My Life, As Written

 I’m not sure how many people will actually read this.  I don’t have that many followers anymore, but that’s mostly my own fault. I don’t really post much anymore, and I don’t write enough.  Not that I ever had that many fans to begin with, but I haven’t done enough to keep them.

 I find myself at a point, as I near my 42^nd birthday, where life is a special kind of hell, one tailored just for me.  It’s not the sort that other people would find horrific, and I in no way diminish the plights and hardships of others who suffer, but as of late I find myself feeling like a ghost without an identity, cursed in this existence as someone who doesn’t even know who he his or where he is going.  I’ve lost all the important elements that defined me, and find myself a shell, going through the motions each day, struggling internally to find meaning and push forward for those few who depend on me.  I don’t like where this is going.

 Lately, my life has been like one of these modern “reboot” series, where the original premise and plotlines have been corrupted by writers who want to screw with canon and twist with the characters because they have different visions of what the show should be, or they want to push some narrative.  Things don’t make sense, and the story arc is falling apart.  And much like a fictional character, I don’t feel like I am in charge of anything.  I’m just experiencing the story as it unfolds.  I react, but I only do so because that’s what I’m written to do. I feel because that’s what my body is programmed to do.  I suffer because I live a life that doesn’t feel like mine, and I can’t change it.

 I’ve always felt like an outsider, and never truly felt like I belonged, but now I don’t even feel like I belong in my own skin.  My entire life feels like this alien existence, like I Quantum Leaped into this body and I don’t know what I’m supposed to fix.  I look in the mirror and I don’t see myself.  To be fair, I don’t know who I’m looking for, but I know that reflection isn’t it.  Nothing seems right.

 I don’t know how to explain this cursed existence.  There are times I’ve felt like it’s some kind of cosmic punishment, or lesson.  But how things have gotten me to this place, I can’t reconcile without some external forces.  Atheistic materialists wouldn’t understand and just call me crazy, but there are whole hunks of my life that I cannot take credit for.  There are times where I wasn’t me, decisions I didn’t make, places I didn’t go, yet here I am.

 Perhaps a meddling angel manipulated my life, or demonic influence at the darkest times, or maybe it was aliens (yes, it’s always aliens).  Then there are times it feels like a ghost of some past life has steered me here and there.  Throughout it all, there has always been an overpowering force blocking me from achieving my goals, and when that isn’t enough, they rewrite the script to achieve whatever they want.

 A lot of fantasy and science fiction writers have posited the notion that all life is just someone else’s writing.  Heinlein’s latter works come to mind, where he said that everything we know is just a story written by someone else in another reality.  Philosophers throughout the years have debated such wild concepts, and asked whether we actually have free will, or if God predetermines everything and we just are puppets imagining that we’re in control.  I look back at things that have happened, and in all cases I see it is both. We have free will, but only so long as it fits what the Power wants us to do.

 Yet, I don’t understand why I feel so out of place, if this is supposed to be where I was directed.  I can’t reconcile what has happened or where I am with the willful actions of the God I believe in.  He wouldn’t do this to me, but if he did, he wouldn’t leave me thinking this way about it.  If He wanted to manipulate me, it wouldn’t be perceived.  He would have created me to be it, and then it wouldn’t be a problem.  So why do I feel like my very existence is a mistake?  Like over time the writers of my life have gotten bored and lazy and thrown stuff together, so now I’m suffering through ridiculous plot holes, trying to find a way out.

 All I know for certain; this isn’t my life, but I’m a prisoner to it.

 I know everything I’ve said sounds crazy, and more than a few mental health professionals would deem me worthy of an institution, but I’m saying it anyway.  Partly because it’s a coping mechanism, partly a quest to understand what’s happening, and finally, because it needs to be said.

 So, here I am, just wondering why...