Day Two hundred and ninety nine - Five miles out

'Let the raining teardrops rain down on me tonight', the singer says directly to my ears, as I walk around in the rain. This is one of those moments where by sheer coincidence the song I'm listening to matches what's happening in real life. I'm loath to say today was a bad day - it wasn't necessarily so - but it was a monumentally not good day. Especially at work, things just didn't go that well, and I now have a backlog of work that will take me days to get in some semblance of order. So after work I went to the gym, did my usual routine, but I left feeling... I don't know. Unsatisfied. Ill at ease. No, that's an exaggeration, I just felt like I needed to vent a bit. I did so by going for a walk around the area - and these are streets I've known like the back of my hand ever since I was a small kid. Of course, whenever I write, I pull stuff from my own personal experience, and some of the places where my stories are set are either places I know intimately, or maybe a composite of a bunch of other places. The street where my gym is located is one I've traversed countless times during my lifetime, alone or together. I let my feet guide me, and just down the road there's now a chinese megastore where once upon one of my favourite theatres was, and past that a McDonald's whose existence in that particular spot has always pained me, as it was a diner I went to a lot with my mother and grandmother when I was younger. And then, just past it, a short distance away, the church where I had my first communion and was baptized. It's the church where I always imagined I'd one day get married. As recent as over a little a decade ago, I still hoped that day would come, but now... not anymore, no. There was a time when I'd go there often - a time in my adult life, I might add - just to sit down, and linger in thought for a while. Did I pray sometimes? I might, though I don't rightly recall doing so. But what I did was talk to god, and ask for guidance, and for peace, and for permanence. I'm not sure if god ever replied.

I walk towards the church and look at it longingly. There's a huge part of me that stills imagines me walking down that aisle, next to the one I love. I dream, but do not dare hope. For I know reality, and my reality precludes harbouring such notions. I walk on, look at the side of the church, then to where a crosswalk leads to the other side of the road. These are things that have featured quite a bit in these sad little tales I weave. Time to continue, and I keep walking, until I'm on the other side of the road and making my way back home. The falling rain feels sharp and tinny on my skin, pinpricking me with cold raindrops as I march towards my destination. I arrive home feeling exhausted and bereft. I feel... alone. And I can deal with my loneliness quite well, most of the time, but in days like today It's just hard. Especially because I refuse to do what I used to to numb the loneliness - which was to get completely wasted on booze. I have to face this completely sober, and deal with the intrusive thoughts. It's true, and I shouldn't be ashamed to voice it. It's hard admitting it, but there's so much I can no longer recall. The touch of someone on my skin. Knowing the nearness of someone. Just... talking to someone. I miss these things, so much more than I miss sex. I'm restless, and I know sleep will be something that will not come easy tonight. In another life, I'd be getting ready to go out, and get drunk, and have my eagle eyes on and pick up someone and we'd end up fucking in some back alley somewhere. I don't have that dog in me anymore, though. It's not what I want out of life for a long time now. But today... today the loneliness is just too much to bear. So much so, I'm afraid of loneliness swallowing me.