It's funny how you never notice a sustained rhythm or hum until it stops. So much of our mundane daily lives are suddenly made novel and exciting compared to what it's become now—devoid of direction. Our homes have become waiting rooms. There's no strategy for sanctioned uncertainty, is there? There's no instruction for the slow-building grief of knowing that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Our automated lives traded empathy for efficiency, and progress has been halted in favor of doubt. And if there is one thing doubt loves, it's to play both sides.
The benefit of doubt does little to comfort me when I know that doubt is the kind of thing that often likes to stir the pot for the fuck of it sometimes. Doubt loves to linger. It has one fucking joke and it loves to tell it over and over again as if you've never heard it, and it never gets the hint when it's time to go. Luckily (or not) doubt has been rendered redundant right about now. It's been laid off just like the rest of the city's service and gigging economy. We don't need it to deliver the messages that are already at our doorstep. It's a bit late for that now.
You have to remember though, that as long as you're alive, there is always a light left on for you. Consider it your pilot light—that tiny spark that's always there in the dark to warm what nourishes you and to ignite whatever it is you need: a lamp, a sparkler, an inferno. Sometimes, when your instincts and your judgments can't get their story straight, at least you can rely on that pilot light. Your instincts can be assholes when they've been spending an excessive amount of time with your inner pain. You know they're just trying to protect you, but they have been wrong before. They're not psychic, after all, and neither are you.
I've been taking inventory of everything they've brought me, keeping in mind that they really were doing their best. Sometimes people really are doing their best, even if you think they could do better. Sometimes their best isn't good enough for you because you can't admit to wanting more than what you think you ought to deserve. It's hard for anyone not to judge themselves when you lay your efforts flat out in front of you, noticing every blemish, uneven stitch, backtrack, and the parts that have been painted over and over by whatever it is you needed at the time to live with it.
I should be fully fatted with all the pride I've swallowed to get past some of those bits, but every day thereafter brought more of my skeleton to the surface, forming shapes under my skin as if trying to escape a tarp-covered swimming pool. My subconscious vanity loves this part when it can convince me that if there's less of me, less of me will hurt. My subconscious vanity underestimates the vastness of the galaxy in my mind, made even more vast by its lack of inhabitants. It's quiet like a library and just as dense—just dusty trails lined with pathologically lonely billboards advertising motel vacancies and hot singles in your area who won't text you back.
But some nights when it's clear and the moon is dark you can see it glinting in the distance, a winking galaxy in the corner of your eye. Someone else's pilot light, one that mirrors your own, traveling light years to remind you how much easier it is to see things clearly when you hold them closer to your own inner flame. You may have to chase down and wrangle the important things, especially those shapeshifters (you know the ones). Herd them like sheep. Have them over for dinner and enjoy a full house of everything and everyone that once filled your heart so much that it had to permanently expand to make room for it all. There's always room for your own good company. Solitude is an unbreakable wild horse. You have to let it go or it will break you instead.