I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m never going to catch it, because there is no it.

It’s some very Buddhist thing Sam said to me today about something unrelated to me.  Despite that, I quietly argued with myself about the potential application of this phrase to my own life, all as I criticized a poem, breaking up its thoughts and words and lines to construct or discover pure meaning, moving things around as I saw fit to mark with my red pen.  By the time I had analyzed the poem, my eyes had grown tired.  I read Sam’s Buddhist sentence, typed across my laptop screen, “I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m never going to catch him.”  I stopped immediately, knowing I had made an error, fearing it was a Freudian slip.  I meant, “it.”

Sam was talking to me about something, and I hadn’t been paying attention, too self-involved again.  I struggled to pay attention before I finally asked him, nicely, to be quiet.  It’s sometimes better not to pretend.

“Alright,” he said, with a loving smile.  “But why don’t you write about something happy today?  Count your blessings kind of thing.”

Because I tend to take his suggestions seriously, here goes:

In 2009, I…

I graduated college.  My Dad talked to me respectfully, and everyone seemed less threatening.

I started a new job with healthcare benefits.

I finally brought home the pet I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember.

I solidified a life in which I feel absolutely confident and safe.

Wow.  I’m taking deep breaths, I feel so much better after writing that out.  It’s not always that easy to crawl up and out of those dark tunnels in my mind.  Even now, I’m very near to falling back in.  Down there, hope seems ridiculous, an unattainable and dangerous goal I’m not to think of if I want to keep my sanity.  There’s only the here and now.

I’m comfortable with the fact that I’m never going to catch it, because there is no it.

With that in mind, I can’t deny, I’m not comfortable with the fact I’m never going to catch him nor that there is no him.  Andy is an icon, a symbol.  Symbols can’t be destroyed, only forgotten or re-imagined.  I don’t know how to do either of those things to the memories in my head.  On a conscious level, I’m at peace with what happened to me.  Unconsciously, there’s a dark creature ravaging me at all hours of the day and night.  I can’t make him stop.  So often, it’s me, tearing at my own clothes, hurting myself.  How do I stop the it that’s him and me at once?

That’s always the question, isn’t it: how do I stop myself?

I can’t hold back.