It’s over, I’ve lost.

After 23 years of rejection, heartaches, unrequited love, enduring the rude, cold treatment of every women I’ve ever been interested in or in love with, I’m tossing in the towel.

My latest failure took away whatever remaining hope I had. Even though we seemed to have so many specific, rare things in common, I only managed to hold her interest for maybe 5 minutes before she decided I just wasn’t worth her attention anymore, and blew me off without warning.

I guess that’s it then. I’ll never experience what it’s like to hold hands with a girl, to kiss her, to hold her in my arms, to tell her how much I love her and care for her, and have her tell me the same. I will be single and alone for the rest of my life, and I’m sure all my enemies will gain immense satisfaction in knowing I will never be happy.

Ah well, I won’t get mad about this. I’ll just get even.

After all, if ya gotta go, go with a smile!

HAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!

It’s no secret that “King of Pain” is one of my all-time favorite songs. I consider it a signature description of my sometimes dark personality, but rather than hoping for an end to my own “reign of pain,” I’m actually at peace with it. Depression to me is not really a disease but rather a neutral state that reflects how I feel. Even then, most people don’t even realize when I’m in a depressive state because I’m always outgoing and friendly in real life, even while my soul may be currently wrenched in despair and turmoil. I think that’s why this song resonates with me: while the lyrics are truly melancholy in nature, the music itself is arguably upbeat and lively, counterbalancing the disquieting mood of depression with a more energetic appeal. It reflects a paradoxical soul at odds with itself, expressing opposing sentiments that somehow are both true and real.

So while I may have to stand out here in the pouring rain, I do so with a smile, and embrace my destiny as king of pain.

I have stood here before inside the pouring rain,
With the world turning circles running ’round my brain,
I guess I’m always hoping that you’ll end this reign,
But it’s my destiny to be the king of pain…

One of the reasons it’s been so difficult for me to find dates is because I don’t have a very active social life (which is to say, I have no social life whatsoever to speak of.) I used to have a close knit group of friends that carried me through high school and beyond college for a while, but eventually we began to drift apart for various reasons, until one day I found myself living the life of a loner again.

I was never one for attending social gatherings though so I could maybe gain some new friends, mainly because there were, well, people there. And I hated people.

Ok, I wouldn’t go so far as to say I hated them, maybe that I just didn’t get along…no I hated them.

Unfortunately, if I was ever gonna meet girls then I was gonna have to go where people were, sooner or later. With a mindset like this, it’s a small wonder why I was always holding out hope that I would meet someone at my job instead. After all, I’m forced to be here, and there were people here too, soooo….

For the longest time I used to entertain fantasies of meeting the girl of my dreams at work, so much that it started taking on a life of its own. I even nailed down what she would look like too: deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. She would be as sweet as an angel, maybe assigned somewhere close to me so we’d run into each other on a regular basis. Things would be strictly platonic at first, but before I knew it she would eventually warm up to me… and love would blossom out of nothing at all.

Out of nothing at allllll….. Out of nothing at… *ahem* but anyways, that’s how I imagined it. From that we would eventually become engaged, get married, and live happily ever after. Oh how I prayed and begged God that this would all happen for real. My fantasies here were so vivid that I could have weaved a cheap romance novel out of it. Probably could have made some cash from selling it too.

I had been churning over this latest fantasy of mine for a few months, when something weird happened: we got a new coworker assigned near us who had… deeply tanned skin, big brown eyes, and luscious brown hair. I swear you couldn’t make this stuff up. Our department doesn’t attract a lot of young workers to begin with, so just getting another coworker around my age would have been odd unto itself. She was a year older than me, but single and beautiful, and had a mellow, pleasant personality about her. In her previous job she worked with kids who suffered from various disabilities too. It was perfect! My dream was actually coming to life!

Except she hated me.

Well, she didn’t really hate me. She just had no interest in me whatsoever. I tried everything I could think of to woo her too, all in the futile hope that eventually, sooner or later, she would warm up to me in very much the same way her alter ego did in my fantasies. I kept her company when things got quiet during our late shifts. I helped her out whenever she needed to learn something about the job. I helped her find her keys when she had lost them and was freaking out over it, and at her request I burned dozens of her CDs into MP3s so she could use an MP3 player she bought for the gym (even though she didn’t have a computer). I changed my hairstyles, clothing, and yes, I’m ashamed to admit it, during my low points I even tried using TAG body spray (I’m suing those bastards for false advertising by the way.)

Yet despite all my efforts, when it came to asking her out to lunch, or even just coffee, she had no interest at all. The more she blew me off, the more I pined for her love. After a couple of months of this I eventually gave up. I decided I would continue being a nice guy as always, but I resigned myself to the fact that she would never be interested in me. I was just a pathetic loser who could never be good enough for her. My fantasy was not to be.

And that might have been the end of it, except that shortly afterwards she fell madly in love with another coworker, and within a few months they were engaged to be married.

