shock

I am in shock.

Talking with my mother on Friday, she informed me of something so terrible that I have no words to express what I feel.

It has to do with family, in particular the actions of a relative who has gone beyond hitting rock bottom-- they are now digging beneath the pavement.

I am 32 years old. Nothing should shock me anymore. But I feel like I am 16 again, grappling with contradictory notions of good and evil, light and dark, trying to balance all of this without becoming cynical or depressed.

It was so much to take in that I think I have short-circuited my emotions. I cannot laugh, I cannot cry.

All the progress I made... now I am back at Square One.

Suddenly, nothing else seems to matter. All the things I blog about, all the things I spend my time fretting over... none of it makes any amount of difference.

I tried being in touch with my own emotions for a spell and found that they were raging like stormy currents on the high seas. But hearing this bit of news shocked me back into the numbness that I am so accustomed to in my waking life.

Now my emotions are calm and still, without even so much as a ripple denting its pristine surface.

The world can pass me by and I can't bring myself to bat an eye. The words of well-wishers and the good-intentioned once again appear to me as just words, spoken by people who think they know the deal but do not.

Forgive me for not imparting the news that has me back in my old ways. I am candid about many aspects of my life but this is one those things that serves no purpose for me to reveal to anyone, because then I know people's perception of me will change. They will see me as a victim, or a sad sack, and they will not try to truly understand what I am experiencing.

I don't see this as a good or bad thing. It merely is. If anything, it has centered me, like a brutal slap in the face, like a jolting realization that there is nothing I can do to control the situations I am in... all I can do is just move forward and play with the cards I have been dealt.

The less I care, the further I seem to get in this world.

Sad.

Or at least, it would be sad if I gave two shits about anything. And at this point, I cannot afford to care whether or not this world wants to light itself on fire and burn itself to a crisp.

Just like the day I found out that nothing was as it seemed, I am ambivalent about the news of my family. It will spur me on to better things, yes, but at the expense of my own happiness. In order to cope, I am going to have to go back into that shell that I've been breaking out of, because it is in that shell where I find solace, hope, strength and courage.

Ironic, yes. But we all need a protective shell around us, don't we?

I'd like to introduce you to mine. But I'll save that for another day.

Other than the above-mentioned insanity, I had a nice and relaxing weekend. I went where I was wanted and I followed my bliss. I was actually happy for a few incandescent moments.

But now, I am neither happy nor sad. I am just am.

I will just be. Until the shock wears off, I will always be.