Shit-Colored Glasses

Lest you think I'm just being dramatic (a fair charge), I think it appropriate to iterate the distinction between what I feel and what is. Who knows, I may even clarify things a little for myself.

What is #1:
A man I barely know didn't respond to my affection. Even though I am confident he is attracted to me, he has no room for me right now.

How I feel #1:
I jumped into a relationship with my heart on my sleeve, holding nothing back, and, once again, I wasn't enough. There must be something wrong with me.

What is #2:
I had the opportunity to take a stand for other people growing and suceeding in my city, and I wasn't committed enough to make it materialize. Neither were a multitude of other otherwise committed people whom I continue to admire anyway.

How I feel #2:
I am a fundamentally weak, broken person. Once again I let my fear run me and (although nobody else may ever know it because my actions and words spoke otherwise) I held back just enough of my self to ensure failure.

What is #3:
I am a fun, smart, handsome, nice man with a remarkably clear, honest perspective. I have several friends who see through me well enough to insist that I be authentic. I am insanely well-connected in my city, and after all, I am only twenty-eight.

How I feel #3:
I have nothing. Five years ago I was married with a good job and a nice house that I owned. Today I have no intimate connections, a job in Flourescent Hell From Satan's Anus, and no space that is authentically mine. And I am insanely lonely.

What is #4:
I have the opportunity to take on my life in a huge way: no real connections, nothing holding me back, and a degree behind me. I am young, healthy, energetic, articulate and eminently employable.

How I feel #4:
Like hiding under my desk and letting the world turn over me.

Just in case history looks back on this later and wonders, this is the third day in a row I've seriously thought about killing myself.