Valentine’s Day Melancholy

I wrote this on Valentine’s Day this year. It is from my personal journal. I’m not sure why I’m sharing it with the world, but as I was reading it I thought it was important to put out there, like I did with my entry on feeling disconnected. This one started off as a message of negativity but turned itself into a message of hope by the end.

“You don’t know me!”

Oh yeah?

And why is that, because I’m successful? Because I’m smart? Because I look the part of someone who’s never been there?

I know you. I know that pit in your stomach. I know what it is to hurt, to be ashamed, to hide a piece of yourself from the world—from yourself, even. I know what it’s like to tread your way through a conversation, the swirl of the interaction pulling you like a riptide into waters that are too deep and too dangerous for you to survive. I know that plastic smile you put on to mask the fear as you desperately look for a way back to shore, petrified by the easy laughter that surrounds you. I know the fear of being exposed as a fraud, I know the shame of feeling like one and the bitter lie you tell yourself to make it OK.

I know what it is to fail. I know what it is to disappoint a loved one so completely that you can’t look her in the eye. I know what it means to fail so hard that you can’t even bring yourself to look at yourself. I know the sickly lethargy that envelops you when you’re not good enough, and the acidic desperation of not knowing where to turn for help. I know you thought you were giving it your all, but it turned out you weren’t even close to being fully committed. When it happened, I heard echoes of the silent plea for help that refused to voice itself on your tongue, no matter how badly you wanted it and how desperately you needed it. I sensed it because I have screamed that plea to myself a thousand times, and I recognized in your eyes the loneliness that accompanies it. I have heard emptiness in your voice as clearly as I have heard it in my own. I know you lose sleep when you can’t see a way through tomorrow.

I know you. I know how you ask yourself, “How much more am I supposed to endure?” and “When does the trial end?!” I know the silence when no answer comes and it’s more of the same: more defrauding, more disappointing, more lying, more nothing.

I am incredibly fortunate to know hope and love and success. I am deeply blessed to know peace and the pure, vicarious enjoyment of watching others succeed. But I am also incredibly human, and these things, while beautiful, are gifts that are not always within my reach. I know the uneasiness that accompanies their departure, and that terrible despair that sets in when they are too long gone, curdling the best intentions and twisting them into jealously, frustration, and rage. I know hatred that swells against attempts to ignore it, and rages uncontrollably against outright attempts to douse it. I know the nauseating taste of losing and the vile taste of fear that threatens to close your throat. I have swallowed these emotions more times than I care to recount.

Still think I don’t know you?

Now here’s something else about you, that you had better remember: you always have the power to keep moving, even when fear surrounds you and your spirit seems moments from dying. However long you need to hang on, even if it is for all eternity, you will hang on, if by the thinest thread. You will never let go, never completely give up, never die. You will always be able to try another step, another direction, another option, for your appetite for life is inexhaustible. You are built to win, and like me, you will never quit believing, striving, wanting… Somewhere in you, you know you will be pushed only to your limit and never over it. You know your fears can never hurt you… they can only delay your arrival.

I know you. Your success is inevitable. It may take more than a lifetime, but it will come. And if you look straight ahead, if you focus on the horizon in front of you rather than the void behind you, it will come to you now.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.