Trying

Trying

I’ve tried. God knows I’ve tried. I tried scrolling through Indeed, Craigslist, and Upwork for longer than a minute; I’ve tried looking for jobs; I’ve tried working on my postponed novel. I’ve tried working without postponing; I’ve tried postponing my train-wreck. Instead I've driven the train through his Facebook and Instagram and wrecked by validating his political and career posts. Stopping myself is insignificant: in a matter of twelve days and four shifts, we’ll never see each other again and my wreck will postpone itself to pick-up elsewhere.

I've questioned everything leading to that looming and dooming last shift. My trying and unconditional investment in someone I've known for eight weeks and three days. An abnormal investment. I've questioned the sentencing coming from his emotional negation. I've questioned what annihilated me deepest from our chain of ugly texts; was it him digging deeper into an emotional chamber with half-closed doors; doors closed four Summers back when one of the others walked past me, acknowledging me only to give me the dirtiest of looks inside that putrid bar, a putrid glance dirtier than that inferno's bathroom floors and table tops. He and Mr. Kennedy hugging, dancing, and kissing each other that entire night, standing only fifty feet away from me.
 It was dirtiest and most trying of goodbyes.

Now there's him.

“You asked me the other day how I was doing and why I hadn’t texted you. Well, I was hoping you’d text me to get in contact. You never did,” I texted her at thirty minutes before midnight. I questioned if she was dormant like her maternal instincts. Instincts I longed to reawaken if only for one midnight.

I liked another of his political posts, not for attention-seeking as that ship sailed and sunk the night I concealed the L word within a Facebook soliloquy; I liked it because it resonated with his core. Yet, the more I've looked at his page, his cybernetic tale, the more transparency greets me.
 It isn’t only him...
 It isn’t only her and her eternally dormant maternal instincts. It isn’t only the other who remains happy and fully committed to his five-year relationship with Mr. Kennedy.
 It isn’t only one of the others: it's all of them.

The one who ghosted me only to respond two years later when I wished him happy birthday, clarifying my identification because his cellular communication had upgraded; he strived to generally upgrade.

The one I've maintained a “once a year dinner” friendship that consists of bar food and an hour debate over that year’s Oscar Nominees, discussion leading him to reaffirm my vileness over my cinematic critical thinking.

It is all them; the others that never texted back; never followed through with promises of exploring the LA fine dining scene; never bothered to wish me a “Happy Birthday, Merry Christmas,” or a simple “Thank You” to my “Have a great day.”

It is all of them and none of them.

It is me.

My inability to cope with emotional individualism. Coping with reliable, genuine, and life-long friendship, but only friendship; an insufficient commodity. I am abnormal. I registered this sense of personal normalcy since developing the capacity to register criticism—but is this longing so completely twisted that I should consider physical institutionalizing to counter my emotional Arkham Asylum? To counter a life riddled with envying those hand-in-hand at Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Six Flags. Those in their late-teens and coupled; the others, newly outed twenty to twenty-three-year olds already in their second committed relationship; the rest fitting the staple “Mom, dad, and two to three kids” formula.

I want what is theirs. Part of it, any part; a feeling of inclusion to quench my insatiable thirst. A quenching that perhaps wasn’t created for tearless, emotional pariahs detesting the fortunate masses receiving this golden ticket, this multimillionaire valued notion; instead it is distributed to those unworthy through selfishness, self-service, wretchedness and internalized ugliness; those mangling every ounce of worth from their privileged Nirvana.


I've tried and failed. I am tired of trying. Trying for love. Trying for life. Trying to live.