Into The Night

 I guess on the one hand it's just a movie that my mom picked out and there's not necessarily any meaning or substance behind it as the movie writers and directors can make their universe do however they please in order to properly fit their plotline. But with that being said, it does lead one to think about some decently sized questions.

For starters, this week I watched the movie Words on Bathroom Walls, which is a story about an adolescent with schizophrenia and how he aspires to be a chef and go to culinary school, but the mental illness makes it hard for him to function and schools would kick him out. He would spend the majority of the movie in one school trying to cover it all up by taking experimental drugs and medications to nullify the illness, hiding under a mask. He would become afraid to love others, familial or romantic because he is scared of the damage or the stress it may put on someone for them to try to shoulder the burden that he carries. There was a quote that was used in the movie stating, "it's hard to let someone find you in all the dark and twisty places inside, but eventually, you have to hope that they do, because that's the beginning of everything." This was in reference to opening up to allow room for loving others and finding love reciprocated

That made me wonder...

While I may not personally be diagnosed with any mental illness and not suffering in the same capacities as this one character is, there seems to be some truth and some application to it. I find that my dark places are where I am most vulnerable emotionally. There are times when I finally begin to trust others and think to myself that I can let them peer into what I perceive to be my own darkness, and hope that they stick around to help me through it. I've seldom opened up to people, not really my own family. There are some things I open up about, but that's not even the deepest and darkest parts. If I had to guess, it'd be my feelings of loneliness; of being lost and feeling as if I have no point or cause in life. To open up about what hurts me and to allow someone to support me as I try to heal from it.

I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but I have learned and taught myself how to bottle things up and just be dismissive when someone tries to ask, "are you okay?" I may have written about it once before, but I was bullied in middle school, and I tried to lash back at the bullies with similar snide remarks and it didn't really help heal anything nor did it achieve anything to make the pain go away. I've dealt with and struggle with pornography and masturbation, but that's one issue that's more on the nose of religious conviction as a secular point of view may not see an issue with that. There have been times in which I try to speak up about what pains me, but then everything comes out and the immediate attempts at damage control and healing don't really achieve what I thought it would, so I just try to smile through the pain and say everything's alright. I've learned after years of speaking too quickly to just keep my mouth shut and try to hide it all. But sometimes I break and sometimes I speak out, and if I don't even say anything you can see that my faux smile fades and falters enough to know that I'm not actually fine.

There's only been 2 people that I've really allowed to peer in as far as I can tell right off  the bat. And they were 2 of my former best friends from Liberty. One of them was because I had spent 2 years living with him, so I trusted him and he trusted me, so at some point we sat down had a deeper conversation about opening up, and it helped because we took it piece by piece to work through it. The other person was the one girl I almost dated and who I occasionally harp over still, countless months after it all faded away. It was nice being able to be open and honest, and I hope that some day I find someone I am comfortable enough with to be that level of open again.

But given the fact that I've had  my falling outs, I'm afraid that I cannot let people get that close to me in the event that a fallout happens between myself and whomever that may be and now they have deep knowledge about me that they can potentially use to leverage against me. Not to say that any recent falling outs have lead to someone trying to leverage my secrets and darkness against me, but I suppose it is a paranoid pathway of thinking, but still a plausible and possible occurrence.

So why does all of this matter?

Because me being a young man, sitting at 21 years of age and going on steadily towards 22, I am searching and hoping to find someone to be in a relationship with and if all things work out for it to take it further and beyond just boyfriend/girlfriend and take it to marriage and then to the grave from there (what with the whole "'til death do us part"). And whenever that day comes or whenever I find someone I'm interested in pursuing and maybe starting something with, I'll have to come to terms with opening up to them and showing them all of me and hope that they don't run from my feelings of loneliness, the wreckages of heartbreak past, the burned remains of a bullied kid, the shattered innocence of a man who fell to his primal instincts, etc.

I don't know who I may end up with. I don't know where I might meet them, or where I might go with them. Sure I've had crushes or interests, and sure that is the coming and going with things especially as I work in a field where it's easy enough to meet people within an acceptable range of age at least for me, but there are still boundaries and various hoops and hurdles to go through if anything is to happen and to go past me just seeing someone as being cute or being pretty.

All in all, if I claim this blog to be "Into Vengeance, Into the Night, Into Batman", then there must be a point where someone can get into Batman (if I so dare to claim that mantle again and be all who I keep talking about who I was and could be). Someone will have to known my darkness, to see my all of being the night, to even enter my personal dusk, and walk through it with me.