God? Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

I hate to be so melancholy about my life and mental illness. The name of the blog is The 4th Avenue Blues, afterall, but I really dislike talking about it so much. It is just such a dominant and determining factor in my life and the quality thereof. So it gets a lot of airtime on this journal.

The time was 1am. I felt as if the four walls of my bedroom where closing in upon me. I set out for this morning’s hike as a lone freight train roared and blasted it’s horns through downtown. I walked down to the shopping center, which was dead this time of night, and then sat as I smoked one cigar after another. I longed for Rosa’s brusque company and her smoky, gravelly laugh. Any company of another would have done in a pinch to be honest. I was not choosey tonight and was deeply lonely.
I don’t want to live the next twenty medicated years in hell and disillusion hoping for a cure. I walked home carrying my burden which is my mental illness and that will always be my allegorical cross to bear.
“God? Am I always going to suffer?” I asked that mythical being in the beyond of my mental illness as I looked up at the millions of twinkling stars greeting me in the night sky.

“If you are real, I just wish you would give me a sign that things are going to be okay,” I said, quietly. “I can’t take suffering for the rest of my life. I felt so bad yesterday I thought I was going to die. I don’t want to die.”

I think it is only human nature to want to believe in something grander and more aspired than the simple lives we live, upon this little mote of dust in the deep, dark vastness of space. I wanted to be comforted and to have a relationship with that omnipotent being my grandmother so extolled during my youth. She made God and Jesus seem like such kind and caring individuals who wanted only the best for their loyal followers.

“There is no God,” I finally said as pulled on my cigar once more, guiltily, as a tear rolled down my cheek and a discomforting silence greeted me. “A just God wouldn’t let people suffer so and I see so much untoward suffering in the world.”

As I walked home, I resigned myself to the fact that I am genetically flawed. Humans have somewhat thwarted evolution through modern medicine and via the help of more genetically viable family members. They prop up and support those of us that wouldn’t survive a day in the grand scheme of things if survival of the fittest truly ruled the day. I realize that my life is about as good as it is ever going to get and I better make peace with my “gods” and resign myself to that fact. I don’t want to live the next twenty medicated years in hell and disillusion hoping for a cure. I sleepily walked on home carrying my burden which is my mental illness and that will always be my allegorical cross to bear.