unbowed (ùn-boud) adjective
1. Not bowed; unbent.
2. Not subdued; unyielding: "My head is bloody but
unbowed" (W.E. Henley)
In the fell clutch of circumstance,
I have not winced nor cried aloud:
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
W. E. Henley
|
Poetmom has a thread
asking about people's regrets. Here's my response:
"I wasn't going to answer this one because I have
sooooooo many regrets, I didn't think it would be possible to pick
one.
But then I was poking around the web (even though I really
should be sleeping -- but I'm probably on the verge of a nervous
breakdown, so who needs sleep, right? Funny, I thought I was doing
better than this... Anyway, back to the story...) and as I
sometimes do I started trying to find people I used to know which
almost inevitably leads me to trying to find anything about my old
high school. Well, since my last journey into self-obsessed
Google-land my kinda-alma mater has
put up a web site. This (looking at the site) combined
with the dream I had last night about my long broken relationship
with them, kind of pushed me nearer the abyss.
I regret that I was so arrogant when I was young, that I
thought success was inevitable, that I always thought there would
be time... and that I was so wrong on all counts."
If I wanted to start listing regrets I could fill your monitor
with pages of them.
I've always considered myself the "bloody but unbowed" type, the
"Ha-ha, life! you threw everything you had at me, but I'm still
standing!" type. It's clear that I'm full of "it." Clearly I
have cried aloud and become so practiced at wincing that no
danger is even required. I'm not just bloody, I'm bowed.
At some point I clearly gave up. The last 12 or 13 years have been
a kaleidoscopic blur of mistakes, misfortune, loss, and pain. My life
lies around me like the remains of a hurricane splintered house. Only
by being told do you know a house once stood here. No evidence
presents itself to your eyes for you to independently reach that
conclusion. All you can see is a shattered, haphazard lay of what
once may have been something. Even a garbage dump would be ashamed to
look like this.
Anything I envision now seems like just a pale adaptation of what
I once dreamed, a mere struggle at survival, a token effort to say,
"I'm not broken, I'm still in the game, really I am... really." I've
been facing some very hard realities this year, and one of the
hardest is that I am broken and empty and I don't know if I
have anything left to give. It only takes one little crack for
everything to drain out. The empty container is so easy to shatter.
I'm literally shocked at how closed down and shut off my life has
become. I keep thinking over and over again, This wasn't how it
was supposed to be. This has been a bad year, a really bad year.
I've lost things I never should have lost, things you wouldn't
believe if I told you, things that make me doubt whether I have any
future whatsoever and make me question my entire past.
Virtually all my achievements take place before the age of 21. And
what did they add up to? Nothing. Much ado about nothing. This
wasn't how it was supposed to be. Things are supposed to matter.
Things are supposed to build.
So Near, So Far
I watched the dream die in my hand
I never dreamed every hope could disappear
Like the windswept sands
Gene Nash, from the song "So Near, So
Far"
|
I miss my friends -- have I had any real friends since high
school? I miss my life. I wonder if I have even had a life since high
school. I tried. But I wonder... I really wonder.... It's easy to
look back now and see what I should have done. If only... If
only.... But what do I do now?
I guess this is a desperate cry for help. I just want someone to
care. I just want someone to acknowledge me. But at this point, after
so many years of fall and loss, I wonder if the acclaim of the entire
world would be enough. The way I feel now, I doubt it.
You don't know me from Adam. I can't expect anybody to care. I
don't really. But I figure crying out to the world this way is better
than collapsing in a heap somewhere and wailing out to the heavens.
Not much better. If things continue this way I still may end up in
sobbing, slobbering ball somewhere.
I hope not. But all my past hopes have been dashed. Why should
this be any different?