Jed Wolf

The chronic pursuit of my demons is irksome and boring to some. Even when I try to hide it, it’s pretty clear I’m roped on. Last summer at gay camp, I overheard a couple referring to me as a “buzz kill,” and the label stuck. Apparently, I’m about as much fun socially as Captain Ahab. Yet I’ve also been told that despite carrying a sack of old bones around, I’m a light in people’s lives.

It was with this latter knowledge that I looked through my recent contacts for someone to relieve the pressure in my skull. One or two names popped up, and they were people I’d already worn out. So either randomly or guided by angels, I called an old friend from high school.

Immediately as existential as we’d been at sixteen, we began discussing Gravity—not the force, but the weight of existence. “The older I get, despite being fit, the heavier I feel,” I told her.

“Gravity is like a metaphor for the whole thing,” she said. “There’s nothing light about it—no way out. Sugar-coating or trying to remedy it, no matter how well-intentioned, makes everything worse for people like us.”

“Gravity is truth,” we agreed, like we were tripping.

“And I hate it,” I continued, “when people try to give me advice because they think my truth is a cry for help, or when they repeat what I just said in their own language to counsel me. I really hate myself for hating them and their unsolicited advice. But most of all, I especially hate people who say there’s a whole lot of ‘hate’ going on here—because I’ve listened to their crap, their reluctant soul’s cry for help – and felt their temptation to rip apart their resistance and plunge into Hell with me!”

As I spoke, I could swear I felt gravity decrease. The relentless expansion in my skull lessened, and I thanked God for answering my prayers by giving me far-flung, dear old friends from our treacherous years at boarding school to call when I’m weak. Unlike “acting as if,” I felt I was onto something real.

My latest commitment to feel better was to pray out loud. It helped, but what was I actually wishing for? Would the weight of the world miraculously lift because my words tripped up a few bored angels? No. It was the willingness to pick up the phone and call someone who didn’t try to hide her bucket of shit either. We felt safe talking honestly, relieved to listen to one another like we might belong on this planet after all. She lives alone and needed a piece of me as much as I needed her.

I isolate from people to give myself a break from their definitions, interpretations, judgments, verdicts, and unsolicited advice—real or imagined. I stick it out alone in my head until I’m so tangled in my own wiring that I return to friends from my dark nights in the rabbit hole out of desperation. Some might call it a symptom of mental illness, or a vision quest, or a boy who cries wolf. The temptation to analyze, to sum up, to solve the unsolvable is obviously not lost on therapists. But despite my experience in this Garden of Eden—or perhaps because of it—I believe we’re all like this to varying degrees, and refuse to pay for help. I’m mesmerized by the unification of opposites like a kitten by yarn, a Libra—in other words, entertained while doomed.

Isolation doesn’t necessarily mean being physically alone. It’s easy to go inward and become annoyed when people are around, especially while they’re trying to be engaging and I want no part of it. Lately, as the years advance, rather than just beating myself up, I try to become authentically interested. I change the channel, actually listen, provide a needed service, or I get the hell out. Gravity never changes, but the sensation lifts when I refocus or become distracted by gardening.

After my purging conversation with my high school friend, I found myself mowing the crabgrass in my front yard, creating a cloud of dust as I avoided the apple-laden tree limbs resting on the ground. A cop cruiser slowed way down—checking out my dust cloud, my bare feet, my near nakedness, or maybe just my significant apple crop. I met his gaze and strode over. After a weird few moments, he rolled down his window, and I offered him some apples. He said he’d try one and wound up driving off with a shopping bag full.

While putting the mower away, a few SUV women pretended not to see my waving arms, but then a guy with a truck load of smelly port-o-potties, chugging up our hill, accepted another bag full. Sometimes connection comes in the strangest forms, defying the gravity that holds us down.

-BK