Bitterness

I've told myself that bitterness sets in when you think that, somehow, you've been cheated. You think that what you got wasn't your fair share.

But I don't think that life is fair. It just isn't. You get some things. You lose some things. It doesn't all turn out alright in the wash. Sometimes, its just shit. I tell myself that, if I can believe this (REALLY believe it) then I won't become bitter. I don't want to be bitter.

My friends - well meaning friends - tell me that everything is for my good. They tell me that I will find someone else. Be happy. I don't believe them. I won't believe them. If god will somehow give me back some recompense for what I've lost, then this means that I have reason to blame him in the first place. I had reason to expect fair treatment, and he fucked me over. It wasn't fair. It was awful. I lost Hans because I met Sjors and, because I knew Sjors existed, I couldn't be with Hans. If that is god's fault, then I could rage against god. Why show me where my soul was meant to be, prohibit me from being with a man I loved, and then exile me forever from both?

I found the person I am supposed to be with. And he is lost to me. He chose not to be with me. It was too difficult for him. For me? I would have paid any price to be with him. I would have given up my work, my home. I would have given all of my money and time. I would have lived with him in a cardboard box if it meant that I could wake up next to him every day. But he couldn't do it. Maybe he wasn't strong enough. Maybe I wasn't worth it to him. Maybe he was just scared. And when I fought for him, tried to protect him, he joined in the fight against me.

I've tried to understand. But I don't think that there is understanding to be had. Sometimes, life is just shit. It isn't malicious. It isn't god making some targeted and complicated maneuver for our greater good. It's just life being shit.

But I think that I must believe (in the center of me) that life SHOULD be fair. Why else fight the bastards for what they have done and continue to do? Why train for a fight, and yell and kick and taunt, why take every opportunity to get close so that I can find a way to hurt them, if I wasn't trying to balance out my pain by giving it to them?

But there is no balance for this pain. This pain runs so deep and has cut so fiercely it has nearly killed me. On certain nights, I worry that it still might. If I were to build a bonfire to burn the entire fucking institution down, it would not represent even a fraction of this pain.