On a plane in the sky, you can see all sorts of lights. Lights from buildings, and lights coming from people, objects, and other things. All this light is all around me, blinding me from every direction. Every person has a light inside them, releasing it from within as they continue on with their lives. This is where my problem arises.
I feel like I’ve lost my light. My inner light.
As we speak, I’m on a plane now. As I sit here, looking into the vast array of clouds that we fly into, I asked myself, what’s the point? What’s the point of moving, meeting people, places and things only to lose them again? In our world, we have so many unanswered questions, and today, right here, right now, I’ll try to answer just one of these questions.
Be patient with me, as I indulge in a little nostalgia.
There were many times in my life I wished a potion to exist, just to erase a problem and yield a quick solution. You cannot make occurrences happen to you. No matter how hard you try, and I learned this the hard way.
About a year ago, I fell into a trap. I’m what people may recognize as a hyper-empath. I feel worse than terrible when I see other people hurt. If you cry, then I am crying with you, just as hard, if not harder. If you experience pain, I feel it with you. It’s a blessing and a curse. On one hand, I can feel for you, in a way that most people can't, I share your grief and your pain and it is in this way that I can better comfort you. On the other, this can be confused with other feelings. Ones that stem from affection or family ties.
My best friend, he’s absolutely perfect. Smart, cunning, brave, obnoxious. All the things that a regular person can be, while also having qualities that make them wonderful. We’ve been through thick and thin together, we’d take a bullet for the other, without thinking twice. At some point, he was hurt by someone, someone who shouldn’t have hurt him. And I felt his hurt. Worse than ever before, I felt his sorrow and drained energy a thousand times over, and in trying to comfort that sorrow I realized something.
I cared about him.
You know what I’m referring to. The care that goes beyond that of the family pet, or stuffed animal. The kind that makes you feel happy enough to float atop everyone’s head, high above the clouds, like the ones I’m seeing outside this window.
I didn’t know how to fix this. My best friend, one that I’ve been for years, was now part of what kept me living. He created a spark and suddenly talking was hard. Speaking was hard, interacting was impossible. Not only that, but he was involved. Involved meaning, when I fell deep and hopeless into the trap, it was already too late for me. His attention was elsewhere in that regard.
So then there is the internal struggle. I sat everyday being the faithful best friend. Hurting on the inside. I went on knowing that we already had a steadfast bond, and I didn’t want to break it. Not this way, and not without warrant. I was content, and I understood my place.
And then, one day, emotions won the best of me.
After a long conversation about something I cannot fully remember, I said what I felt. I knew it wouldn’t change anything. Although a part of me wished it did. Of course, my friend said that he thought I was sweet but he really liked us better as friends. I said I understood. I nodded and smiled, and shrugged off each word as if it was a fresh snowfall blowing from the sky. I said it didn’t bother me.
But it did.
The worst thing about being a hyper-empath is getting through your own emotions. They can be brutal. They can be a boxer beating you up merciless in time, over, and over, until there’s just an empty shell of a person left.
