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" ... Only time will tell ... ya think you're in heaven, but you're living in hell."
                                                          ­ -Traditional Jamaican Folk Song



  Funny, rain never depressed me before. It's pouring outside and normally I would be elated. I love it when it rains ... Everything gets watered ... The water table gets replenished ... The dust gets washed away, making everything shiny clean ... I love it ...

  But, not today. I've never felt like this, not that I can remember.

  I don't deal well with depression ... in fact; I don't deal with it at all.
Therefore, I'm usually always happy-go-lucky. Not much bothers me, and when it does, I head-**** it like the Ram that I am. I don't fear much of anything.

  But, as I watched the rain come down today, I almost began to cry. Again ... not like me. As of late, I feel like I'm being tested. I've never been so filled with anguish and anxiety. I've never felt so hopeless, not even years ago, when I lived in my car. At this moment, it seems, all that I touch turns to dust, not rust ... dust.
          
  I feel like everything that I attempt ... gets thwarted. I also feel like every time I have a dream about to be realized, it vanishes right in my hands. It's even worse than not having it ... I get to see it, even think I'm gonna realize it ... and then ... ****! The dream is just gone.

  All I've ever wanted was to be successful and have the love of a good woman. I know that I'm no angel, but I try to be. I'm most always genuinely concerned for others. I am always trying to make my situation better. I never wrong people intentionally, and above all, my heart is huge and full of lots of wonderful things. I've seen them all. Sometimes they pop out of me and surprise me with the way they make me act and react. I didn't know I could so easily feel and exercise such emotions; Compassion, unmeasurable patience and understanding of others pain. But the thing that it's filled with most of all is ... Love.  A passionate love that can't be measured. Like a Bald Eagle, my devotion can be never ending.
  
  I’ve always felt like I was a little selfish, I still think I am, a little. Aren't we all? But today, as I stared into the hard falling rain, instead of taking a deep breath through my nose and loving the smell ... I stared into the quickly amassing puddle in front of the apartment and felt the tightness in my chest and jaw. Tears tried to well up in my eyes, but, with a long deep sigh, I wouldn't let them. I'm not a quitter; I never have been.  

  I've deemed a name to this condition I've been afflicted with most all my life. I call it Charlie Brown Syndrome.
  It seems sometimes, that no matter how good my intentions, no matter how hard I try, in an attempt to do something positive, it almost always blows up in my face and, more often than not, I end up looking like the bad guy on top of it!

  In almost every situation, I also feel like the things that undo my efforts are both unforeseen and out of my control. I always end up feeling frustrated and helpless to remedy the situation. And, as if that wasn't enough, it almost always looks like it was my fault ... Or, if I hadn't tried to do what I had done ... then none of the unasked for trouble would have occurred. Like I said before, I look like the bad guy ... almost every time.

  My luck with women could be written into a comedy somewhere ... though; it feels more like a tragedy to me. I have no problem finding them, whatsoever. It just seems that I can't find the right one, or if I do think she might be her, then you can almost certainly guarantee that she either has a boyfriend/husband/fiancée, or she's just plain not interested in me. If she is interested in me, then she almost always turns out to be a liar/cheater/Fruit Loop ... with a drama card ten miles long. Eight out of ten times, I don't find this out until I'm head over heals crazy about her. And moreover, I never see it coming, Because like I said, I'm usually always a very positive type of person.

  So my heart, or what's left of it, gets smashed up again and I'm left to stand there, with my good intentions and my need to love and be loved ... bewildered and alone.
My buds tease me that I have a tattoo on my forehead that reads: "****** Chicks Line Up Here" ... I look for it every morning in the mirror.
            
  In my search for thee ever elusive “Little Red Haired Girl”, I've told every girl I've ever been with; “If you don't lie or cheat on me, you will have all my trust and faith. But, the first time you do, I'll take it away and then you'll have to earn it.” Not only have I never met one who could keep up her end of the bargain, I've never met one willing to try and put forth the effort to earn it, once they had lost it.

  Most of the close friends I once had are now off on their own adventures and, for one reason or another, I'm without them. Most of the friends I have now are, in a more realistic sense, acquaintances that I can run with and have a good time with. It's kind of unnerving ... to realize that some of the people you call friends, make faces or talk to others in whisper campaigns behind your back. Or, they stand back there, behind you, and roll their eyes every time you make a statement. All in the name of making themselves look better, by making them look like they think you're a fool to someone else. It kind of gives you a conspiracy complex.

  It's really strange though, that they are always there as your friend and they include you in all of their plans ... Seems like that would eventually make them look stupid, doesn't it? Stranger still, is the fact that they think that you don't know they do it, because you don't say anything about it so you can avoid the conflict.
  
