There are a lot of people who think they know someone, and don’t - not really. This post isn’t meant as a “woe is me” thing, but rather an “in case you didn’t know.”
I’m frequently plagued with despair. Sometimes it’s a battle to even function above a rote manner. Habits help, so the things I usually do can get done without anyone noticing I’m having a bad time.
In essence, it doesn’t seem to matter to others what I’m going through, so this is hard for me express. Believing people don’t care makes it hard to care in return. Longtime “friends” have ghosted me before that term was coined. For a while, the habit of keeping in touch kept me trying, but for more than a decade I’ve given up. “You don’t want to have anything to do with me, fine. I’ll quit trying.”
“But Mark, you can’t give up!”
After a while, though, smashing my head against that brick wall simply hurts too much to continue. I can’t take it, so I give up.
I’ve written poetry during bouts of despair. Here is one.
Blacker than black
My soul disintegrates in the onslaught
Hope no longer remembered
Vanished across years
Despair
I actually researched what could be blacker than black. There’s this thing called vantablack, and now vantablack 2.0. That might seem like a digression, but vantablack (1.0 or 2.0) is a perfect description of what it’s like.
Vantablack is so black that so little light is reflected that an object seems flat. No texture. None. And that’s what despair is like - blacker than black. Flat. No texture.
Eventually the feeling passes. I’m not sure exactly why, but it does. The most helpful aspect of my life is my wife. Without Linda life would be intolerable at those times. She shares my victories, my defeats, my joys, and yes, my despair.
Anyone who cares enough to wonder if I’m going through that at any given time, just check to see if I’m responding - on social media, email, text, whatever. I tend to shut down and ignore other people.
Good thing Jesus didn’t do that.
