No Direction Home. Complete Unknown.

I'm supposed to write a letter to my child self giving him the empathy he so dearly needed, and which I now so desperately need.  It scares me just to think about it.  I don't want to take myself back there emotionally, even if just to try and give my child self the great gift of rescue he so deserved.  

I always valued endurance through my pain above all else.  Never give up.  Never quit.  I drilled these into myself, or they were drilled into me.  That much is the only foggy part.  Now I wish I not only had "quit," I wish I never started.  I have been under the self-delusion that there is a nobility in resignedness to emotional pain and suffering.  Either that, or I confused emotional paralysis for patience.  So, now I can't quit suffering, because I don't know how.  Paralyzed is a good description of how I feel about embracing real resolve, genuine worthiness.  I see it.  I want it.  But...

I used to always tell myself during the darkest times that one day it would all be worth it, or the things that incessantly traumatized me would be ameliorated.  That I would emerge through the fire hardened and glistening.  Right now, I feel burnt to a brittle crisp, and have probably been denying it for a decade plus.

A few years ago, when I felt similarly broken and lost... jobless, listless, hopeless... I found some solace in reading and journaling, and a little blogging too.  I read Walden, which was perfect at the time.  I was in the remote wilderness of a tropical paradise for about six weeks, and I was determined to self-reflect and locate a piece of my mind I could stake out for some peace of mind.  I didn't find it, but at least was able to use that time to remind myself that it exists and it's worth finding.  I accepted that as progress enough, at the time, to return to civilization load lightened.

Except, I abruptly stopped writing.  Reading subsided too, but the impetus to write my reflections - which are always steadily streaming, even spewing - was suffocated by the familiarity of the socio-cultural daze that permeates the Homeland.  I allowed myself to be suffocated.  Didn't put up any fight.  

As more time passed, I of course found it more and more impossible to expose myself to myself again.  I didn't want to go anywhere near that mirror.  Periodically, I would toy with conceiving plans to continue meaningfully reading, journaling, and blogging.  I never knew where or how to best pick it up again.  "Meaningfully."  What do I even mean by that anyway?  You know what I mean?      

I should have just done it.  No program.  No plan.  No expectations, except to learn something about myself for myself.  Whenever I felt like it.  Even a little bit.  

Should's are my arch nemesis.