  I just don't feel the bond with them that I felt with others in my youth ... Maybe that’s how it is when you get older ... I'm a hopeless romantic and I'd like to think that it's just not so.
  At this moment, I have never felt so alone and without direction in my whole life. I don't have a feeling to compare it to. One step forward, two steps back ... More like fifty steps back.

  " ... And then one day you find ten years have gotten behind you. No one told you when to run; you've missed the starting gun ..."
            
  I never dreamed that those words would mean to me what they mean to me now.  I remember reading them more than twenty years ago, the day my friend, Randy Reed, brought Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side of the Moon” album over to my house for the first time. I had a turntable ... He didn't.

  I remember reading those words and thinking that the poor soul who had wrote them was feeling bad because he'd missed out on a part of his life.  I was maybe 13 or 14 at the time ... I couldn't fathom such a loss. Besides, in my youthful world, I was assured I could be anything I want to be, have anything I want to have, or go anywhere I wanted to go. Nice myths our parents' parents told them. I never dreamed I would someday look back and question what I had done, or where and most of all, who, I had been.

  I don't really regret my past. I've had an incredible life so far. I've seen, done and experienced things that people have, and will continue to, dream about doing all their lives. But somehow, I feel empty at the moment. Somehow I feel alone. Mostly though ... I feel almost helpless. Like a tiny raft in a vast, stormy sea ...

      You can't fight, you must relent ... It will only make it more painful to fight ...

  My question is this ...

  Who is it more painful for?      

  ME?  

  Or the vast stormy sea?

      Again ... I'm not a quitter.
    It's going to take a mighty big wave to sneak up and make me go under.  
  
  But lately, I feel like I don't have much besides my nose sticking out of the water. I'm terrified that the wave is headed my way. I worry I won't have the strength to endure it. I've been told that God, or the universe, depending on your view, will never give you more than you can bear and that through adversity comes strength. If this is my lesson, then I'm one strong soul. But I'd much prefer a lesson in how well I handle success or the love of a wonderful woman. That, it would seem, is never to be our choice to make. We are eternally the pupils and God , or the universe, our teacher. I love to learn, always have. It’s just that I’ve never found it so heart wrenching before.  

  The only thing that I feel like I might truly regret in my life is not having a family. I love children. So much so, that I didn't just go out and recklessly have some ... I’ve always felt that If I couldn't give them the life that they needed and deserved, then I'd have no children at all ... and that's just what I've done. I see my friend’s children and I die a little inside knowing that those kids are the age that my children should be. I feel like I'm missing out on a joy that may never cross my face ... or my heart. It seems to slip further away every day, each time I think about it, I feel like I sink a little deeper into the dark, stormy water ...

  It is probably my biggest unrealized dream ... The only football I seem to keep failing to kick.
  
  I can think of only one other thing that approaches a feeling of regret for me: my health. I'm not ugly, but I'm not the hottest guy on the planet either. I’ve been told on many occasions that I’m quite handsome. Countless women have told me that my eyes and my confidence are the sexiest they've ever seen. Still, I wish I had took better care of myself as I've grown older.  

  Make no bones about it, I am thee most cocky, confident, egotist you have ever met. But, even though I’m pretty sure some of it is an eminence front, I’ve never been one to be insecure. Like I said before, I’m usually pretty fearless. It doesn’t feel like a reckless fearless; it feels like confidence fearless. But even so, I’m usually alone.

  Not lonely …

  Alone.

  For a while, I thought that maybe it was something about me. A bit of insecurity trying to sneak up on me … but now I’m beginning to think that it’s simply an issue of fate ...

  Perhaps, I’ve just never found my “Little Red Haired Girl” ... regardless of my looks.  

  Before, my attitude has always been: "Hey, If they don't like the way I look, then why would I want them?" Typical for my normal, “Joe Cool” attitude …

  I think that arrogance, much like justice, is blind.

  I was so blind it seems, that I failed to ever notice that I usually only take interest in beautiful women. By the same token, so, so many have taken interest in me as well. But being with women is not the same as being in love with one.

  I can be such a fool sometimes ...

  But ...

  I've always had really nice looking girlfriends ...

  I guess no matter how you look at things ...
In the end ... you bring it on yourself ... mostly.
  Sometimes ... you let others bring it on you too.

     Aw hell, sometimes they bring it even when you DON'T let them!

  And sometimes ...

  It just falls right out of the sky ...

  C’est La Vie!

  Mi Vida Loca!

  Oh, good grief!

  I'm gonna go back outside ...

  I can be such a blockhead sometimes ...

  Who am I kidding anyway?

      I love the rain!




Jeff Gaines


Monday, August 23rd, 1999