It�s after midnight and I should be sleeping or writing or something, anything but wasting more time. Time is not on my side. It is relentless and belligerent and it cares nothing for my wants and needs but plods along despite me and my feeling of emptiness. There is a hollow inside, an empty space that will not be filled. Once I filled the space with food, then I embraced the space and fed the hole with running and water and little else. Now I can not bring myself to recognize the abyss that occupies my stomach. There has got to be more than this. My life has got to be more than just moving from job to job and waiting for the brief phone conversations to assure that I am still in a relationship and not just alone here, way out here, far away from so many people I love and will probably never see again.

I should be writing. I realize that I am writing but this is not Nanowrimo writing this is venting, trying to let go of the pent up emotions that I keep stuffing down into that hole, the hole that gets wider and deeper every day.

The house is quiet. I sit at my beautiful but terribly uncomfortable Asian desk and spill out the sour contents of my soul. Its coming you know, the sign that I am not meant to have real meaning. I�m tapping my foot, keeping time, but I�m waiting for my turn to play in the orchestra like when I was in Jr. High School. I played in the school band which the band director fancied an orchestra. Throughout my seventh year in school I tried again and again to move up. The only way to move up from second flute (keeping time) to first flute was to challenge the person next to you to a musical dual. The band director would judge. Week after week I practiced and tried again and again only to lose the challenge and be forced to spend another week keeping time. In ninth grade I was finally able to advance due mostly to the transfer of the best musicians to the Sr, High. Two things happened after I made first flute (not first chair, just one of the first flutes). One was I learned that I wasn�t good enough to play flute and two I was beaten to unconsciousness by someone who claimed to be a friend and transferred to the high school mid semester to protect me from bullies. This placed me at the mercy of even older and more brutal bullies. Thanks!

I�m odd. I don�t mean to be, I really can�t seem to help myself. Here�s another one; remember the Halloween party I was invited to, well I didn�t go. Turns out it was further away than I thought and the weather was foul that night so I just went home, alone, again. The odd part was I called the girl throwing the party to get the address and let her know I was coming �if she didn�t mind� (why did I say that?) and then after she told me I could get directions from one of the other girls she suggested I could drive for the both of us. I told her �we�ll see� (I hate riding with other folks it puts me or them at each others mercy and I just haven�t been lucky in that department). Then when I found out how far away it was I told the other girl to let the host know I wouldn�t be coming. That should have been fine right, but no, I have to call and let her know I won�t be there so she doesn�t worry. Who worries? People have parties and folks don�t show up, it happens all the time no one worries, but I would worry so I think they would but that suggests that they care if I show up and really I think I was only invited to be polite.

I don�t have parties because no one ever shows up. I had a going away party and half of the people I invited showed up so it was the best party I ever had. I�d just as soon go to someone else�s party and entertain and help clean up. My friends throw successful parties. They are all too far away now. No more parties, except the polite invitations from people that just think you are odd.

Now it�s almost one o�clock and my Darling still has a couple of hours left on his shift, I don�t want to sleep, I can�t eat and although I have almost eight hundred words that do nothing to progress my challenge. I�m not even sure what I want to write, God, I can�t even decide whose voice I want to use. I don�t even know who my voice is let alone some character I can�t feel. All I can feel is that empty hole. The problem is I think I have peaked. I think I am pretty much done. No great novel (not even a poor published novel), no house, or family just job to job again and again waiting alone in my apartment for my Darling to come home and spend an hour with me before I head off to do it all over again.

Five positive things

I still have a job (two of them actually) so I can pay my bills.
It�s cold but it�s not snowing.
My Darling got me a rose (it was an �I�m sorry� but that actually rates right up with the �just because� kind simply because it means that everything is not �all my fault�)
It has been 2 years, 9 months, 22 days since my last drink.
It has been 3 years, 4 months, 30 days since my last smoke.

I wish I were really writing.

I wish you Peace

~alison~

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