Lonesome

God is with me. That is a comforting thought. Comforting thoughts are thoughts designed with the intent of comforting someone who lacks comfort. Those of us who lack comfort need reassurance. The reassurance is intended to bolster our confidence, push us on through to the next day. One more down. One less to go until I see him. Why do I need this assurance? Why do I constantly need to be reminded of His invisible, inaudible, intangible presence? Because I am human. I am alone. I am lonely and lack faith. He gives faith. I have just enough to make it. Never more, never less. Ok. Sometimes less.

Loneliness is maddening. It is truth. It is harsh, unforgiving reality. The thread of hope that God is near is sometimes like covering up the harshest winter chill with a napkin. It's a nice thought, but it doesn't make the bed warmer. Loneliness beckons the flesh. Warm up! Nourish yourself. Crawl back into the womb and forget that you're alive. Remember the warmth of your mother's belly? Remember and regret, for you will never feel that true warmth again. In brief moments, in the arms of your lover, you may remember those days of old. When life was all consumption. when life was innocent.

So the flesh calls. Consume her! Embrace her! It calls because it reminds you of when life was good. Remember that brief moment in life when it was awesome. Before you entered the world. Warmth. Consumption. Nothing was ever easier than that. You didn't even have to breathe. No aches. No chills. No loneliness.

Thinking about loneliness makes me think about love. It makes me think about what I used to call love. I now realize that my first marriage choice was all about my fear of loneliness. What a bad way to make a decision. I cloaked it in religion, spritiual glamor, and zeal. I was lonely. I wanted to crawl back into my mother's womb. The call of the flesh and its pleasures was so powerful that I married her so that my lust would be justified. I would say the same for her. And when we both realized it, we found we were too late. My life would have been so much easier if I had just committed adultery with her and gotten it out of my system.

But I made my bed. Now I lay in it. Alone. Cold. Lonesome. So lonesome I could die.
So lonesome. Now the flesh calls me again. Now I hear it's empty pleas.

I scroll through my cell phone looking for someone to call, so I dont have to hear the silence. I hang out with my friends long enough so that I can get so exhausted that I'm too tired to think about how lonely I am. When I get off the phone with you, I look for someone else to call to keep the reality of my solitude at bay. I watch Tv. I listen to my radio. I download 1000 songs. I know them all. I learn the words and sing them loud and cry alone. I call out to God. The cries echo in my room, reverberating in my ears reminding me how desperate and alone I really am. God hears. He answers prayer, but not soon enough to satisfy me now. This loneliness is to teach me something. Is that supposed to give me hope? After all that I've learned? Knowledge is no comfort! It is a chasing after the wind. The more I know, the more I am aware of how thorougly miserable I am. Peace.

Just a sidenote: I wrote this whole blog while listening to songs from The Cure while wearing white face make-up and my hair in an Edward Scissorhands style.