My fantasies were coming to life after all… but for somebody else. Honestly, mere words could not convey the state of my emotions as I watched some little bastard boy enjoy what I previously could only experience in my dreams. Every day I had to come in to work and see those two nuzzling noses or holding hands at a picnic table (just as I envisioned it), and it was all I could do to keep myself from screaming at the top of my lungs and stepping on the gas at a nearby red light hoping an 18 wheeler would plow into me.

The best though was when the wedding itself was soon coming up, and she asked me if I had any suggestions for wedding songs she could use. I ended up making a CD of what I considered to be my most favorite love songs, songs I probably would have picked for my own wedding too. From what I heard my CD turned out to be a big hit, though I wouldn’t know, since I wasn’t invited.

I’m not one for bitterness though, so here’s a toast to their new life together. May their imminent divorce be appallingly messy and violently ugly.

No seriously, I do hope they’ll be happy together, I guess. I don’t begrudge anyone getting married, but for the love of kindness, did it really have to F*&%ING play out EXACTLY like I imagined it???

When I saw that, I guess I went through something of a system shock. My feelings went numb and I succumbed to a state of deep depression. In a way, I had given up on life. I no longer took care of myself, no longer went out as much as I used to. My clothes would get worn and start showing holes, but I didn’t care. I started suffering from health problems, but still I didn’t care. It wasn’t uncommon for me to sleep for 12-15 hours a night, and even then I just had no energy to get out of bed at all. I used to be punctual and on time for work, but I became so lethargic that if I ended up being only 10 minutes late, it was a miracle. It was becoming a regular tradition for me to hit the supermarket the night before my days off from work, stock up on groceries and DVDs from Redbox, then head home and hole up in my bedroom with my tub of popcorn, TV and laptop, where I would stay unmoved in my jammies until it was time to go back to work again.

I became utterly convinced that God hated me. After all, He wasn’t going to simply ignore my prayers here. Nope, He was going to twist and twist and twist the knife in so deep that it would all but ensure my psyche would never recover from this. It was almost like He recorded my fantasies and decided to orchestrate it in real life so that someone else would become the beneficiary of it, right before my very eyes. I mean really, what were the odds of something like that happening, down to even using the same collection of songs I dreamed would be used at my own wedding? (Which I say at the risk of sounding like a weenie girlie boy.) About a billion to one??

Why? Why did I have to endure that? Why did God have to hurt me like this? I know I can be a wiseass and all who deserves to get smacked around every now and then, but this was bafflingly cruel. It’s part of why I’m so slow to get out of bed every day, because I absolutely dread what new punishment He might have in store for me. My pathetic life must be a source of constant amusement for Him.

But… and before you Christian dweebs start berating me here, let me be quick to note that I don’t really believe this now. I know there’s a purpose to everything, and I’ve seen enough to know that for whatever reason God is keeping me safe from a lot of the evil that’s in this world. I guess that goes to show what a foregone conclusion I must be, that in spite of the complete embarrassment I experienced, I still believe God c
ares for me and has only my best interests in mind. Maybe it’s Stockholm syndrome?

Still, this one really got to me in a bad way, and even now I’m still nursing the wounds. Just when I think I’ve put it behind me, every now and then somebody will stick a finger in the wound, like when I run into her and she talks about her “husband” (just hearing her say that makes me cringe.) Ironically enough, the most recent jab came from my mother, of all places. My Mom never knew I had a thing for this girl, even though she met her a few times at work. One time we had a conversation afterwards and Mom said, “She is SUCH a sweetheart, Linc! How come you can’t meet somebody nice like her? She would have been PERFECT for you!!”

Poor Mom. She had no idea why I ran out after hearing that and started ripping and chewing on the grass on the front lawn.

Ah well. I guess the only thing that will make the pain go away for good is when I finally do meet someone for real. It’s hard to imagine even after all that how I could still retain hope that somehow, somewhere, she’s out there waiting for me, but I do. I guess I’ll always be a romantic at heart, no matter how loopy I get.

I still fantasize about meeting her though. But trust me, I have learned my lesson. Now I imagine meeting her in scenarios that are so outlandish that they cannot POSSIBLY happen to me in real life, much less to anyone else. Currently I fantasize about meeting her as part of an undercover operation I’m doing for the CIA. Oh, and I have superpowers. And the girl of my dreams is an alien from another planet who gets captured by the U.S. government. We fall in love and I spring her loose, then steal the USS Enterprise starship and together we make our way to the Alpha Centauri system, where we spend many steamy, romantic evenings on the paradise planet of Gimmegoomajamjam.

Let’s see y’all beeotches try to turn THAT one into reality, yo!

Weird that I’d be in such a somber mood today, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders as I ponder just how evil the human race has been to me and those I love.

And yet no matter how much I try to get beyond that, no matter how much I try to climb out of this pit of despair and emptiness, there’s always some pig-f*&%er at the top just waiting for the chance to stomp me in the face so I end up free falling back to the bottom again.

