Heartache of Hope: a Short story.

                                         

I look at the charlie brown Christmas tree. It sits with a coyote skull under its lonesome red bulb. The small branch bends towards the skull. The little box of a table that holds all this mystery sits between two bookshelves: organized in their dissonance.

 

I have felt alone for so long, unsure of what my place in this thing called life would be. Unsure if I had stepped in the universe's punchline.

 

I used to pace and chain smoke. Nicotine and delusions reek of nostalgia.

 

I have paranoid schizophrenia, OCD, Social Anxiety, and severe depression.

 

I had gotten so depressed that most of my jokes are about me being a disappointment. No one makes me feel that way but myself, It can be disheartening.

 

This year I am ready for the season. Saving up to buy my niece a guitar. Saving up to share that ever-elusive quality of "goodwill towards men".

 

But why does my heartache? Why am I so resistant to the idea that I can improve my mood?

 

I feel like there is an anecdote that sums up my hopelessness (from years ago before medication). When I was talking to my radio.

 

I said, "I take it god is not Morgan Freeman?"

 

He responded "this is him." the voice eerily was that of the actor.

 

I crossed my hands on my knees doing my best impression of a swaggering pirate: all with caustic bravado and said "I take it we all have someone to answer to now don't we?"

 

The ambiance changed, and the room was dark. I could see but it was like all was beneath a cloud casting everything in shadows. "shut the hell up or, I will reach through this radio and grab you by the throat!"

 

I walked away scared thinking with my pulse pounding near my skull. The fear can not be articulated. That is how it is.

 

I walked back and sat in the corner of the room still in fear but completely in awe. I would say nothing I would listen I would hear what the voice had to say. There was a pause then so the cloud passed and levity returned.

 

"There is a certain sadness that comes from worrying about the ultimate fate of a soul."

 

The voice: loving like a father but not mine. I know now it is a delusion but fear of damnation complicates that if there is the slimmest chance it was God then shouldn't I treat the big guy upstairs with a little respect?

 

Delusions are convictions that don't make since it is a thin line between faith and a kind of disconnect. That the brain is trying to react to a universe that does not make obvious sense.

 

I asked my niece "what would you rather have a guitar or video games?

 

She smiles at me in innocence "what videogames are we talking about?"

 

My mom cuts in "Whichever video games you want."

 

and I add "about a hundred and fifty dollars worth."

 

"I think I want a guitar."

 

So that is what she is getting. When I was her age I got my first instrument. A Squire-Stratocaster was cream-white and was more a right of passage than my first car. I was so inept at playing I thought you got the different sounds out of it from the tuners, not the fretboard. I would sit for hours changing the tuners wondering why do I not sound like Jimi Hendrix on Voodoo Child (slight return)? I learned chords a year later dealing with the jokes about my lack of talent the way I did everything else: running into them like brick walls in an invisible labyrinth.

 

I was going to be a rockstar. I was going to change the world. That was all before the madness. I am starting to cry now cause I wish I could give the younger version of me a hug and let him know someone is looking out for him, but, it is too late.

 

I am greying in my beard and hair. I have kept trying even when it hurts. Every time it never fails to remind me I am a drop in the pond. There is enough pain to go around not just my isolated experience. Why are so many people hurting, and I can't save one of them?

 

"Some grow young, and some grow cold." is what Tom petty sang on you don't know how it feels. But that painful hope that heartache is sitting under a Charlie Brown Christmas tree.