In Search of Feelings

As I sit here late at night, looking at the clock and wondering why I haven't already gotten to bed (mind is everywhere so why bother sleeping at all?) I find myself in search of feelings. Not a single feeling, mind you, but multiple feelings ... things I simply underestimated.

To recap previous entries into this space ever so briefly, I had a great week with a girl back in November, a week that went by so fast and was fun, exciting, and addicting in the best way possible. In a week's time I went from asking the girl out to lunch to kissing her (after the prerequisite arm-looping and hand-holding, of course). She initiated all the physical stuff because I'm horrible at everything in the romantic field. In writing, I'm pretty decent. In life ... I fail. So, so hard, I fail.

And today is another day where I miss those feelings that were brought forth in that week. The old saying "You can't miss what you never had" is a true one because, before that week, I didn't miss the feelings. I knew they existed like someone knows an ocean exists, but it was never reality until I got there ... much like an ocean, those feelings stretched farther and wider than I ever really imagined.

I miss them more some days than others. Days where I can see possibilities that stretch as far as the eye can see if only I -- or someone else -- does something different. Today is one such day where I want to do something but find myself mired in inaction. I'm considering a number of actions where I can find those feelings again, where I can access them again ... and, yet, I find myself unwilling to force the action.

I'm great at forcing things. I force myself to do things because, if given time to think, I simply just think. I think, and think, and think. Thinking doesn't put my best foot forward, it makes both my feet stuck and I hate myself for it. I'm weary of thinking, weary of my mind and its thoughts and the choir of voices in it that all say something different.

I'm not insane -- not yet, anyway -- but I am severely inexperienced in the realm of dating and romance and this, more than anything, is merely a declaration of what has already been declared multiple times before: I suck at this.

In my past life as the fat guy, I never really got a run as a social being. I learned nothing about society and life in high school ... in college, I was merely satisfied with drowning in the aspects of life I wanted to acknowledge. Only after all that, after I got my health under control and took responsibility for it, did I realize how far behind I was.

And I am still so very far behind. So, so very far. I feel like the kid who signs up for a race, passes out near the beginning of it, and wakes up on the side of the road sometime later unsure if the race is still being run but determined to finish it. I am dead last in this race, so far back I will never see another soul ahead of me because everyone has finished this leg of it already. I'm quite alone on the trail ... and I feel, today, that there isn't any point in running anymore.

I should give up. Seek out the easy solution, give in to the temptations (not the band, though they're good) around me, drown in it till I don't feel anymore. If I don't feel, I don't have a reason to search out for the feelings I miss.

Biochemical reactions aren't fair. They are such a powerful force, so powerful I want to crawl under a desk and mourn my loss of them on a day like today. I had it and now it's gone and it sucks.

"Oh, it's the same old, broken record; Zach is longing for something and can't get it! BOO HOO!"

I hear that. I nod along with it. It isn't any different on the surface, but if we go deeper we see that it isn't merely about missing the feelings: it's about trying to find them again.

And the search is intimidating. Frightening. Confusing. I am inadequate to the task and I HATE admitting that. Why can't I be adequate? I lack experience at such a severe level it's laughable. I don't know where to start or how to start or how that week in November even came to pass ... but I have to figure out how.

As much as it pains me to say so, I have to figure out how to date because the race is still going and I am being left farther and farther behind as the days go by. I can't make up the distance lost ... I will only find success if someone stops, turns around, and runs back to me.

Dating is the way to find the feelings lost; yes, it's a temporary way but it's designed to help find a permanent solution. Yes, even the permanent solution (marriage) is void of the feelings at times ... but never fully void. Never completely without, not like the single life is.

Is it wrong to want the feelings again? Is it wrong to seek them out? I doubt it. I don't think the search is wrong but where I'm searching may be. The Catholic in me (growing by the day, but little comparatively to the rest of me) says to seek out the feelings in God. In the faith. In good works and good people.

And that helps. It mitigates it to a point and, in the same breath, it brings it into focus. I have Catholic friends who are happily married (of which I am envious). I have Catholic friends who are in relationships (of which I am also envious ... and a bit scared). I have Catholic friends who are single (of which I am understanding).

I am not without my flaws. I have, in the past week, received an unprecedented amount of insight into realm of dating and what to do, how to present myself, ect. The information is staggering and overwhelming and I'm weary of having to account for so much on something that appears so simple.

But I'm not the only one searching for these feelings. We are all searching for them, we are all damaged, we are all hurting and wanting and angry and sad. I, however, am not good at figuring out how to present an image where all that is minimized.

I grow deathly silent sometimes. I can disappear while standing right in front of people some days. And some days I speak as though I own the room. I am not consistent, I am not good at pretense or casual.

I have a cause. I have a will. I want to find a way. I want to force things, to make action where there is none for the sake of action ... for the sake of some sort of momentum.

That's not a good thing. I was told some time back, by my best friend, that I like things to be tied in a nice bow or shattered into a million pieces, that I do well in the extremes and suffer in-between. It's true. I don't do well in the middle ground and that's where most people exist.

I don't exist there and, I fear, the feelings I'm looking for are where I don't exist.

Thanks for reading, folks. God bless.