Maybe I should accept the reality that failure seems to be my inescapable destiny, and trying to fight it is a fool’s errand that will only prolong the inevitable. Those who lie, cheat and steal to enrich themselves will always prosper obscenely, while my own moral conscience imprisons me from doing the same, all but guaranteeing that I will always be poor, pissed on, and shackled to a dead end job with no future.

The players get all the women, the cheaters get all the money, the liars get all the glory. There is no room left on this planet for a man who aspires to follow after moral uprightness and integrity, even if he himself falls just short of doing so.

For all my efforts, I remain alone, rejected and forgotten. In life I am a ghost, a scentless vapor drifting through the world, incapable of making its presence known, unable to leave its mark.

Unable, to be loved.

The Californian fires got me thinking about how much worth people place on material possessions, and how quickly it can all be lost through circumstances beyond our control. It’s so difficult and takes so long to build up our material wealth, and yet the cruelties of life have shown us that in a mere moment it can all be taken away.

I certainly learned that lesson when I lost my house and found myself utterly homeless for the first time in my life. The feeling that you suddenly have no place on earth anymore to call home is simply indescribable. It was surreal for me, and the shock of that experience changed me forever. These days I no longer place any value in owning a home, and I continue to wittle down my possessions in order to make myself more mobile. Nowadays I place my value in my independence and the freedom of not being tied down to one location. I want to be able to move any where on a dime’s notice, and as a result I’ve been making it a rule of mine to ensure I don’t own more than what I can fit into my own car. Fortunately though I own a SUV.

For the longest time I’ve romanticized the idea of living a nomadic lifestyle, and whenever disaster strikes somewhere in the U.S., I liked the idea that such a lifestyle meant I could just hop in my car and go to lend whatever helping hand I could. I hated to watch these kinds of events unfold, (such as the fires happening now), while I was stuck on the sidelines, tied down to a dead end job, suffering from poor health and with bills that never seem to stop coming. I haven’t entirely proved myself useless though, since I’m using my income to help provide for relatives in need, but there was a part of me that always held on to the notion that I was meant to do more. Not merely token gestures of charity, but the capacity to truly help those in need in ways I’m either incapable or have been unwilling to do now.

To me this felt like the real way to live. It would feel right. It would feel JUST.

There’s a Hebrew word that describes my feelings here, down to a T. The word is Tzedakah, and while it is translated to mean “charity” in English, in truth the meaning is much deeper than that. According to Judaism 101:

“Tzedakah” is the Hebrew word for the acts that we call “charity” in English: giving aid, assistance and money to the poor and needy or to other worthy causes. However, the nature of tzedakah is very different from the idea of charity. The word “charity” suggests benevolence and generosity, a magnanimous act by the wealthy and powerful for the benefit of the poor and needy. The word “tzedakah” is derived from the Hebrew root Tzadei-Dalet-Qof, meaning righteousness, justice or fairness. In Judaism, giving to the poor is not viewed as a generous, magnanimous act; it is simply an act of justice and righteousness, the performance of a duty, giving the poor their due.

When I first started this blog I was under the belief that I would eventually attend law school so I could help find justice for those in need as an attorney, and when those plans fell through, I felt like my life was basically over, and as a result I sunk even further in my depression. Before the thought of law school I once had a lifelong dream of establishing a career in law enforcement, but after 7 years of working in one of the most corrupt law enforcement agencies I’ve ever witnessed in all of creation, that dream was pretty much derailed as well.

Law enforcement didn’t pan out, the legal profession didn’t pan out, so where was I supposed to find justice?

Then I thought, maybe I’ve been looking at this all wrong. It’s a given that God never sees things the way we do, and maybe there’s huge part of a picture in all this that I’ve just haven’t been able to see yet. Maybe the kind of justice I’m looking for can’t be found in a courtroom, or from wearing a badge. Instead of letting myself completely unravel and succumbing to my depression, it might be time to consider that there really is a life being prepared for me that will end up being better than anything I’ve ever imagined, and the kind of justice I seek and find in that life will prove to be more profound and far more rewarding. I just need to believe it again.

I still have a long way to go before I can finally consider myself ready for such a life, but it’s time I broke this cycle of despair and began my own personal basic training program.

You know what I really hate? Humidity. I enjoy humidity the way I enjoy performing a hernia operation on myself using a wooden spoon.

Yesterday we had it really bad though. But come on, it’s close to October now, this heat and humidity crap should behind us as we look forward to cooler (and drier) weather. But nooooooo, summer simply HAS to hold on a little bit longer and vomit its digusting, oppressive moisture on us all. Sheesh. I think the bottom of the ocean has been drier than this.

I like temperate weather. I like seasons (minus summer), and I like being able to wear the kind of fashionable clothes that you can’t wear in hotter climates (especially a nice black leather blazer to impress the ladies). I like leaves changing colors, snow covered streets, and an excuse to snuggle down by the fireplace with my lovely during those cold, dark evenings.

If I HAD a lovely that is.

Great, now I’m depressed again. I think I’ll go to Blockbusters and rent a slasher flick. That always makes me feel better.