Keep it Together

I find myself in one those states where it's all I can do to merely keep it together. I feel edgy and disoriented and frightened. If I can just make it through, I'll be okay. If I just don't do anything rash while in this fragile state, I'll be okay. Having lots of weird, uncomfortable thoughts. Paranoia. It'll pass. It has to. It's just a matter of riding the storm out. I'm old enough to have been through this before, many a time. By now I should be able to handle it, predict it, and maintain a healthy objectivity about it.

I'm missing people. I'm thinking scary thoughts about the future. Everyone is changing but me. Is my life going nowhere? Will I ever finish anything I start? What will be my legacy?

I don't know who to trust. Seems the older we get, the more fractured all our friendships become, and people tend to retreat to their separate sanctuaries, or fall back on old alliances for comfort and safety. A lot of relationships are spoiled by adult ambition, vanity, and the need for personal space and security. We begin to think strategically about every situation, every interaction with another. Business teaches us to trust no-one.

I am as guilty as anyone.

Right now I feel pretty vulnerable. (But not so meek that I can't broadcast it over the internet.)

Vulnerability ain't pretty. Least ways not in a manly sense. Women do it better. They can make it beautiful. And, face it, there are always plenty of would-be heroes to stand by a woman's side in her time of need. But, if you're a guy, you had best suck it up, and get over it. That's why we drink, swagger and hide our problems behind a show of bravado. Nobody likes a whiner with a penis.

Maybe that's unfair, but that's the way it is.

If I'm wrong about this ... please explain.

Must keep it together.