Sometimes We Have To Lose Ourselves To Find Ourselves

We drove through town, I accelerating as fast as my old truck would manage, passing the rich women chatting outside the Dutch coffee shop on the corner and the junkies and women selling their bodies on the next. It didn’t seem to matter what part of the world I was in nor if it was the city or the suburbs, I couldn’t avoid these types of people. They withered their way into society like cockroaches looking for scraps and handouts. Maybe I had an eye for the damaged because I have been on the edge myself a few times. I mean they say sometimes we have to lose ourselves to find ourselves, but I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for the second half of that, I am simply lost.

My niece, my sister and my truck are the only things keeping me from letting go and succumbing to the world of play pretend. Sleeping on the beach or an alleyways on colder nights doesn’t seem too bad if I get to escape the necessities of self nagging at my tortured mind on the daily. If I could escape through some sort of drugs and just be numb to it all, I don’t think I would mind my sleeping situation too much. Forgetting, not knowing and never having to think I can’t go on but I have to seems like a dream to me.

I accelerated even faster, making Jackie jolt up for a second. Jackie, Jacklynn, I think that was her name. I didn’t mean to startle her, I just wanted to get her home quicker. I needed to be alone. I made it out of town without seeing a single cop. Luck might be on my side today.

I could have told her to find her own way home, I mean I didn’t even know the woman, I owed her nothing. But I’m old fashioned and I wanted to make sure she was home safe. I didn’t need another thing that ate at my conscience. Plus, I have always loved the drive through Colorado. Whenever I visit here I drive for hours at a time some days just for the scene.

Past the creamy coloured mountains that had a persistent fog hovering over the higher ones, through all the pine and spruce trees hugging both sides of the road, winding around the bends, accelerating harder to get up the slopes and hills, I finally made it to Jackie’s little cottage looking place. It was a nice set-up. Small place but with a large deck wrapped around the house with expensive looking patio furniture. She had a fire pit with a few benches, tables, chairs around it. It looked like she spent a lot of time with friends here. She had an easel set up under a small canopy on her front deck with a glass cabinet filled with painting supplies. No neighbours in sight, I guess she didn’t have to worry about thieves much.

I didn’t even get to know the girl in the night I spent with her, she was simply just there to fill a void I have. She helped fill all the holes last night until I awoke and holes were once again empty and I needed a new filling. The woman seemed modest and humble. She seemed to not need much in her life for happiness. She found it in the simple things.

I offered to stay awhile so she didn’t think i was using and ditching her. She was smart enough to know what this was so, she didn’t burden me with acting as if it was anything more. Maybe it meant nothing to her either and she was trying to forget for a night as well. I don’t think so though, she doesn’t seem to be that type of girl. Plus I have a way of charming woman into believing I am in awe of their individual presence and that I need them and only them. As if I fell in love at first sight almost. It only helps my holes get filled quicker, although sometimes I do feel sort of bad.

Jackie gives me a kiss on the cheek and says “I hope you find what you’re looking for Brad, take care.”

She left as soon as she came and I would never see her again. Nor will I ever find what I am looking for if I don’t even begin to know what that is. Day by day I feel myself withering away. I’ve lost my hearts desire a long time ago and I’m not sure this is a world I belong in anymore. I search for people to lose myself in. I defile woman’s souls for fun. Trying to lose myself although I can’t truly say I even know who I am. I should be looking for someone to find myself in not lose myself.

I feel irritable, restless and uncomfortable most of the time and there is this almost lonely feeling that lingers wherever I go. As if I haven’t really met myself yet. As if I can walk by a window, catch my reflection and be like “Ahh! Thats me? There I am.” When I catch that reflection I feel real for a moment. As if I actually have a presence here, like I’m living. But it happens too fast. A part of me or all of me slips off into the fog again and I continue to spend my days searching for it.

At one point in my life, a part I rarely like to talk about anymore, I used to catch a glimpse of who I was in Cailin, the best thing I’ve ever known. I had her and she had me and everything was simple. But maybe we never really have someone. Maybe no matter how much we love them, they could still slip through our fingertips like liquid and there was nothing we could do about it.

I don’t know when it happened but at some point I crossed some kind of line, an invisble one. As if I came to a place I’d never thought I’d be. It’s a strange place, I don’t know how I got here nor how to make away back across that line. In this place: harmless dreaming has turned into nightmares and thoughts of the afterlife and how much better it would be.

Cailin was the only thing in this life that really brought me an innate sense of joy and fufilment. Still, her memory feels like home to me. Whenever my mind wanders it brings me back to her. I only knew her for a short time but I will love her longer than I knew her. It could take years to build something up but only seconds to shatter it.
Now, as I look back I think for us it was the lack of understanding that I had which insidiously changed everything. I seen her haunted, scared eyes staring deep into my soul every day begging for me to save her, yet I still failed her. I selfishly took all she gave me, giving nothing in return. Before she was gone I didn’t have any holes that needed filling, I was just whole.

But she was reaching out, pleading but I didn’t hear her cry. She wanted a reason to keep believing that maybe one day she would see the light. She felt so small in this big world, she told me, lost and out of place. She was lost in the dark and needed desperately for someone to guide her towards some sort of light because she couldn’t do it on her own.

She had no one left to reach out to, not even her lover could make things brighter. Sleep was her best friend but even that couldn’t save her from her heartache and all those tears. I many times awoke in the middle of the night or early morning to hear her trying to hide her tears with a pillow. I turned the other way and went back to sleep, just a girl thing I told myself.

She once told me she wanted to save the world from all the heartache and I told her one day maybe she will even if its a small difference in one part of the world. What I should have told her was to first save herself from the world and all the heartache and wars she puts herself through. Her heart was too big, too pure. The evil in this world took such a toll on her.

I should have known… I should have done more..

They say you go through the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. But what they don’t tell you is that you will cycle through these stages each and every day for the rest of your life.

I had someone who made everyday worthwhile, mean something. I couldn’t do that for her and now I’m lost and nothing seems to mean anything anymore. She stays with me even if she isn’t here anymore. I don’t cry in the wrong places anymore, the grief is not a crashing boulder sitting atop my chest, I don’t become irrational or angry as often anymore. But I do have holes that will never be filled again.

No one will ever compare to her but there is no her except for in my dreams tonight and every other night until I can fully escape this place.