Melancholy Delusions

Last night I dreamt of a middle school/high school friend of mine. I stopped him by grabbing his elbow and I excitedly said his name. He smiled, said hi and promptly went on his way. He was terribly important to me in that moment and yet I was just a vague and distant memory to him. I realize that is the way it works in real life as well. I believe for most people others are interchangeable, as they don't see another as an individual so much as what they do for them. When you begin to really get to know someone, no matter what their quirks or issues, you see what makes them unique (and hopefully you celebrate it). When that person is no longer in your life, you miss them and they can't be replaced. I have many holes in my life where once there was a friend.

Another friend of mine told me I would forget him when he left my life like he assumes everyone else has in the past. He had no idea of who I am. In some ways I wish I could forget and easily get over it like most people seem to be able to do. I suppose there are those of us who are meant to remember, as our wounds never fully heal. I sometimes feel like Miss Haversham frozen in her decaying and brittle past. I am haunted by who I have lost and occasionally overwhelmed by the bursting of distilled emotion. Maybe my purpose in life is to be a witness.

It is amazing how quickly I can feel completely alone as if somehow everyone else in the world are separated from me by an invisible barrier. I realize that this is all in my mind. Why should one moment I feel connected, in touch and the next isolated? I have friends and good friends at that, but still I don't feel I have anyone I can turn to when I am in certain moods as either the bonds of friendship only go too far or they simply are unavailable.

An extended family member once called me aloof and another said I was cold. Perhaps I am both things because there is a fundamental truth that causes me to remain remote: I don't trust anyone entirely with my emotions. I believe at a young age I realized an inequality of feeling and meaning. I was overly sensitive and overly attached.

Perhaps that was a mistaken interpretation on my part? Perhaps I am still living under false presumptions? Do I give myself too much credit and others too little? It would be funny, but not entirely surprising, if I have been living life according to childish delusions.