What I’ve Become
by Daniel Beadle - Tuesday, October 20, 2009
My name is… Daniel Beadle. And I am alone.My thoughts wander from one memory to the next. I remember the elation of falling in love. I remember the despair of losing it. I’ve imagined myself in so many different guises, in so many different forms and avatars, all as a means to deal with the isolation that I always return to.
I cultivate all my darkest emotions, and picture them contained in a living shadow known as Mr. Dark. I unleash every impulse I own, and all my anger and infinite frustration into a twisted reflection of myself. I call him Jake. And I imagine myself as someone more capable and attractive than I really am, and he’s the Man with Sunglasses, and, eventually Dylan Thorne. And then I imagine myself as an undying romantic. But that persona got dark and twisted when love was removed from my life. That’s who I call the Stalker.
In my life, I’ve learned so much, and so few of the lessons I’ve learned are welcomed by the mainstream. None of them are acknowledged on after-school specials. All relationships are temporary and superficial. No one cares about your life unless you can make it entertaining. All anyone cares about is himself. All females are either whores or sluts. Life has no intrinsic value, and there are no absolute truths. There is nothing worth fighting for, and nothing remains the same forever. Life can and will always get worse than it currently is, and all you can do is realign your perceptions. Love is the path to hate, and in your darkest hour, in your most desperate times, no one will help you but your own imagination.
So what did I do? I spilled out my angst in a rambling story about a cheap parody of myself, a grotesque love story that weaves into and out of reality. …The kind of love story that could only be written with a broken heart. Ultimately, it was a means to purge all the emotions associated with romance. I took out the parts of me that weren’t working properly, the obsolete ideas and useless feelings. Maybe it’s partial suicide. Now I operate as something less than the whole, with a life less pleasant, and less painful. Love infected me, and threatened to break me. Apathy was the cure, but perhaps a cure worse than the disease.
I have either evolved beyond the typical human need for love, or I have been so severely damaged by my experiences that I no longer am capable of it. Jill was one among many instigators of the long, jagged scar that is carved across my psyche. It’s a wound that refuses to heal properly, and I may have become a twisted and broken human being because of it. I have constructed my entire persona around my extended state of isolation. This makes it impossible, or at least improbable, that I will ever fall in love again. In order to survive, I have nurtured my most negative emotions, and used them to create a wall between the prospect of human relationships and me. If ever I am confronted with love, I see it as a façade… as a short-lived lie. I doubt I’ll ever be able to tell someone I’ll always love them. Because I won’t. I don’t genuinely care for anyone. Not even myself. And because of that, I can’t justify my own happiness.
In the wake of a broken heart, I recognize the nature of my relationships with others. They are shallow and short-lived. I realize now… relationships are the product of convenience. Women, romance… love… are luxuries in life. They are not necessities.
…Of course, there’s the possibility that every conclusion I’ve made is erroneous. Maybe someday I’ll meet a shy girl who will put her hand in mine… and make me believe that guys like me can have a happy ending.
But I doubt it.
“I am but a stranger… as are we all. Lonely inside our separate skins, we cannot know each other’s pain and must bear our own in solitude. For my part, I have found that walking soothes it; and that, given luck, sometimes we find one to walk beside us… at least for a little way.”—Phantom Stranger
