change must come

me:”What is wrong with me?”
you:”I don’t know you. You tell me.”
me:”It’s difficult to tell. I don’t think I’ve felt this way before.”
you:”How exactly is that?”
me:”Like I should be more.”
you:”What do you mean? Expectations? Self-image?”
me:”It’s difficult to tell. I don’t think I’ve felt this way before.”
you:”I think you know exactly how you feel. You are just too ashamed to admit it.”
me:”Do you blame that on pride? Am I too selfish to really admit my faults?”
you:”Yes.”
me:”How can you say that? You don’t know me.”
you:”I can say it because I see you. I don’t need to worry about your pride or your self-image. I don’t care about you. I am uninhibited by your feelings. I can tell you what i honestly see.”
me:”Then you know me…”
you:”I don’t know you. I know my eyes. I know my ears. I know them to speak the truth to me. They haven’t a mind of their own. I control them.”
me:”So, since you don’t know me, tell me what is wrong with me.”
you:”You’ve already told yourself. Stop pretending you don’t know.”
me:”I know the symptoms of my ways but this only tells me what I have become and not how I have turned into this person I don’t know.”
you:”Sounds like you don’t pay much attention.”
me:”What are you talking about. I’ve been listening to you this whole time.”
you:”Yes, I know you’ve been attentive to our conversation. It isn’t me who you’ve been ignoring.”
me:”How can I ignore myself?”
you:”By lying to me.”
me:”I have told you the truth.”
you:”No. Tell me how you really feel.”
me:”I feel like you’re being too nosy.”
you:”Do you want my help or not?”
me:”Fine.”
you:”Then stop procrastinating and tell me what is the matter. Tell me whats wrong with you. As soon as you admit it to yourself, you will know.”
me:”I am sick.”
you:” . . . “
me:”I don’t know reality anymore. I can’t depend on anything. Nothing is tangible. Nothing is material. It is all ethereal-”
you:”How poetic…”
me:”Do you want me to keep going or not?”
you:” . . . “
me:”Whenever close my eyes and try to open my mind, all I can see is how confused I am, about everything. I used to be able to depend on instinct, logic and reason. Now all I can depend on is that I won’t know what to do.”
you:”You don’t strike me as the unintelligent type.”
me:”I didn’t use to be. I’m not so sure now.”
you:”Your mind just cant melt away. You are still you in there somewhere. Just need to find it.”
me:”With all of my disconnected thoughts, dead end theories and improper assumptions, I’m not so sure that is possible.”
you:”You may be right.”
me:”So assuming I am, indeed, lost… forever, what should I do?”
you:”I don’t know you. You tell me.”
me:” . . . “
you:”You sound so self-accusing.”
me:”You assume it is not my own fault.”
you:”How could it be?
me:”I’m not sure. I just feel so guilty when I think about who I am now.”
you:”What could you have possibly done?”
me:”So many things… lied too much, cheated too often, thought too slow, spoke too soon, succeeded too early, tried too late, lusted too hard, cared too little, acted too brash, forgave too inconsistently, coveted too eagerly, got jealous too easily, responded too lovingly, regretted too shamefully, enjoyed too selfishly, rejoiced too presumptuously, depended too aimlessly, concerned too interrogatively, blamed too heartlessly, despised too greedily, slacked too hopefully, held on too hopefully, dreamed too hopefully, wished too hopefully, raged too hopefully, cried too hopefully, recovered too hopefully, moved on too hopefully, regressed too hopefully, loved too hopefully. Hope has betrayed me.”
you:”It sounds like you’ve convinced yourself.”
me:”I have.”
you:”I think you left out ‘gave up too hopefully’.”
me:”I haven’t given up.”
you:”Yes, you have. Listen to yourself. Think about what you’ve just told me, about how you really feel.”
me:”How am I supposed to not give up, when ‘hope’ has done nothing in my life but lead me down a narrow twisted path with no direction?”
you:”You do not trust.”
me:”The way you use these words, they mean the same thing, ‘hope’ and ‘trust’.”
you:”Distinct differences, they have. ‘Hope’ is internal. You cannot share ‘hope’ with anyone. ‘Hope’ is what drives you to ‘trust’. ‘Trust’ is external. ‘Trust’ is confidence in another. It is the ease that another brings you when your ‘trust’ in them pays you back, ten-fold, in ‘hope’.”
me:”Having another person involved in my mess would be selfish beyond reason. I would only bring them down and deprive them of their own ‘hope’ and cheat them of ‘trust’ in me.”
you:”You only feel this way because you have no ‘hope’ and cannot ‘trust’ anything but your own demise.”
