Some days

Some days when I wake up my heart aches and I feel a pain I cannot explain as it isn't physical in nature but rather is emotional pain.  It tears at my soul trying to stop my heart from beating anymore.  I can only hope that one day when I am older not near 50 like I am now but in my true elder years it will stop hurting so much.

You see there is a spot in me that feels others pain not just my own and when they are hurting it burns deep into me like nothing I have ever felt before.  From a young boy it seemed I couldn't escape that feeling that others pain was mine to bare whether I liked it or not.  As I grew I watched those I loved who were a lot older suffer and pass on eventually and it left an indelible mark on me. 

And now that I'm older I feel my time coming for that pain with a hope that when that time comes, I will no longer bare others as well because it may just be too much for my body to handle.  Since I have had health issues most of my adult life that most people don't feel or see until they are in the late to middle 40's I had in my mid 20's.

To watch friends and family being hurt emotionally for me over the years has left me scarred and bruised inside.  I know it's a perception but as I have said, for me since I was a little boy, it seemed my job to take their pain on.  From when my parents fought and I was alone with one or the other they used my quiet nature to air their grievances about one another.  To my Grandma's pain reminding them about how I look like my Grandfather's at least in their eyes, one passed the year I was born and the other the next year.

I just always imagined how much it must pain them to keep seeing me around but at least one of them as I got older didn't seem to dislike me for it.  She went out of her way to make me feel loved and cared for when most treated me badly.  I could always feel their pain but couldn't seem to take enough of it to ease the loss of their loved one I never really knew.

Why do I feel it still you might ask me if you could, I just cannot explain it.  But as people poured their private fears upon me as my quiet shy nature seemed to beg them to let it out I was too quiet to ask them to stop.  From childhood through the Army, college and even now at times some take it as a sign to let it out.  And sometimes when I get them alone I feel impelled to ask because I can just sense something not right about them, I can't help myself.

Some people call it a gift but if they had to deal with all that pain people try to hide inside from others they might just understand that this gift isn't a good thing when you can't take it on and then let it go.  I take it inside trying to release them from their pain so they can go on with their life as I slowly die inside.  And the number of times I seem to have cheated death in my real life begs the question of whatever God their might be...Is this what I am meant to do?  Is there more I can do before I die?  Are my words of poetry enough to keep someone else from hurting themselves?  Do I have to sacrifice my entire soul before I leave this world?

I needed to be around the Music

Yesterday, I went to Music Therapy even though I had sworn I wouldn't go as long as that guy was there but at least he didn't get what he wanted from me.  I sang when I wanted and only long enough to help another Veteran get the feel of the song then I stopped.

What he said is unforgivable when he failed to really apologize for what he said and I hate myself still for letting him get to me but having grown up around a "Green Beret" from the Vietnam era I couldn't let it go and still cannot.  But the need to be near the music and get it out is so strong once the door was opened I knew I wouldn't be able to close it again, not that I really want to anyway.

The one thing in this world that could have kept me sane for twenty years I gave up for everyone else around me for the most part, I certainly wasn't performing on-stage anymore.  But I need that rush, that sensation is calling to me with such a demand it hurts me deep inside to hold it back.  I guess that 's why any chance over the years I have had to sing for girlfriends or my kids when they were babies was taken advantage of.

Please don't let anyone stifle your creative need as long as your creative need doesn't hurt someone else, let it go.