and then

And then, one day, I wake up, feeling better. Felling more than "better"; feeling good, feeling secure, feeling worthy, feeling smarter, as if that's a feeling. 

It's actually quite difficult to quantify, really. Even qualitatively describing it seems insufficient, so I really won't spend a whole lot of time going through the thesaurus in my head in order to find the perfect adjectives to explain the situation. 

That in and of itself isn't necessarily anything to write home about. Though, it kinda is, there's more to it than that. It's like a strange door in my brain and my heart has opened up and allows me to see connections where none have existed before. A leads to B leads to C, but not in ways I had thought possible before. The wheres, whus, hows and therefores from past triumphs, past failures and past nothings make more sense, as if put into some light I hadn't recognized before. 

Somewhere, somehow, along the line of the past five years I have grown up from a scared, depressed, distraut and nearly suicidal boy who knew no better than a 15 year old how to survive, into a 34 year old man. In the span of a few years an adult has formed where one hasn't existed before. Life has become easier to survive, people less confusing to read, relationships less convoluted, actions more intentional and meaningful. Those things that would lock in me in my apartment, full of dread for what may come seem trivial, by comparison. The ideas, suggestions and criticisms less damaging to my delicate psyche. 

Unfortunately the last few years of hiding myself away and of protecting myself from the "big, bad world" outside have taken a tremendous toll. What little social life and interactions I had before mostly turned to dust. The self-imposed isolation closed doors on friends, family, lovers and girlfriends alike, truth be told more like burned bridges over spans widened by fear and self-loathing, perhaps too hurtfully ended to reopen. And maybe that's for the better? What once was lost can never be returned in the same form. 

And then ... what? I have become a person who is defined by who he is, instead of what he likes, or does, what he knows, or what his career is, or what things or people he has surrounding him; all "items" meant to distract himself from himself. More ... but somehow less. Struggling with an urge to do.. do.. do ... something, whatever that is, to be more. And then?