I’d like to speak candidly for a moment if I may. There’s no “capital letter” or phonetic cypher encoding a hidden message to my favorite person this time, I’d just like to speak candidly. Hopefully that doesn’t offended anyone, if so then there may be something wrong with you and you may be a miserable person.
Imagine this if you will: There’s a guy sitting holding an iPad right now. He’s sad, just finished crying while praying. He’s sad because he’s had a very difficult life, and there are a few things he has wanted but they were beginning to feel unattainable to him.
Friends, health, peace of mind, and love. These were the things that he had been without for nearly twenty years, and among the little perks like traveling, money, and happiness it was the aforementioned friendships, peace, and health that he missed the most. And love, see since he was around fifteen years of age he had a very specific criteria for the type of woman he desired. He wanted her to be kind, compassionate, video gamer, and avid comic book reader. He also hoped that she would be a Christian or some variation of a “believer”.
As the years passed in his life, and sickness began to really take its toll on his body, suffering became the norm. Things had gotten so dire that he was told by more than one of his physicians that he was not expected to live past the age of twenty two. Being no stranger to faith, nor to religion, nor to sorcery, this guy knew (from experience) of the unseen existence that often interacts with this finite realm.
So subconsciously he didn’t worry too much about that expectation of early death, as he knew it was not up to the foretellers. Low and behold, by the mercy and grace of that which he was made in the image-of, the guy saw age twenty two and ended up hailing it as one of his favorite years for some odd reason. Possibly because he felt it was a testament to the grace he’d been told of by elders.
Today the guy is sad because he is now approaching age thirty four, and he is still without health, friendships, consistent peace of mind as circumstances try hard to prevent that affect from happening, and the one major desire: love. But the very worse part of this is that he feels taunted with these specific desires, as he feels health is right at his fingertips but extremely difficult to obtain. He feels peace of mind seep into his heart, but he’s always reminded of things that are bad.
And love, he has developed (not fallen) a love for a woman who fits the criteria he’s always desired, but he can’t even tell her this or even express his affection, let alone ask her out to the movies or dinner. He can’t even tell her directly that he thinks she is wonderful, for fear of being deemed “creepy”.
See, because of this woman’s prominence and status, he feels that she is far above him and that he is so far out of her league that he would be a fool to think that she would ever even want to sit in the same room with him. Circumstances have made this woman suspicious of any male who knows of her existence, so she has had (or feels like she has) to always suspect him as a potential threat because of her experiences with others.
This is all due to her occupation, which comes with a very dangerous hazard of deceptive people who claim to “love” or idolize her but it’s not always from a place of genuineness.
So because of this unfortunate reality, the guy feels that he cannot tell this woman that over the past five years, just as he was nearing to “give up” she came along and through the months, the brief communications, the brief interaction all be they business related, he became fonder and fonder until he began to adore her.
After being scolded (mercifully) the guy still didn’t lose a single bit of adoration, admiration, or reverence for this woman. Even though she had the wrong idea about him because she had prior experiences with bad people in his position, he still thought the universe of her. And more. But, he still felt he couldn’t dare tell her this as he once foolishly let it slip to a stranger on social media and shortly thereafter, he was scolded. He thought it was because he mentioned his prior “cutting” and was afraid that it disturbed her.
This devastated him, as he wanted her to be okay with him and not uncomfortable with him. But he later, after much contemplation thought it was the revealing of his desire to work with her and become friends, that might’ve bothered her. At first he didn’t understand why the idea of him being interested in her was so off-putting to her, but then he realized it was because of her profession again. In her profession she has many people who want her attention, but also some who want her forcibly or obsessively. There are some who would harm her if given the chance, so she takes to being vigilant and suspicious of people in the guys position, so that she remains safe.
The guy understood this, even though he meant her absolutely no harm and would never hurt her, he understood the cautious nature of her distance. Having been a victim of sexual abuse in his childhood, he knew what it was like to be hurt by someone you let your guard-down to. So he stitched his head back on after the scolding and went on to express his feelings in secret. Specifically in cyphered writings on social media, constant exaltation, and a willingness to advocate her to anyone who lambasted or disparaged her.
The guy is holding his iPad right now, reeling from a moment of doubt and self-denigration in the mirror, where he told himself and the one who’s image he was created in, that he was a fool to think he could ever have fulfillment of such an impossible (impossible for someone like him) desire and he didn’t know why he was still here, why hasn’t he gone ahead and given up. Telling himself that, no, you don’t get to have any of those things, especially that one important desire.
Telling himself and his “God” that he was nothing, and that he deserves all the heartache, lack, rejection, slander by strangers, bullying by family, torment by traumatic events, sickness, and suffering he has endured up to this very moment. Finally, telling himself and his God, that he is a fool to imagine and feel (as Mr. Goddard says) that he has that which he desires to manifest.
But that’s when he felt his God say:
“Weren’t you supposed to have died twelve years ago?”
The Realm of Empathy 