. Last time I dreamed that I escaped from a mental institution with two other inmates. I was a young man, about 18, with severe depression. My companions were a large schizophrenic woman who was very angry and aggressive. The other was a thin man in his 30s. He had a black goatee, tons of tattoos and several piercings. He never spoke. We stole an old RV. They sat in the front, and I stayed in thre back. Slept some. Since time doesn't exist in dreams, we went through several places. Once, we met up with a motorcycle gang, and the goateed man left us.

Eventually, the large woman left, too, and a bunch of young people around my age joined me. We made it to Alaska, where I have never been. The road was so steep I had to drive very slowly and the others got out to lighten the load and to enjoy looking at the scenery while they walked. We made it to a valley down the other side and stopped to look back. It took my breath away. There were two peaked mountains and centered between them was, I thought, the moon, bigger than I had ever seen it. Then I realized it couldn't be the moon. It was blue, with swirls of white over it. I was elated. I felt so incredibly free. Just as I was wondering if it might be the Earth, a nurse woke me, poked my finger and gave me a shot of insulin.

What a letdown.

It doesn't take a genius to know what my subconcious was saying. Or was it my guardian angels giving me a message? It was all about escape, of course. My fondest wish is to escape from my helplessness. That's what I've been struggling for. And that is what I've been failing miserably at.

So here I am, still stuck in my wilderness  of nothingness, seeing no goals to work toward, with the spectre of hopelessness eclipsing whatever light I could still glimpse. Lost. If I don't find a way to change this situation, then somewhere between where I am now and where I'm heading, I will come upon an invisible abyss that cuts through my path like a sharp knife slides through skin. And, as my next step hovers above that chasm, I will, once again, have to decide whether to step away, or to step off that cliff.

I'm not there yet, but I sense it's too close for comfort.

Tomorrow may be better. I might see something rising out on the horizon that helps me find my way again. That's my inner hope, calling from some distant place deep inside me, to not give up. So I'm still following that dim ray of hope. It's flickering like a flashlight when the batteries are about to go out, but it's still there.

I hope this hasn't exhausted you like it has me. Sorry about that.

Watch for the sun in the morning. Be well and happy.