The Invisible Elephant In The Room.

In the circuit board of my mind, among the many repairs I have made, those delicate solder joints, those carefully placed wires, those replaced transistors and capacitors, yet the same CPU, always the same CPU, I find only one random element that could possibly cause an overload. The irony is that the element is not so damn random and an overload was never their intention. Deep within all these wires and components, I know that I am the one frying my own circuits by this one particular feeling that just does not compute. It is as obvious as a disk drive failure to me, yet as oblivious as a software license change to the world. So, what exactly does an overload mean? To the world, basically nothing. One might see me looking a bit lost, a bit dazed, a bit too much in my thoughts, and maybe not quite enough of myself in the game. Adequate, but with a bit less heart in it. Said heart finds itself elsewhere these days. To the world it's basically nothing. To me, it is practically everything. Nobody lives in this head but me. Nobody feels with this heart but me. I am the only one in the room and there seems to be this invisible elephant in the room with me that I have dared not to speak of. I live in this (and with this) moment by moment, hour by hour, seeing my day brighten and fall.... By a light only I can see. Could it be that the world can see it, too? A brief glance and a knowing smile. Am I so easy to read? Sometimes I feel transparent, seen clear through. Sometimes I feel invisible, never seen at all. There are days it seems everybody sees, yet nobody knows. Not really. How can they? Though it could be that almost everybody sees it but you. Even if so, nobody feels it but me or knows just how deep this feeling goes. It has been here all along yet, never there in the first place. Still gaining shape and substance with each and every denial I make, an illusion real enough to trip over, a trip real enough to flip over. Whatever am I to do? Damned to know. Damned to play dumb. Damned to wish. Damned to hope. Damned to dream. Damned to do. Oh, and damned to not do a damn thing. Damned to feel, yet cursed to never touch. There is this illusion of reach, should I only try, a universe that expands each time, putting light years before me when I reach out for what seems to be almost there. How great an expanse does it take for it to no longer to matter what is real and what is illusion, when there is no difference between a mirage and a vision? I still see it in my mind. I still feel it in my heart. Most everybody sees, but I am the only one who knows its true depth. I can't accuse any angel of lies or deception of any kind. I have never seen a heart and soul so beautiful or so real. This realness that my mind takes for caution, my heart sees as so endearing. Oh and just won't listen. No, they never lied, but I have lied to myself. It is a painful truth they have always spoken to me and never once strayed from reality. My mind hears and understands. My heart refuses. The real tragedy is that the liar and the deceiver happens to be this very heart so starved that it sees only what it wants to see, what in reality, just isn't there. The only liar has been me to myself. This is clearly my fault. I can't seem to wake to the harsh light of truth, of reality. Maybe I am just high from the dream. Maybe there is no elephant. Maybe there's not even a zoo. Maybe I'm the one behind glass, all alone in some padded room, crying, ranting, raving, reaching out for what (and who) was never there in the first place. Could this all have been the fevered dream of a madman, someone who couldn't fit the molds, those circles, squares, and triangles of society? Or maybe I am no less sane than the rest of you, yet another soul wanting what it can never have, a human being guilty of having human nature. The insanity is in refusing to see that it's pointless. And maybe the elephant is not in the room, but in the mind, a thought so enormous and so expansive that it just can't be ignored. Love is a hell of a drug. And I have been for as long as I can remember, a soul of deep feelings. Never a half measure with me. Emotionally, in for a penny, in for a hundred pounds, I never feel anything half-heartedly. Either I'm the damn Tin Man T-1000, or I am head over heels in love. I am either fully on or fully off. And I can't seem to find the damn switch! Feelings are like colors, at least in my opinion. You've got your primaries. You've got your mixes. And everybody's eyes are different, as are hearts. Jealousy is a mix of love and fear. Replace love with pride in that equation and you get possessiveness. Not a good thing. I never wished for a possession, only a friend, only the illusion. (And only one) The pallet of the heart is quite a mess and we're all artists