I have a soul sickness.
I don't think this sets me apart. I think it makes me like many others. The nature of this sickness is something of a mystery - we can contemplate the symptoms, speculate on the origins, but the exact size and shape, and most certainly the cure, remain obscured by my conscious mind.
I believe that a real faith in magic would be a cure for this sickness. I envy those who can use their faith in a higher power to keep their emotional body protected from the slow decay of their flesh, and the constant assault on the form and senses of the outside world. Unfortunately, my reasonable mind rejects most magic (perhaps foolishly), but most especially rejects antiquated, dogmatic rules that have been paired with their manifestation of belief in magic (and this, I feel, is not foolish at all).
I do not feel "right." I feel disconnected from other people, from the pulse of life, and I feel as though there is something wrong with me. My mind is busy and searching, constantly, for answers. I am not wrong, though. There's nothing bad about me, any more so than there is about any person. I cannot seem to deliver the same pardon I am so quick to bestow on others unto myself. I only really see myself as anything when I see myself through the eyes of another - and usually my projection is of inadequacy. There's no sense of wholeness in my being. I feel intangible and adrift without the approval of others.
For many years now, I have poured much time and energy into toxic or at least dead end relationships. I do not want to condemn all of my loving feelings for other people, and all of my efforts to bridge the seemingly endless gulf between two hearts that have at least resulted in a little bit of understanding, a little bit of pardon. But. It is as if I see a relationship with another human as a garden where I can finally grow, when I can finally be me, as though by myself I am only a malformed half thing, or an empty vessel waiting to be filled. The players have changed by my efforts remain. In these efforts I feel most alive, the least bored, the most distracted. But, I am drawn to problem situations, things that require sacrifice or suffering to perpetuate, high attraction paired with high anxiety. I say I do not want to be alone, but perpetually try to plant myself in unforgiving conditions, wrestling against a state of rejection, deprivation, as though that is my place, as though that is when I am alive. I do not truly believe I am trying to punish myself because I don't feel like I deserve happiness. I think that love and attachment give me enough motivation to try to create when I don't really believe anything within me is worthy of manifestation.
Today I looked at flowers at stores. Individually potted, ready to be taken somewhere and planted, for real. My anxiety swelled as I looked at them, thinking about how I wouldn't know how to keep them alive, thinking I wish I could ask my dead and distant relatives how to do what I don't know how to do. But the flowers were not worried. They are just flowers.
I want to believe in something, to believe something is real, besides we're on a rock and everything dies. That is real, but there is something else, just out of reach. I want to believe so I can create. Create beauty, create love, create magic. I am very afraid of growing old alone, hidden away, wringing my hands and asking these questions until the very end. I need to heal my soul sickness so I can create beauty, and so that I can be loved without trying to create a self I think is desired, a self I can see projected onto another. I just want to be, and to be good.
