Lost

I have to get this out of my head or it will never go away. I spent half an hour wandering a supermarket at midnight, realizing I was the only person there by myself - this place is made for couples, for young people, for those starting out and with hope, not for the lost and bereft as I.

I have made my home a place for a partner, as far back as I can think of. It's never brought one in. Now I am hemmed in by the things of my art, but it's an art which I cannot sit still long enough to practice, a study I can't focus on for all the other worries, for all the loneliness. I've cast off so many people whose life choices I feel mark them as losers, and now I feel as I am certainly as bad or worse. I had a gut wrenching moment imagining another writer who I used to work with, alone and cranky with nothing but wine and work until retirement and I was suffused with despair. I would rather die than trudge out that existence.

Some part of me, some blessed inner survival instinct, has been going left and right looking for the things I once loved, trying to find dance events and camping and art shows and and and. Everything is so complicated without a car, everything is so hopeless without... what. What am I missing? I feel like I've lost my direction, or like I'm a small boat on a still pond, shoved towards the other bank without someone at the tiller, and now I'm running out of momentum and still don't know where I'm going and I'm drifting. And listing. I feel so little satisfaction from my job. I feel no sense of purpose or direction anymore. I don't feel like I'm having an impact, like I'm doing good in the world. I am marking time until...what.