Impasse

Picture:
There is a door. There is someone on either side, but we can only see one side, because the door is shut. The person we see is banging on the door, begging the other to come out. Beckoning, then begging. Then finally they are bargaining, but from the other side of the door, nothing emerges, not even a sound. The desperation is not at all feigned, nor is it all-encompassing.
This door, you see, is not Their Door. The only thing holding it shut is a rule, not a lock or latch. Not even a rule, per se, as opening it would have no real repercussions. So in a way it is a game, albeit one they both take seriously.
But it is not Their Door, it is not in Their Place, and neither of them will come out as the victor. There's always somebody a step ahead.
The moral of the story?
I'm not out of the woods quite yet.

Listen:
There are a few things I want to say, to ask. I'm getting there. I've written in the past, though not here, that I feel scrutinized, overly, by some unseen force. I've since come to learn that that scrutiny comes from the other side of the door. I've also learned who is there: Nobody.
Nobody, as in Nobody. Only an irrational concept on a plane of rational things.
When one tends to deconstruct the world around them so that it fits into definable categories that can be restructured and re-purposed to fit into respective molds of understanding, the things that don't fit, that don't make sense, get put on the other side of that door. That's where Nobody is, and nobody, save Nobody, goes in there.

They say:
Nobody never feels fear, Nobody goes through life without doubt. Nobody doesn't cry.
That's impossible, Nobody could do that.
Nobody is in control. Nobody can tell you what to do. Nobody rules your life.
Nobody is watching.
Nobody.

Listen, again:
I've been, for most of my life, confident of myself. At some point in this last year, I lost that confidence. I lost respect for myself. I lost bits and pieces of the person I am, so slowly, so gradually, that when the bottom fell out, I hadn't even known there was a problem.
It is, however, getting better. Normalcy is being restored. Which has led me to new realizations-rather, discoveries of problems that have existed for a long time which I either didn't know about or long ago chose to ignore.

My confidence has never extended beyond myself. I have this deep seated need to ask for permission, for fear of offending or overstepping my bounds. For all my talk, this makes me a much less spontaneous person, averse to taking any risks that are not almost completely sure bets.
It's an affliction, and it nearly kills any ideals of romantic behavior.

I remember, my first ever girlfriend, Becky from Scipio. I remember sitting next to her, nearly touching her. I remember trying to get the nerve, for almost half an hour, to hold her hand. I remember my heart literally skipping a beat when I finally tried. I remember the nonchalance of her aquiescence, as if it was not at all an unexpected or unwelcome thing to do.
Of course, for most people, it wasn't.

Believe me when I say, for the most part, I got better at this sort of thing over time.

But:
Again I find myself at this level of confidence: wanting to boldly move forward, to take action. And it's nearly impossible. Again I feel the paralysis of that 11 year old boy, staring at Becky from Scipio's hand and imagining the softness of it, and imagining that just the action of reaching out and grasping will either evoke rage or passion from her.
So now, 15 years later, bruised and broken from things that have happened in between, my brain urges me to err on the side of caution, while my heart screams and rages to take chances. Diametrically opposed voices that both have very solid reasoning, but as a creature of logic I can't help but listen to my brain.
My brain looks to my heart, and tells it gently, "We've gone down these roads before, friend, and look where it's taken us."
Heart looks up at my brain, with a mixture of pity and shame on his face. "If you never take the chance to go somewhere unknown, you'll spend your whole life standing still, and nothing will ever change. 'I don't intend to tiptoe through life, only to arrive safely at my death.' Beauty is only found through adversity. Try it. Just one more time."

I just hope I'm not running out of opportunities.

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