It's a downer...

I haven’t been blogging much lately, mostly because nothing is going on. I have been deeply depressed for the last few weeks and I keep thinking about my life. I don’t mean the financial stuff and all of that, but how my life is. Everyone has financial troubles, especially now. No…it’s deeper than that.

What is it like to have a fun group of friends? Is it like they show on TV? Do people really get together to have drinks at a local bar or restaurant, just for fun and to talk? Do they really get together and have Super Bowl parties and BBQ’s? I wish I knew what that was like. For a brief time in high school when I was allowed to have a group of friends, we kind of did stuff like that. We were too young to drink of course, but we did hang out at the local Roller King to skate, and we went to movies, and we hung out at each others houses.

What is it like to have your own home? I rent and so I feel like I work my butt off for the privilege of living in someone else’s home while I throw $650 cash out into the street every month. I did something on Saturday that I should never do when I am in these dark moods – I drove through a neighborhood and looked at the homes. I don’t mean big mansions or anything like that; just nice, clean, neat neighborhoods with real people living in them. What is it like to know you can paint all of your walls hot pink and put in orange shag carpeting if you want to? What is it like to not have a stroke every time a vehicle looking remarkably like your landlord’s drives by? What is it like to own a pet if you want to?

What is it like to be loved by someone that is not related to you? I was loved once a long, long time ago, but I think I have forgotten what it was like. What is it like to have someone to come home to? Someone that chose you and wants to be with you? Someone who holds you in their arms and whispers into your hair that everything is going to be OK? What is it like to be touched by another human being because they want to touch you, not because they are your doctor? What is it like to be kissed or have your hand held? It has been 24 years since someone did either one of those things with me.

What is it like to live life outside of a cage? I want so badly to live life like other people, but I am afraid. I don’t know how to do it. I live my life like an animal that was caged and declawed at birth. When I turned 19, the door to my cage was thrown open and I was allowed to be free. Instead of hurling myself out of the cage and leaving it in the dust, I warily tip-toed out of the door. I never ventured far from the prison I knew; I want so badly to run away and never look back; to be truly free. But I find that I am ill equipped to live this life, unsure how to defend myself without my claws.

And so night, after night, after lonely night I return to the soiled and rusted cage that I hate - head down, ears back, tail tucked firmly between my legs - because it is the only thing I know. I lie there with the door open and watch, resentfully, as time and people pass me by.

I feel like it is too late now; too late for me.