Found 58Knock on the door. Someone might answer ...

(Note: I started writing this a couple of weeks ago in an effort to break out of a self-constructed shell I had been in for much of the past few years that was beginning to really suffocate me. If it reads a bit clunky or disjointed, it's because there was a lot of stopping and restarting going on. Disturbingly enough, I had grown fearful of being truthful for all the wrong reasons. That's no way to live.

I realized I had turned my back on myself, which is stupid, to be blunt, and very counterproductive to what I feel is my purpose. But through this ongoing navigation of a strange new world, I feel some of the more important elements of the old world are resurfacing. Use it or lose it, you know? Fall in or fall out.

I refuse to fall out, as I've learned that is the quickest path to dying inside. I've got so much more to give, and so do you.

We are alive, and we need to conduct ourselves accordingly. That means making a positive impact on others by letting our lights shine, whatever form they may take.

This is mine.

Happy New Year to you all. As always, thank you for being here.

Let's roll ...)  

I need to talk to you for a minute.

If you have one, that is. But here you are, so I suspect you just might.

It will be for longer than a minute, of course. I have a lot of head-mail stored up, and I appreciate you being here and going along for the ride. It is not just necessary; it is crucial.

It's been such a long time since we've connected like this. I've wondered how you've been doing and what the world has been presenting you with. I hope it's been rewarding and full of good things.

And if not, I hope that it's not been more than can be handled. If you're here and following along, it most likely hasn't.

This is difficult for me to write, which has been an ongoing theme for some length of time. It's that damn flow, elusive like a breeze you can't catch. It has to move you. It can not be forced.

Occasionally, it becomes a whirlwind. And when that wind starts whipping from a dizzying multitude of directions, catching a flow - much less riding one - feels next to impossible. It hasn't felt ...

Safe.

That's where I have been, and I have concluded that it is no longer a healthy place to be.

To clarify, it never was. Isolation rarely is.

I am not going to rehash the circumstances that have led me to this place. All you have to do is scroll through some of the most recent writings in my library to connect those dots. I'll merely sum it up as too much loss in too short of time that twisted me up in a most frustrating, profound way.

This has resulted in an unsettling effect, leaving me to question my current existence in ways I never thought possible. But I do not stop there. I go on to question those questions, and that only serves to leave me with even more questions until I'm feeling suffocated in yet another rabbit hole of stifling unease at best, and crippling panic at worst.

While the questions vary and typically blaze through every corner of my life, a few of them rear their nasty selves more than all the others.

How did I get here?

Why don't I recognize anything or anyone anymore?

Why don't I recognize myself anymore?

Let's back it up a stretch and give this a proper setup. Thank you for being here.

Even throughout my most sociable periods, I've always been a loner. I was taught at a very young age that people were not to be trusted, and the unfortunate ramification - warranted or not - is that I carried that searing lesson on my soul like a brand and applied it everywhere.

It was the first and last line of defense for a defenseless kid who grew into a defensive adult, but the consequences were severe in the form of lost opportunities for connection and growth. Personal and professional relationships have been stunted, malnourished, or upended altogether by an insatiable need to feel safe from them.

Does that sound safe to you?

This is rarely how I preferred it, but I felt powerless to fight the flight when the voice of that paranoid copilot inside frantically implored me to fly ... again.

For my own "safety," no doubt.

What strikes me as I write this is that my fingers are speaking in the past tense as if somehow this is a foregone challenge that I've overcome and am no longer plagued by. With all the honesty of transparent candor, that is not the case at all.

Speaking with utmost humility, the past few years have stoked this struggle to epic proportions into what has begun to feel more like an affliction than anything else. I've been ashamed to talk about it beyond the increasingly shrinking circle of those I feel I can trust.

So I have grown silent. But that silence, I fear, is killing off the best of me. I can't continue to allow that.

I decided a few years ago, in the thickness of all the noise going on in my world, that the static had swelled to a deafening level and I needed to shut it down. That meant disconnecting as much as I could from all the headiness of anything pushing the needle into the red.

Throughout the horror show of the world at large melting down combined with a swirl of personal loss within those bookends, "anything" became nearly everything. Each time I checked in with the news or allowed myself to view social media, I was greeted by a brick wall of nausea that forced a prompt retreat back within the safety of these internal walls I was building.

Each time I ventured out into the real world, I found the dirty energy absorbed from every direction to be overwhelming. Gradually, my ability to recognize anything familiar began to fail me. The only true constant I felt was this all-encompassing ugliness within.

Retreat. Back to the fortress. Back to safety. Back to familiarity.

Back to isolation, because I felt that is what I needed to preserve enough energy to mentally survive.

I had set out to disconnect, and I succeeded. And, evidenced by the fact that I'm sitting here, I survived.

But I went too far.

There were some casualties along the way, first and foremost a large part of myself that got lost in the struggle. I let connections go cold because my phone had morphed into an enormous source of anxiety. Every ring, every ding, every ping sent my strained nerves bursting out of my skin.

As a result, I stopped reaching out beyond a small number of people I felt comfortable enough with and who I believed would not judge me for my insecurity in navigating through this blurry new world of mine. I began to feel unusually aloof and painfully conscious of it, which further fueled a reluctance to engage in any place I might have felt the risk of rejection.

Gradually and eventually, that became everywhere.

The challenge of putting on one face to hide another got to be a bit too much ...

Retreat!

I wasn't in the proper headspace to consider the ramifications of hiding, even though I knew from previous experience that it rarely leads to anything good. The stifling weight of "fixing" myself only served up more self-consciousness, ironically overpowering the ability to do that very thing.

Rather than working through this and seeking connection to others in creative ways - a method that had never failed me - I shut down.

So now here I am. I needed to isolate myself for self-preservation, but I don't feel preserved.

I feel isolated, and it's time to walk myself out of it. This starts here; this starts now.

This starts with reaching out to others with an unwavering voice of compassion. Helping others is an effective way of helping yourself. When you remove yourself from society at large - even if you believe it to be for therapeutic reasons - you risk disappearing altogether. Allowing yourself to become surrounded by ghosts is a surefire way of becoming one.

If you hide your internal light for too long, you deprive it of the oxygen essential to shine. A glow is reduced to a flicker before it ultimately gets extinguished. Then you're left with nothing more than a wick corroded by the carbon of traumas, and that is of benefit to no one.

So now the time has come.

It is time to remain vigilant yet visible.

It is time to stop hiding alongside the debilitating fear of judgment.

It is time to revive the voice of reason.

It is time to once more allow that light to shine as brightly as possible for those who may need to see it.

It is time to turn the ghosts into spirits.

It is time to stop merely existing.

It is time to live again.