Why be Maybe

---

“Why” has been half of the two most dangerous words in the English language over the past year and a half.  This is a personal tragedy for me as I am infinitely curious about most things; so asking why is a part of who I am.  This single syllable, three-letter word though has led me into the deepest of depressions and self-doubt, while also providing me what I consider to be a false sense of confidence such as, why not!  It has led me to do things that I wouldn’t have ever considered to do before such as meet up with a bunch of strangers at an unfamiliar house to sit by a fire and converse, driven me to new locations in states that I would have not traveled, and awarded me the false sense that if I ask this woman out she may say yes, she did not, although I sense that she could feel how terrified I was, which may have been a turnoff.  The false confidence on occasion has been a nice little change for me though there have been very few of these moments. Instead “Why” has just endeared me to the feeling of a head so riddled with angst and anxieties that it traps me in my small area of comfortable discomfort.

“Why did she leave?”

“Why didn’t I get a chance?”

“Why did it have to be her?”

“Why did She have to be the one to hurt me like this?”

“Why am I so disposable?”

“Why don’t I get pursued?”

“Why the fuck am I 38 but feel like I am 15?”

“Why won’t she come back?”

I see this word as a detriment to my overall well-being, especially lately. In my situation these questions that start with “Why” cannot ever be answered. I have received no answers nor could I. It isn’t like I could put a survey out to have random strangers answer this question. It isn’t like she could provide me these answers I have been looking for, or maybe she just wouldn’t? I spent the first six months trying to figure out why this is happening. Head aching from nights spent brow furrowed in my bed not sleeping reviewing every possible moment at which I did something to deserve this or moments that I did something that drove her into his arms. Days spent watching her carefully for a clue, hanging on her every word for the answers that would never leave her mouth. She wasn’t happy, but why? She wasn’t in love with me anymore, but why? Was it me, was it her?

The human mind plays with our emotions and wants to place blame but without evidence who is to blame? The evidence so far is she left, that she was unhappy, that she wasn’t in love with me anymore. What I struggle with in the gathering of evidence, like I am some detective trying to solve the murder of my marriage, is who planted this evidence? Did I make her fall out of love with me? Did I make her unhappy? Was it me? I cannot place the “blame” on her because I am not sure it is hers to own. I don’t know that as a fact and as we all know facts are key when building a case. I feel like she would get off based upon reasonable doubt and I am okay with that. I don’t hate her; it is difficult for me not to love her. She has (aside from my kids) meant more to me than any other person in my entire life. I don’t want to see her found guilty, nor do I want her to feel guilty (well maybe a little bit, but I feel guilty about thinking that). I want to blame someone though, I want it so desperately to not be me that I blame random things like Santa Claus for not bringing her the present she wanted as a child, like my 9^th grade English teacher because had I not been in his class I would not have fallen in love with her and I wouldn’t be sitting here teetering on the edge of a cliff that I still seem to be inching off of, I blame him for being there in a moment where she felt that she could let someone else enter her heart in turn shoving me out (though it isn’t his fault, I agree with him, how could you not love her? He would be an idiot for not loving her. That is how I feel about anyone who doesn’t just love this woman, it is just dumb in my mind), and I blame dinosaurs, if they hadn’t gone extinct then humans wouldn’t be here and I wouldn’t have to write sad fucking blogs on the internet to the five readers I have.

I will get back on track now, promise.

When we sit around and experience the word “why” in such a biblical form, by that I mean it has become the meaning of our lives, where does this lead us? Answers may start to populate the baron lands in which we currently live but really we are simply planting the questions, we are going to have to wait for nature to take its course before answers start to grow. Still maybe then the crops are hit with some disease that will diminish our returns. Maybe one year we will get a few answers, then the next a few more but never at the speed that our (or my) minds need. This just leaves us circling the fields like the crows hoping to peck at what we can to be able to fill our bellies until we find what we are hoping to find. This dalliance between questions and answers only leads to unequal returns. It is a one sided relationship where one partner will never give anywhere near what the other is providing. This leads me to fear that the fledgling farmers will start to shoot up at the skies in hopes of removing me from their fields but still I return to dabble at what is simply not mine for the taking. The scarecrow that graces the field was a concern at first but once it was realized that it causes no harm I had to give into temptation and continue graze the answers trying to bloom.

