Hungry Hearts

I don't really feel anything anymore. I don't know when this happened or started, I just know I don't feel things anymore. Every day I wake up early and get ready before Mary or the kids wake up. I have to travel for well over an hour just to get to work. There, I still don't really know what I am doing. At this point, it feels like they are just keeping me around because I have been loyal to this company for so long when I just wasn't ever offered anything else. I wasn’t looking for anything either now that I think about it. I don't talk a lot. People who tried to talk to me have failed and given up by now. They hoped for some miracle like in the movies where they suddenly pump the life back to me. But they slowly realized that being Omar Sy is long and tedious so, they just left. I don't blame them. I don't go to places. Just home. Mary usually has found some new reason to scream at me so, I listen to her talk about how I have been doing something wrong so, I should just let her do that from now on. My neighbours don't know how can I put up with her, but at the end of the day, she is the only one who talks to me. So I let her talk as much as she wants. I don’t really have options anymore. The kids, well I failed them, but they are stronger than me so they just raised themselves at this point. Mary told me to have “the talk” with them a few years ago and they just talked to me about some show called Devilman Crybaby so I am guessing they know all that. They are good kids, but we don’t really interact. When we do they see I am not really interesting even though I am enthusiastic about what they have to say, what father wouldn’t be, but I don’t really show it. I don’t even know if I am anymore. I remember Micheal telling me that he is scared of whom I become and that he never wants to be like me. That he would rather die because at this point not much would change. I didn’t really react but his words did stick around in my head. They came back at random times so it was hard to concentrate for a few weeks. It is interesting when that happens. I don’t know why they come back so many times, they just do. It doesn’t practically hurt, it just makes me feel heavy. My head at that particular moment is always so quiet. I just sit there and feel heavy while inside my head there is this silence. I feel like thoughts should be running over each other and jet. Nothing. I hear nothing.

My days are like this, but today was different. I was driving home right after payday so the envelope of money was just sitting there in the cupholder when a song on the radio came on. It was September 23rd so they were playing Bruce Springsteen songs. I was getting closer and closer to home and this heavy feeling that has been silently taking over me in the last few weeks has zoned me out so that the words by the radio guy just ended up sounding nothing recognizable. Then a song played. It was Hungry Hearts from Springsteen. I have not heard that song in a long time and as my mind was fading out into quietness my heart started beating and as I was getting close to a crucial turn. I suddenly felt the urge to resist the muscle memory I built up over the years and just drove away. I left.

I don’t know what I am doing. Why am I doing this? Shouldn’t I feel happy? I finally broke free, just like the song says. I should be happy that I am not stuck in this endless loop of nothingness. Why am I not then? Should I go back? What should I do? What am I even doing? What… Somebody is calling. It is Mary, isn’t it? It is. I like this picture. She doesn’t usually call me but when she does I can see this picture and that makes me a bit happy. I don’t feel that usual happiness now thou. Did that disappear too? Should I pick this up? If I pick it up now I can still get back. I can still go back and not be the shitty father who ran off. No… No! Maybe I shouldn’t have thrown the phone out the window thou. Late to think about that now, I did it. 

This hurts. I don’t think I should have left. I am in this beaten-down gas station in the middle of nowhere just drinking alone at one in the afternoon. I thought I would be happy leaving them all behind. I don’t even know if they cared enough to start searching for me. Or did Mary just left the whole thing at the fact that I finally didn’t pick up the phone? I should feel happy. But all I feel is this empty confusion raging in the unconscious parts of my brain. I just sleep in my car then get up and drive as far as I can. I don’t know where I am going, I just feel like I have to go. I just have to go. Sometimes my heartbeat kicks up and I start to hyperventilate out of nowhere. I just don’t know what to do. I have been living off sandwiches for the past 5 days. I don’t mind eating them. At least my numbness has some positive effects. I started noticing a lot more, smaller things in these past few days. Like that time when I was waiting in line to pay for gas and I saw this poor looking mother with a very small child still in a baby cartridge playing these slot machine games on a smartphone. The kid wasn’t more than 2 I am sure. Am I being this bad of a parent too? Or am I already past the point of decision and I was already a bad parent? A dad that left. I should talk to somebody. I haven’t talked in a very long time. I am alone so other than refusing the bill for the gas I haven’t said a word. That’s just how being alone is I guess. Very quiet. 

I don’t know why I didn’t pay for more gas. I don’t know why I left the car. I don’t know why I started walking. I don’t know why I wanted to walk into this dead land and I don’t know why I got here, but I am here. It has been nearly 2 weeks. I am here all alone in this wasteland. This plane nothingness. The sun is going down. It is getting cold. I feel cold. I have been feeling cold for a long time. This heavy feeling just doesn’t want to go away. It just makes me do these random things and I don’t know why I feel obligated to follow them. I am having this urge to run. Why am I running? Why am I doing this? Why… Why… I am in really bad shape. I shouldn’t run, but I have to. I just need to run. I want to run!

The sun went down. It’s night and I am still running. I don’t think I ever ran this much. The heavy feeling is seeming to finally leave me. Am I becoming free? This made me stop for a second, which slowly made my muscles realize that a solid hour of running was not something they were capable of doing so I had to lay down.

As I was sitting there in the complete silence of a dessert where I slowly felt the pulsing silence that has been overtaking my headspace for the last few weeks was replaced. It didn’t change its attitude, the bastard, but it did feel very different. This feeling was very different. It was a light feeling that still made everything in my head shut down, as I was looking at the starry sky, but now I didn’t feel like I was closed out of all the feelings that were inside me. The slow replacement of the heavy feeling caused me to do something that I haven’t done in a long time. I smiled. It wasn’t one of those man-made smiles where all your facial muscles hurt when you do it, but one of those genuine smiles where you don’t even feel you are doing it. I haven’t had that feeling in a long time. I barely realized what it was, because I think I was minutes away from completely forgetting it. But it came back and as I was lying there in the desert slowly getting my strength back the first thought that came into my mind after countless hours of silence was that it is time. It was time to go back to the car.