me:”You are arguing in circles, how can I have someone to ‘trust’ so that they will give me the ‘hope’ to ‘trust’ them in the first place?”
you:”You think too much.”
me:”Are you suggesting that I am over-thinking a matter such as my own demise?”
you:”Are you suggesting that I am over-simplifying such a matter?”
me:”This conversation is going nowhere. I will be going now.”
you:”Where will you go? Back to your apartment to cry yourself to sleep for the fifth night in a row? Maybe you will go back to your apartment where you will try to sleep your day away so you have to ‘feel’. Possibly you will go back to your apartment where you will proceed to feel sick and worried all day long because there are certain things you can’t get out of your head. Could be you will go back to your apartment and wish the whole day long that your one wish will come true, even though you know that it wont. You might go back to your apartment and devote an entire week feeling sorry for yourself. Chances are, you will go back to your apartment and spend an entire semester ignoring your studies and worrying about your lack of meaningful relationships and focusing on games. What I know for sure is that you are so busy trying to figure out ‘whats wrong’ that you have lost touch with the ability to do something about it.
me:”How can you say these things. You don’t know me.”
you:”Does it really matter who I am? The truth is, I know you more than anyone ever will. I know you better than your parents. I know you better than your friends. I know you better than your own self. I know you better than your god.”
me:”But you told me-”
you:”What I say doesn’t really matter now does it? I could talk for hours about how to perfect your life. Would you listen? Would you heed my advice and prevail over weakness?”
me:”Yes I wou-”
you:”Of course you wouldn’t.”
me:”Where do you get off saying something like that to me?”
you:”Someone has to say it. Sure enough, you wouldn’t.”
me:”How is all of this supposed to help me?”
you:”Haha! Help you? You think I am here to help you? You expect me to comfort you and show you the way like some guardian angel?”
me:”This has been a spectacularly demeaning waste of my time.”
you:”Time that you would otherwise be spending sulking and wishing you could start over. Yes, I know.”
me:”I think i know who you are now.”
you:”I would be amazed to hear your queries.”
me:”You are the sickness that makes me get up and wander the hall outside my apartment. You are the fire drill that awakens me from my few hours of restful sleep. You are the meaningless tears that roll down my cheek when I am confused. You are the few laughs I get with my friends between bouts of sadness. You are the smile that I unwillingly crack when I want to the least. You are the loud vehicle outside my window that refocuses my anguish to anger, even if only for a moment. You are the two minutes of bliss when I wake up and don’t remember where my world has gone. You are the distraction that keeps me from ameliorating my position. You are the force that allows me to make any sense of my sorrow.”
you:”I won’t say you quite ‘hit the nail on the head’ but you have come close than most. Just goes to show you still have a good head on your shoulders. If you are imagining me as the so-called Devil and I do know thats what you are thinking. I am very sorry to inform you that I am no infernal incarnation. You see, part of the little deal I struck, I can’t really tell you who I am or why I am here. All I can say is that, well, if things don’t begin to change and change quickly, you will be seeing a lot more of me.”
me:”What sort of change?”
you:”I think you know. Honestly I can tell you, there aren’t many ways you can go down-hill from this position, mentally at least. I am thinking that what you need is a little misshapen for your particular needs. Sort of like a medicine that doesn’t quite cure you but heals you in a way such that you can continue long enough to find your own means of recovery. Like I’ve said, I am not here to lead you to the answer. You won’t know why we have been brought together for quite a while. It will ‘come to you in a dream’, if you will.”
me:”If you will not reveal yourself and you will not give me the help I so obviously am in need of, then what is use?”
you:”I am not your genie. I am the proprietary version of what you used to be; a free spirit who lived to love and loved to give people the answers they would understand much further down the road than would seem promptly useful to them.”
me:”Then, you are my future self.”
you:”Hah! Don’t be so naive. What childish thoughts. If you even what there to be a “future you” change must come.”
me:”I’m not sure I know how to change. I cannot look back and find the day when my path diverged.”
you:”Continue on this path long enough and I assure you, you will see but only when it is too late. For now you must be your own doctor, be your own soul mate, be your own parent, be your own priest. You need to give yourself then answers and stop looking for them. Right before your eyes is a self-fulfilling prophecy so great you could not imagine. If you want to latch on to that future, you must do so now. Be the great man you have always been and grab the wheel. Don’t let fate define who you will become. An once of your potential could cure solve your problems and fill others’ lives with your happiness. Be that man so few are and pull a 180 on this mess. Put yourself in a position to enjoy what little time we have on this earth. I ‘hope’ this is the last time we speak. I ‘trust’ you will know what to do.”
me:”Thank you, kind soul. This dose may prove worth while.”