when you think of it. Other mixes can be confusing to me. Happy memories, love, all rolled into the pain of loss is like peanut butter n pickles or something. It really is a 'what the hell are you eating?' moment for sure. There are a lot of these things I really don't have a name for. Just like my flipped up dreams, they're impossible to decode. Even though it's me? Go figure go fish n roses. Forget it. Let's just throw the invisible elephant an invisible peanut and go on to the next exhibit, shall we? I hear the flying pigs are next door. Anyway, speaking of dreams I can't decode, here's another one for the good Doctor Freud: I had the school dream again, ah but with a twist. It began as the maze dream with me running late trying to get there. Once I got there, the teacher gave me a frustrated, disappointed look, and asked why I even bothered showing up for I had already missed out so much that I was flunking anyway. I sit down at my desk and open the book. Mathematics, right? Just the sort of thing my brain is wired for, right. Nope. Not in the school dream. All the numbers looked like Greek, and I couldn't even find the right page. Strangely, my kids were there, all little again, and kept distracting me with this and that. All the while that teacher was shaking his head at me. Funny thing. In real life I graduated decades ago, even had a decent GPA. Alright, you fabulous Doctor Freuds out there. Why the hell do these damn dreams recur with me? I have a variety of repeating elements. Wandering the maze, back in school, still married to the ex, accidentally joined the corps. And to tell ya the truth, I'd rather deal with Sgt Hartman's shouting than hers. I could make a psychology student famous. Come to think of it, the teacher was that "What do you want to do with your life?!" teacher from a certain Twisted Sister video. My answer is the same: I wanna rock. And now the Christmas torture begins. Forgive me, Universe. But, Christmas stuff already? It's driving me Nutso The Clown. I want to argue with the radio. It is most certainly NOT the most wonderful time of the year. I can't see how a season all about family and togetherness can be so wonderful to a family that can never be together again, at least not in this world. At least not in this reality. Three fifths gone, the very glue that held us together. Those get-togethers my younger and quite stupider self griped about are long gone. It's just my sons and I. And I just can't be a fifth wheel anywhere else. The memories are wonderful, waking our parents early Christmas morning because we kids were beside ourselves with anticipation. The smile of someone that made me absolutely sure I chose their gift perfectly. Memories are wonderful, but the time is not. These dinners I find myself in charge of are missing too many people. So if I seem like Ebenezer Scrooge or even the Grinch, I'm sorry. I can not bring forth from the well of my soul what is no longer within. I can't have spirit when I feel so all alone in this world. Here I am suddenly the elder, suddenly the patriarch of the family, suddenly the planner of Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners, really I am all the roles, rolled indeed into one, just as these words right now seem to bleeding into one, just as the days seem to be blending into one. How the hell am I supposed to feel? Should I really be jolly? I suppose that is a part of leading by example. And so, I'll try. But just between you (whoever you are) and I, I'm just not feeling it. Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it. My phone's mission has just been upgraded to playing tunes to drown out the Christmas music. Im listening right now to Motley Crue and thinking of something Nikki Sixx wrote one dark Christmas in his life. Heavy, man. Heavy, heavy. Now I strongly recommend a nice clean cup move down. All of a sudden, things got heavy, heavy. And not even heavy metal, dude. I'm Darth Ted! Well, I'm Luke Bill! And I'll totally not join the dark side, dude! Hopefully not. It is the fear of loss and not the fact of loss, If remember Yoda's words correctly, I do. You know? So long as their connection to the collective remains unsevered, I'll bet there's no such thing as a lonely Borg drone. Individuality, nope. Free will, nope! Awesome suntans, nope. Casual Fridays, nope! But togetherness? A big hell yeah. Though if you hate those durned commie bastards, with their red flags and scraggly beards, you might want to resist as the Borg collective might be the purest form of communism ever. Lenin Of Borg. Marx Of Borg. Stalin Of Borg. Fidel Of Borg. Me? Why, I am Locutus Of Borg, and also Le Cutest Of Borg, wink-wink. Nope. The collective has ruled Le Cutest Of Borg to be Seven Of Nine. Damn. I cant really argue with that. Clean cup move down: Resistance is futile.