Heart of Darkness

It has been a long time since I have updated. Life has been full of curve balls. I'm trying to decide if I struck out or hit a home-run-- do I walk to the bench or run the bases? It's that moment in life where it's hard to tell if you are winning or losing, or if it even matters.

I woke myself up this morning, whimpering, from a dream of my ex. I found it odd, as I was updating my Facebook status:

"Had a totally awesome dream about zombies-- I holed up in a villa (yep, villa)-- mainly because it had one a massive wrought-iron fence and surveillance, but also because I barricaded the rest of it off into defensive zones. Set up trip wires for fire traps and other hazards. Lost the east wing, no biggy-- fell back to the main area. But then the mean, greasy, druglord who owned the villa showed up. Not so cool. However, I knew my way around by this point, even the secret passages, so I went ghost sniper and picked off enough of the henchmen that Señor Cocaine had to reconsider his position. Suddenly some random survivors show up and then of course the zombie hoarde started pressing the issue so a tenuous alliance was formed between the survivors and the remainder of the cartel in the heat of battle.

"Followed by a totally awful dream about my ex which woke me up in a cold sweat."

Is my ex-partner really worse than a zombie apocalypse? But I realized in a life-or-death situations you are completely in tune with your core self. All pretense, all fabrication, all doubts are stripped away. There is just that moment of self facing danger. The walls of your core self are intact and perhaps stronger than ever.

But in a long-term relationship you aren't alone behind those walls. You feel as if that person is there with you (whether or not they actually are). When they leave, it feels as if the walls have been breached from within-- sabotage! When they have gone it is as if a big smoking crater was blown out from the inside and the insides, bricks, and mortar, are scattered across the battlefield outside. You feel so horribly raw and vulnerable.

This seems paradoxical. How can one be both a fortress of solitude and a vulnerable collective? Perhaps these are both true and valid perceptions. Perhaps we are always a castle, steadfast and self-sufficient, but vulnerable, tender, and lonely. Perhaps it has nothing to do with castles and walls at all. Perhaps we are strong hearts beating wildly against the darkness, fragile and powerful, alive and dying, feeling blindly, fluttering pulsing sentience.

Perhaps.