I’m generally a sad person. Some people think I’m bubbly and that I never shut up, but I know it’s veneer, an involuntary mask. Most days, the right word to describe me is morose. Deep, dark, and miserable. Given my blue-black complexion and my aversion to dark nail varnish, I can’t pull off the true gothic look. But the clouded heart is there, and I do have a couple of tattoos. One has a spider and the other has a rose. Both are trying to murder a curvy wailing heart.

In movies, there’s always that one girl that gets described as beautiful. The phrase will come from one of her pals, a nice guy who knows she isn’t pretty. The script is always the same. She falls for a guy that’s way out of her league. The hot guy goes off with some super-model type. And when the nice girl sits down to cry, her friend holds her and tells her that she’s beautiful.

Sometimes, I feel like that girl, curling up and crying while some man tells me I’m beautiful. But I never believe him. He can’t possibly be telling me the truth, because a lot more guys don’t know that I’m a girl. I swagger when I walk, I never batt my lashes, and I never wear anything that’s lacy. That’s why they think I’m one of them. I’m the girl they come to when they want to bitch and whine. The one they talk to about that pretty girl they’d like to bang.

I’m the girl that sits next to the boys with their beers. They laugh, ogle, and drool over some girl on the dance floor, describing her  in painstaking detail. And I sit, sip my Malta, and smile, hiding my face in the darkness, concealing all traces that I wish they would look at me like that.

They talk about this other girl they know, the one that was crafted by the gods, the one that gets them all tongue-tied and sprung. She walks into the bar and they scramble to make way for her, spilling their drinks, itching to be in her aura. They make bets about who’s smooth enough to tap her, knowing that they can barely ask her name. And I sit there in the corner, pretending not to care, longing for the day when I’ll be hard enough, tough enough, strong enough to hear them call another girl beautiful and not want to crumple up and cry.

There are some guys who do look at me like that. They call me late at night and tell me all the things they want to do to me. Those ones are different. They know that I’m a girl. But they never want to see me in the daytime. I wonder if they care for me at all, or if I’m just a number in a little black book. I don’t walk away from them though. I’m afraid it’s all that I can get.

I know this one guy, he’s beautiful. Really beautiful. In every single way. And he wanted me. Long before I saw him, he wanted me. That anyone like that could ever want me! I knew that he could have anyone – could want anyone. I knew that it was never about me. But I let him have me. I wanted to be wanted. I needed to be wanted.  I even thanked him for wanting me. And so I let him have me. Then I kicked myself for daring, for hoping, for wanting it to be more than moment. I should have known so much better.

There’s an idiom about looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses. Me, I see the world in gothic tint. I find the downside in everything, and on days like this, I’m basking underneath a dark cloud. I’ve been told that I’m a masochist, that I enjoy being miserable, that I thrive on my suffering. I don’t think that’s how I am. I think I just live inside a pattern that I don’t know how to break. And so I get sad in the sunshine, in fields where everything is falling into place. I wallow and I wail, wracking myself with dark tears. And sometimes, it passes, for a while.

I found a new path a few months back. We call it Pranic Healing, and we meditate on the full moon. There’s so much power in the air, so much energy and vibrance. We’re advised to monitor our thoughts. Everything is heightened at the full moon – good vibes and bad ones as well. Maybe that’s why I feel so bad today. Maybe it’s my usual sadness magnified.

Since I started Pranic Healing, I find talk to God a lot more. I’m not always reverent, and that’s not something I’m proud of. But I’m glad that I can talk to him. I’m glad that he can somehow break this dark foreboding pattern, because no matter how much we seem to enjoy it, nobody likes living inside this dark hole.

Today is one of my darker days, the ones where I try to extinguish the sun. But since we’re deep in the cold of July, there isn’t that much of a sun to burn. Tomorrow, I’ll do my meditation and I’ll make a special wish. Then maybe all the sadness will leave. But here, now, today, I’ll stare into the wide empty spaces, glad that no one can really hear my thoughts, feel my pain, or dwell on the journeys that I make inside my mind.

♫ Ships in the night ♫ Mat Kearney ♫