I was liked because I seemed exotic, motivated, and more attractive than average. Sometimes this would work to my advantage. In more conventional settings, much less so.

The tables have turned.

I struggle to hold on to memory. I am forgetful to the point of pathology. I am obsessed with darkness. I live within that seeping otherness beyond vision when the scratches against the walls are normal, and the shadows are a comfort. It is not perpetual depression or even sadness, only the darker aspect of the world. I read or listen to people who are finding themselves through spouses, or friends, or God, or volunteer work. As they reach up, I move down, deep and fast into the perpetual nocturne of the underground. I am content here for the time being. And I don't have to hide it anymore, because there is no one I see on a regular basis for whom it would ever register.

I have a faint glimmer of sympathy for attractive people in dire straits, and next to nothing if not revulsion for anyone else that weeps about their lot in life. I am viscerally repulsed by a lack of beauty. Reason has no reason to be in my head. The content of a person's character has little meaning if that is all they have. I am content to let people suffer; I sometimes enjoy it if I think they deserve it, even if they are a decent person.

In essence I am someone else masquerading as myself from even a few years ago. My family and friends are oblivious. Emily was too. It's only recently I've given up the pretense of not seeming on-edge and pissed off about every delay and set-back in the physical world. It adds to my persona. It enhances my reputation. I can't be bothered to pretend that I'm typically the care-free, funny, extroverted magnanimous person that occasionally happens. That is an aspect of my persona, but by myself I know who I am and what must be done.

And I prefer it. With the exception of needing to eventually find someone again, I am glad I no longer feel attracted to comforting the weak and insane. I am predisposed to centralize and increase my power at the expense of others if necessary. I have taken my perception of other people and turned that mirror toward the sun, to better see the path by which I can improve myself by their insight and work.

In short, I used to derive a good part of my self-worth from lifting people up. Now I am consumed by doing best for myself, survival, and above all ambition toward a nameless goal I smell more than see.

The older I get, the farther forward I step or the more I bend backward, depending on your point of view.

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