To Annonymous Mary

Mary,

I don’t know if this is your real name. I don’t even know how old you are. But you asked me to read your latest entry, and I did. I also went back two or three and read those entries, too. I know how you feel about wanting to give up, and thinking that if people really cared about you, really needed you the same way you care about and need them, that they would show it in some way. But that’s the thing about most people. They don’t. Whether it’s because they’re afraid of being rejected, or maybe they’ve put their heart out there one too many times, or whether it’s something completely different, who knows? But the point is, too many people don’t say what’s in their hearts. I don’t all the time. And you know what? I should. Because what’s the point of not? If you’re quiet, people gain their own opinions of you. If you’re loud, they gain their own opinions. If you tell lies, some people will see them as truths. If you tell truths, even more people will see them as lies.

The world is a confusing mass of space where enemies are loved, and true friends hated and betrayed. Yet, for some, it can just as easily be vice versa. Somewhere out there, by someone, you are valued. Maybe that person isn’t seen, but they are there. It may be someone you thought was out of your life forever. Or it may be the one next to you right now. Someone’s thinking of you.

I’ve felt invisible before. I guess that’s why I like that Clay Aiken song so much. You know, I’ve realized a lot about people recently. I suppose from watching Return of the King so many times. Four so far. I love that movie. I saw Fellowship three times, Two Towers twice. Anyway, what I discovered more has to do with love and people. I realized that when people go through such hard nor challenging times together, they get a lot closer. But what happens after those times are over? Both people are changed in such ways that they can never return to the way they were. So where do they both go after the adventure/challenge/whatever is gone? Either that bond will never break, and they will go on being friends until the end of their days, or they part ways because things have changed too much, and being around one another is too painful a reminder of the events that went down.

I kind of went off on a tangent there. Sorry. I guess I’m sort of writing this as a letter to you, trying to give hope when all I feel like doing is curling up and crying. But I have no tears. I won’t lose my hope, but I can feel it waning. There are so many things I don’t understand about others. I mean, I’ve tried to understand before, but no one can, or maybe it’s no one will, give me an answer to something. What makes people stop caring? What makes them give up hope? What makes someone so able to turn their back on someone else and not feel any sense of remorse about doing it? What makes someone smile at someone they perceive to be an enemy, while at the same time, they’re plotting behind their back? I know, Annonymous Mary, that you can’t answer that for me. You were driven to what you wrote about in your entry. Just as I’ve been driven to it before. But being driven to it, and feeling it for years are two very different things. One does not compare to the other, otherwise I would have my answers already.

I know several I could ask these answers from, but none of them would give me what I seek. (Geez, I’m starting to sound like I’m in Return of the King. “I cannot give you what you seek.” Ooo, that’s an eerily ironic line . . . ) Like I said, though, none of them would actually answer me. Well, one might, but . . .

And that ‘but’ is what makes me hesitate. I asked him once before, but. As you can tell, from me still questioning things, I didn’t get an answer.

I’ve nearly been driven to a point where I was a shell. A numb shell of a person who just went about the motions of life, and just plain didn’t care. Didn’t feel much of anything besides a sense of, “Oh. I’m here.” I was pulled back, I’m not sure by what. Perhaps my own sense that somewhere inside, I wanted to be happy. But sometimes, especially now, in some darker moments, I wonder . . . why did I pull myself back? Who would care if the Kate Workman they knew never showed herself again? Who would notice my voice missing from a crowd? Who would notice me not having a smile on my face?

I’m not the same person that others think they know. Yet how many people think they know me? How many people even want to?

::Sigh:: Looks like my hopeful entry turned into a self-pitying one. Oh, well. I’m in a dark mood. A lighter one will take it’s place soon. I just wish the questions could go away for awhile . . .

Go away, or be answered . . .