The best thing in my life is Nutella.

The funny thing about life is that, well, it's funny actually. Sometimes blatantly so and other times in a dark, morbid sort of way. Then there's my life which is just a really strange blend. Here's a preview. I'll take it from the day before Thanksgiving which was two weeks ago.

• Narrowly avoided a high speed head on collision. Honestly, if we would have hit there's a strong possibility that we'd all have been killed.
• Out of state looking for apartments for a job I had lost all feeling for and had to make an emergency dental visit. No real determination there although the idea of fractured teeth was a possibility and I got antibiotics.
• Computer crash #1.
• Received full time offer from employer - didn't see that one coming.
• Weighed the pros and cons of each job until I couldn't see straight then declined the initial job in Pittsburgh.
• Computer crash #2.
• A few nights ago I was flossing and my gold inlay flew out of my tooth (one that was bothering me... cooincidence?!). Considering there isn't much left of the tooth (hence the chunk of gold to support it) I literally couldn't go to sleep that night or my grinding and clenching would have snapped the remaining portion off at the gumline. Of course this happened right after I took my sleeping pill... eesh.
• Got another emergency visit and had the space filled with this uber-strong material until I get my crown.
• Cell phone begins to fry.
• Decided to see if I could reinstate my employment in Pittsburgh because insurance started on the first day - I mean, in light of all this dental stuff.
• Uber-strong tooth material breaks after only 12 hours. Oh, come ON.
• Emails back and forth revolving around reinstating the position while beginning to search apartments yet again. Remaining time was filled with four messages to the dentist to help with the tooth.
• The company in Pittsburgh does not want to extend the offer again (either I pissed them off or they have someone) and I have yet to get a call back from my dentist.

Oh, and my mother is having a well-deserved meltdown but I cannot help but feel I pushed her in that direction. She was going to come with me to Pittsburgh to see if she could find a job there. Because I'm not going she can't. It's like I've let her down and I can hear it in her voice even though she doesn't verbalize it. I was her shot at the only hope she's seen in a long, long time and it appears that I screwed it up. It's terrible to feel that you've let down such an important person.

I don't think I'm in a good mental place at this moment.

The lights are out anyway

There's a part of me that has spent many recent hours wondering. About various things really. Life has once again taken a turn. Could be good, might be bad, all I know is that its a turn. This turn is the end result of a 'toss it to the wind' decision made with my back to the wall, a numbed mind and too few hours sleep.

For the love of the gods, can someone explain to me what it is that can happen to a person that makes them forget all they know? Not the things. Not the wheres and whys and hows, but the basic things that most would call instinct. That inate ability to save yourself. To choose those things which will keep us heading forward in an attempt to grow and prosper. What is it that happens to us when we lose that? How deep were the cuts that let it bleed out? How does it take so much of us with it without us knowing. Deceptively, there isn't even a crimson pool at our feet.

It is a sort of shameful thing, really. There isn't even much pain that goes along with it. I think there is fear; the stagnant cloud of paralyzing indecision sees to it that there is only cycling thought and an absence of almost all other feeling, so I don't know how much of the fear comes through. Nothing comes through but the clock keeps ticking and you should panic but no panic comes if you aren't able to feel the sense of urgency. Apathy would have been an upgrade.

Given all the treetop highs and intense lows that have the ability to level me emotionally, this is new territory for me. I typically feel quite alot and this absence, even when this is what I've wished for during various emotional crises, is a saturatingly suspicious thing. Cloying yet completely invisible and evasive as a politician's promise. I'm not sure I've ever felt so much nothing. And I needed to feel something during this time. Unfortunately it was denied to me. Even worse, there are those that would say that I was denying it to myself. I'd only partially agree.

My theory is that we all live our lives and everything leaves an imprint. Over time, they layer like encrypted films in varying densities over different aspects of our psyche. The name of your best friend in first grade, the way your high school teacher wore too much cologne, words from a vitriolic relationship, guilt from that lie you told, your first roller coaster ride, yesterday's breakfast, all of it... it doesn't go away. But even these wisps build until they are opaque. That's when they cut out the light and you have no connection with yourself as you were once familiar. When enough of these things build in any particular sector of your life, doorways get blocked. The silence of it is enough to chill your soul when you take into consideration how badly something must have hurt you, once or over time, to completely go into self-protection mode and deny you such a simple thing. Feeling.

There is no way to know what sort of effect life's day to day encounters will have but we all try to deal the best we can. When it becomes overload, we succumb. And there is no apologizing to yourself or anyone else for your lack of ability to feel. It may come back, you may have to reroute, but the one thing that is certain is that the pathway is blocked for a reason and to force the pathway open is courting disaster.

So I didn't. And I won't. I'll wait to rebuild and I'll cope and I'll go on living my life the best way I know how. It's all any of us can do.