Alone Again. Naturally.

    Alone again. Naturally. Some things get easier with practice. Other things it just gets easier to pretend everything is okay. One thing I have had more practice than I deserve is learning to be alone. I am good at it. As a matter of fact it is something I excel at. I have developed advanced coping skills to manage depression, weeping, cumulative stress, loneliness, and grief. Hell, I can cook a healthy, delicious meal while crying non-stop. That takes some serious skill and practice. I get up every day, take care of the menagerie, pack a healthy lunchbox, and get myself off to work where  put in a hard eight hour day, every day, maintaining a cheerful demeanor. Again, serious skill. I get off of work, come home, feed the menagerie and delve into an arduous workout, sometimes going until it is perilously close to bedtime. Then I top my day with a ridiculously healthy dinner, and maybe some homework. All the while, just under the surface, lying in wait for the slightest waver in my resolve, is the pain. Failure, rejection, disappointment, the taint of betrayal, death of trust, another battering of my self esteem. It is all there, barely contained within my skin. Oddly, no matter how deep the pain, I still analyze, appraise, dissect, eviscerate, flay, study, reflect. Assess the damage. Stop the hemorrhaging. I cannot help but turn events over and over and over in my mind, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to comprehend how life can diverge so far from where it was a few short weeks ago. Bliss to disarray, contentment to utter confusion, elation to anguish. I do not deserve this turn of events, so oddly familiar to me, a near deja vu, a disjointed feel that I have been forced down this path before. It is different, and yet the same. This feeling of being cast off, left in the ditch, my luggage in my hand as I watch in bewilderment, my ride heading off into the sunset. Leaving me stranded by the side of the road, puzzled, alone, mouth gaping in utter disbelief. How could this happen again? I think, I do, that it really is not me. Not me, but the choices I make? Am I destined to be drawn to those who need me for all the wrong reasons? Is it my desire to heal, repair, fix the damaged? My helpful, giving nature, my kind heart, the spirit that draws orphaned kittens and neglected children into my sphere. Is this what leads me down these paths? A desire to heal the broken? Is that what this is all about? Then maybe it is me. My fault. My own nature that leads me to be left alone again, naturally. Now I will turn my healing powers, my kind heart, my nurturing nature onto myself. I am the one that needs healing, comforting, repair. The damage wrought was deep and devastating, but neither permanent nor fatal. I am stronger than that. I will heal. I understand myself well enough to know that I am fully capable of standing tall and straight, and on my own two feet, alone again, naturally.