I should offer a small warning or three up front. This post is not in line with the previous two, nor is it nerdly, nor scholarly, nor geek-centric. I can also say, though it is still early in the composition, that it is quite unlikely to be funny. But, for me, in this moment and many like it, it is important.
Allow me to lay a foundation here. I will for the sake of others involved gloss over many details regarding the suffering of friends and loved ones in my story here. Some things I will tell, some I will not. This is not as a tool of ego; not a literary Fresnel lens intended to focus the spotlight of attention on my portion of the events at hand. It is because not all of the connected stories are mine to tell. Their trials and triumphs belong to them and are theirs alone to choose to share or not at their discretion. I ask you, the reader, to accept and embrace their right to that choice. I am not seeking pity either, but instead endeavoring to understand the mechanics of my experiences in the framework of the larger picture.
Can we accept these guidelines as given? Good. Thank you. I begin:
The last year was (and continues to be, it seems) a very hard year for friends and family. There have been many losses; of home, of love, of friendships... even of life. My father and his family lost their home as many did in the Bastrop wildfires. Much of that region has simply ceased to exist in a very real way. Many of my friends and families have lost people, pets, and the like, while others have suffered (and continue to suffer) the loss of relationships that meant the world to them. My wife lost the matriarch of her family. And even now, my "family by choice" is dealing with the impossible questions and unyielding burden of terminal illness, again.
Note: please understand that this is not a call for aid or prayer. The micro-communities involved in all of these events have done a simply remarkable job of locking shields together and opening arms, alternately as needed. Everyone is admirably well seen to, and thank you to all who have been a part of that.
My query is as follows. What right have I, who is arguably the least injured party in any of these dynamics, to be depressed?
I have a home. I have a wife who, though I cannot fathom why, loves me unabashedly, unconditionally, and beyond any hope to quantify. I have the most devoted, accepting friends of anyone I have ever met in life or in fiction. I even have the beginnings of a career, for the first time in my life. Not one of these Blessings escapes my notice nor my appreciation, and I share my gratitude with the Allfather daily.
But in the midst of all of these Blessings, and in the midst of the heroic bravery of my family's travails, I find myself in the proverbial "dark place". I ache at my core. Every failure, loss, heartache, every sting of lost love pricks at the periphery of my perception. I do not seek sympathy, or truly even solace.
I seek to understand.
I am aware of the fact that, by virtue of caring for my friends and family who are so suffering, one can expect to suffer along with them. As Spider Robinson said, "Shared pain is lessened, shared joy is increased. Thus do we refute entropy." I agree with the emotional mathematics of the statement (though I reserve judgment on ambitious presumption of the defeat of entropy. Fodder for thought another day). However, I find myself inexplicably lonely and self-pitying of late, with no valid, tangible reason. I find I seek involuntarily to find someone to confide it, only in the last moments before I speak realizing that I neither have right to add to burdens nor do I even have the means to qualify or quantify what it is I seek to vent. How can this be?
What manner of fool would turn to a friend to express a phantom melancholy, when the world around him is beset on all sides with valid, sincere hurt? What greed! What hubris! What arrogance and entitlement!
Thus, I put the challenge to you, my dear readers. What say you all? What are the mechanics at work here? Is this a function of selfish attention seeking? Of misguided martyrdom? Is this a sort of emotional noise-pollution or bleed-over? Or perhaps just a function of exhaustion born of too many shocks to the family for too long?
Sincere insight is welcomed, either as comments below or email me at wmdimsdale@gmail.com
Thank you, good night, and may your Path be Light.
Sincerely,
Prof. W.M. Dimsdale
