Completely alone again.

Another year comes and goes and yet I feel more isolated than ever. People say they care and they wish for good things, yet all I find is bad. They must be sending these kinds of things to another person, or maybe the postal service just lost all the notes.

The only thing in my mailbox is bills from weaponized consumerism. Brightly colored marketing flyers show people smiling in sweaters, sparkling glitter, and jumping for no reason. Oh, how I wish I felt the jubilation of a jump, a kiss on my forehead, the wonder of love.

There I go again, talking myself into suffering as if I enjoy it. “Find purpose in the lack of it” I find myself repeating to others and myself. The gift of service. Often, the only way I know I’m alive is from what I give to someone else, and one who always had space or gifts or unquestioning love has passed. They, we, us, me, will all die.

It’s not the lack of affection. It’s the lack of lack of attention that unsettles me. The people who don’t care 364 days of the year only to now make an appearance that makes my stomach turn. If you do not sit with my presence in life, do not sit with my spirit in death.