Ghosts

I don't believe in those shows about chasing ghosts. I don't believe in seances that let you speak with the dead. I don't believe that the spirits of those past linger on in our earthly domain.

Nevertheless, I believe in ghosts.

Each of us is haunted by something. It might be a dark part of us we prefer to think isn't there. It might be a seemingly insurmountable obstacle in life. Or it might be a deed in our past that follows us like our own shadow. Our own ghosts are very real. But some have more than others.

Mine aren't the most numerous or the most difficult, but they are always present, lurking in my footsteps and following me wherever I go. For a time I might lose them and forget they exist, but always they come back.

The ghost that I fear the most? Paradoxically, it is both being alone and being with someone. So long have I dealt with loneliness that I am used to it, or so it seems. I'm terrified of it, yet it's what I know. I've grown accustomed to listening to myself. To taking care of my own needs. I've learned to stand mostly on my own with minimal help. Yet still, no matter how much I fight, I feel the yearning to extend my heart to some distant young lady with a kindred spirit.

Somehow romantic love seems intangible to me, something tantalizingly possible yet always beyond my reach. I see it everywhere. On TV, at work, at church, everywhere I look there are happy couples. Not all end happily, true, but many are. It's something I so desperately desire, and yet seemingly can't have. I confess that I sometimes fear that my heart or mind are broken, that something in me is inherently non-functional that prevents me from forming a romantic bond.

I've tried. Oh how I've tried. I've met some amazing women. Yet it never quite works out. I've felt myself grow callous to trying to meet new people. A barrier has built itself up around me. And yet my ghost continues to follow me.

I'm young. In body I'm still a young man, but I look younger that I actually am. And yet in mind and spirit I'm so much older. In a few scant years I've covered what most people take more than a decade to go through. I've had to. I had to grow up fast. It was the only way I was able to survive. So while I may still be a comparatively young man, I've aged far beyond how people should.

And yet, in spite of this disappointment and even cynical edge, I yet retain hope. Someday, heaven willing, I will find a young lady who will be everything that I need, that I can give my entire self to. I don't know when, where or how I will meet her, but I hope that it comes soon.

The good thing about ghosts is that sometimes they drive you towards good things.