Empty

Will I always feel this way?

So empty, so estranged?

-Ray LaMontagne, "Empty"

I went to a big surprise party last week and the room was filled with family and friends I've known all my life. I hadn't seen many of them in quite a long time. 

My favorite people were in the room. All of my immediate family. It should have been a joyous occasion for me. For all. I think, and hope, that for some it was.

But my experience was nothing that the warm room might imply. I was very much felt wanting. I felt disconnected. I wasn't sure what to talk about. I didn't feel as if I had anything to share. I wasn't curious about what everyone else had been up to. There was lots of good food and plenty of beer and wine. I wanted none of it.

I also couldn't shake the notion that there were people missing from the room. Friends I used to call family that I've fallen out of touch with. And, of course, relatives that have passed.

I don't know exactly how to remedy this degradation of my emotion and mental state. There are days lately when I recall with painful detail that this feeling has been with me for a long, long time. Perhaps in a similar room a long time ago, with the same people but with their younger faces, I felt the same way.

I read on just about every topic under the sun from Buddhism to Zen, from St. Francis to Walt Whitman. I meditate. I drink black coffee; and green tea. I exercise. I take cold showers. 

Sometimes it appears that nothing seems to help. The moments of clarity fade into a thick, murky coat I must wear.

I'm confused. There is no joy. There is no ease.

Be empty that you may be fulfilled.  Be nothing to see that you are everything.

Sometimes it all seems like just an infinity loop of mental gymnastics where things just go round and round and round and round while the centrifugal force varies just enough to imply things may change, may be different, perhaps even significantly different, but in the end, we are swooped right back into the center of the groove and the cycle just starts over again.

I am fatigued by the motivational quotes and speakers. It often feels like just another massive sham. The reality doesn't match the promise.  

I'm empty. And tired.

Or maybe it's just the Monday morning doldrums.  I know tomorrow will be better.  But sometimes it's heavy. This persistent and longstanding feeling of it all being quite a whole lot of nothing. Meaningless. 

Or maybe, as Ray LaMontagne writes later in his song, I'm just bored of the phantoms?

Well, I looked my demons in the eyes

Lay bare my chest, said, "Do your best to destroy me"

See, I've been to hell and back so many times

I must admit you kinda bore me

Perhaps one day, eventually, I will find something more meaningful on the other side of them.