I Continue

It's white outside my window. The wind is rushing by, carrying the tiny, dry flakes of snow on a wind-whipped journey. They dance a strange and strained ballet, rising and falling, twisting and turning, forwards and back. They move about madly, pas de deux and pirouette, cabriole and jeté, leaping agile onto my patio, clinging desperately to my window sill until the wind once again whips them away before the cold can freeze them on the glass. Once again the traffic is quiet; people don't like to drive in this weather yet there continue to be hardy souls afoot, traipsing through the cold and wind to the stores across the street.

I can feel the melancholy settling in as I sit here this morning. It started last night as I sat alone eating my dinner, wondering why I even bother to make something so nice when the only person here is me. Ricky divides his life into two spheres, work and his bedroom. His emergence from solitude only occurs, grudgingly, when he has to engage in some from of household task, or when he has to go to work. At times I will ask him to do something and he will say "That sounds like something you can do on your own". I am not sure if he does this to stop me from getting lazy or because he is lazy. Either way, I continue to do much on my own.

Most times I eat alone, with the exception being those days when I have company. I enjoy those days. When I am alone I begin to think about things, usually not good things. I think about the future, I dwell on the past. I ask myself what I did wrong, how I ended up in this place, this existence. I wonder why she got to be happy and I did not. I wonder why I worked so hard to end up with so little. Even reminding myself of what a terrific life I have had does not lessen the sadness when I look upon myself today. It wasn't supposed to be this way yet I continue to eat, to work, to think.

I go to sleep alone. There in my bed, at 2:00 AM, I awaken to feel the nothingness and anxiety that continually abides within me. I am empty. I have poured out my life to do what I thought was right, yet I was wrong. There is nothing right in making yourself unhappy so another can be happy. There is no right in giving in to emotional tyranny, abdicating in the face of intransigence, leaving rather than fighting. At 2:00 AM, when I awaken, there is nobody there to help me see that there are better things out there, happier times out there, warmth and joy out there. All I see is the cold, bleak snows that whip by my window. I force myself back to sleep, to continue in slumber.

With all this, I continue. In the face of failure, I continue. With the loss of my legs, I continue. With the loss of my future, I continue. With this overwhelming sense of the stupidity and pointlessness of it all, I continue. Even with this cold winter wind, I continue.