The Story Remains the Same

He was feeling good that day.

Really good.

He walked into the store, shrouded in an impenetrable magnetism.

A confidence that could only be described as organic, natural, exuberant, exciting!

So, he thought…

Then he saw her.

Long auburn hair.

Piercing black eyes.

Sans make-up.

A baggy sweater, emblazoned with a strange symbol: An orange triangle, with the words, “Friendship,” autographed through the panache of its beating center.

An old pair of blue jeans, weathered by the joys of youth; the rapturous howl of fun and adventure, now pleading for strict homogeneity, and an escape from the cataclysms of bleach and humid, washing-machine water.

Opaque nails, shimmering like a treasured oyster, discovered deep beneath the mysterious waves of the ocean, yet pockmarked with the ancient ruins of a once-begotten pedicure, now unmercifully delayed.

He saw her.

He wanted her.

She was so beautiful.

But life stepped in.

Everything soon fell apart.

His self-assurance: flat-lined.

The fear returned.

It always does.

That cold, icy, familiar stinging motility that quickly spreads unwelcome through his entire essence.

The fear.

That annoying, frustrating, unexplainable, impassable fear.

The one that only hibernates when its presence is not needed.

But monsters back to life when opportunity presents itself.

When love presents itself.

When the loneliness can finally succumb to its long, overdue, welcomed demise.

That fear.

That soul-crushing, inexplicable, suffocating fear.

He hurriedly turns away from her, as she approaches, regrouping the “mental soldiers of fortune”, tasked with the security of his emotional morale.

“Talk to her,” his inner critic screams at the top of its lungs. “You can do this, come on!” his mental Mr. Hyde pleads with him.

Vulnerable, bare, his invincibility harshly stripped from the wounded fairy tale of himself.

All fantasy is gone.

What remains: Who he really is…

Timid; fearful; insecure.

He capriciously turns towards her, their bodies fragile aligned next to one another.

Staringly meekly down at the shelf below him, he feebly asks her, in a voice akin to a frightened mouse, “So, what’s good here?”

Nothing.

No response.

Not even an acknowledgment of his existence.

Comprehensively ignoring him, she quickly grabs an item from the shelf and makes haste in the other direction, as hurriedly as possible.

He felt her energy.

It was an aura of “flight,” not “fight”: she wanted to run away from him, quickly, expeditiously. Period.

She could not wait to get away from him, her body assuming the physique of a marathon runner, excitedly seeking out the penetrating embrace of the finish line.

The safety found in her safe passage to solitude.

Away from him.

When does shyness become a curse?

Why does the longing for love create such chaos in the pursuer?

How can the quest for companionship have arisen in such unremorseful actions, dripping with the contemptuous ooze of disgust towards the owner of this lonely heart?

A Romeo desperately searching for his Juliet.

The Tristan seeking his beloved Isolde.

Yet, it did not come to pass.

The pain felt excruciating.

The rejection was arduous.

He agonized over that moment.

Again, and again.

The fear won.

He always does.

“Hello darkness, my old friend,” his mind mockingly whispers to his shattered soul.

The cruel murmurs that seismically swirl around inside his head.

His spirit is panhandling for self-worth.

The loneliness outmaneuvered the plenum of his self-esteem.

The fear won.

Again.

Maybe next time, courage will emerge victorious.

The self-doubt vanquished from this earth forever.

That is the hope.

That is the dream.

Till the next time that opportunity rears its forbidden face, to be subverted by the pestilence of fright.

The virus of fear.

A life lived through angst is a life empty of fulfillment.

A life lived through courage is a life overflowing with serenity.

One can only hope for the latter.

One can only hope.

One can only hope.