As you can see, this mind of mine scrambles to become a problem solver. It used to work well in my occupation, life, love, and so on. Now, however, not having a love, life, or occupation it just searches for things to solve. “Why” is my biggest answer to solve however it is an unsolvable puzzle that will riddle our brain with disgust, anger, and jealousy. How do you stop it though? How do you shut your brain off from these questions? Drinking, sure that could work but I have read that drinking and depression aren’t the best of combinations. Drugs, sure drugs would work, a lot of them if I had my preference, BUT being a single father it may not be the best example for my kids if I was a junkie so that is out. Oh, I could bang my head against the wall until I am concussed? But I rent and I would lose my security deposit.

I guess this leads me back to the idea that I need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. I won’t get the answers I need to move forward, so I guess I just need to start moving forward without them and hope that they don’t arise again. This is tough for me in many facets. I respect women too much to put them through someone who may make them fall out of love? How do I contain my fear that this may happen to me again? In fact the likelihood is rather high that it will. I am not likely to find another her right off the bat so I will have to have my heart broken again and again until I either give up, die of cirrhosis, or actually find that next someone that I can hold in my arms knowing I will be okay. I believe that “everything happens for a reason” and prior to this I was patient knowing that the answer may not present itself until much further down the road but that one day it would show itself to me in some way. Why then can I not just allow these answers the same patience I showed previously? This I actually know the answer to, she is more important to me than the other circumstances.

 

The second half of the words that are fucking dangerous is “Maybe”. “Maybe” just like “Why” only leads to more questions. It is a cyclone of destruction that leaves behind a wake of disaster so incredible that FEMA couldn’t even afford to go in and assist.

“Maybe she will come back?”

“Maybe she isn’t happy in her new relationship and it isn’t just me?”

“Maybe I will meet someone tonight?”

“Maybe if I just…..?”

“Maybe I just need to get out of here?”

This is no way to live. Just period. Maybe, maybe, maybe. Fucking blah, blah, blah! I feel like Yoda needs to have a saying about maybe? Something smart and jumbled so that us nerds can get it tattooed on our bodies. Having thought that, I searched quotes about the word “Maybe” but couldn’t find any that I liked. Maybe I just need to come up with one on my own. Maybe I need to change the world with this ingenious quote that someone else was in need of desperately. Maybe it will change their life and they will go on to do great things by ridding the world of its unnecessary evils. Well, maybe I won’t, that is just too much pressure for a quote. I will say this though; I have lived in a world filled with “maybe” which has only see me stagnant and unwilling.

The “Maybe she will come back?” is the hardest maybe to get over. The thing is I have moments of clarity where I say to myself, “Maybe she will but I cannot sit around and wait.” Often though, while not waiting, I find myself still sitting. The maybe’s give me too much of a reason to pause and think when what I need action, no thinking, just action. The maybes lead me to question what I have to offer to someone because “maybe it was me”. Then again, maybe it isn’t that hard? Maybe there is someone out there looking for exactly what I have to offer? Maybe happiness is one “maybe I will….” instead of “maybe I shouldn’t” away? Questioning these things though just provides me a time waste or delay into actually doing, well, anything. I think about the possibilities often actually, both positive and negative. I contemplate the words I write, the thoughts I think, and the motions I make. Maybe comes up a lot and it can drive a curiosity such as, maybe I will just see what happens? For some I have and for others I have not. Maybe one day though??

It is tough living with an active mind that leads to so many places and one you don’t necessarily want to shut off because your creativity lies in the same location. The pain, love, loss, and moments of joy grant me the ability to reach for a guitar, put fingertips to keyboard, pen to paper, and eye to a viewfinder. My emotions garner so many creative moments that I never wished to take pills that could possibly dilute any of that. Is this why artists kill themselves so often? Is this why they are often depressed and anxiety riddled that their minds (hopefully like mine) take them places others who have less depth of thought cannot simply explore? Would we have such great music, art, books, or poetry were it not for our fucked up minds that won’t stop pushing us down or raising us up? All I know is that when I set out to start this blog it was to have some fun and write about some of the funnier sides to being single and while I hope I have amused some of you with some of these writings, it has become evident that the painful darker areas need to get their exposure as well. It is a scary place I find myself in. I am not afraid of it always but I am regularly intimidated. As one who rarely found himself with anxieties, intimidated, or unwilling this is the cloak I find upon my shoulders now. While it has given me darkness it has also given me strength. I don’t know that I would have created a website and written this way to forever be in the annals of the world wide web had it not been for everything that has happened. So should I be grateful? I think I am going to hold off on that for now, unless one day maybe someone reads my writing and decides that this guy is on to something lets pay him millions of dollars to either write for us or never write again because it is so bad. I cannot live with maybes anymore so I guess you are stuck with me. I don’t want to live with all of these Why’s and Why not’s. So like her, maybe I just need to watch these questions walk out the door and know that I need to move on from them as well.