It’s about 1:30 in the morning. The gentle and steady sounds of a light rain manages to calm my soul through the open windows. I’m playing Blue In Green by Miles Davis, with only one of the lamps on in my living room. I’m laying on the couch, looking up at the ceiling.

I’m trying to define what I’m feeling. I mull some thoughts around in my head. There’s a bit of irony in feeling that the only way I could express the conclusion of this soul searching is by typing it here for myself to read back at some point. Maybe someone else will read it too, I don’t know.

I’ve talked about this before numerous times, even on this blog, but I have trouble feeling like I belong anywhere. I’ve never felt like I was a part of a clique, or that I fit in with any particular social setting. Even my own family sometimes. The world can feel so alien to me, where I’m more just observing other people interact more than being a part of the interaction itself.

This weekend was my grandfather’s 90th birthday. 9 decades of being on this planet. He’s seen so much. Endured so much. It was good to see him smiling, enjoying the big party my father went through great effort to put together. It wasn’t perfect, but it was with love. I gained a lot of respect for my dad this weekend, and I already respected him plenty.

There were a lot of profound feelings I had coming out of this weekend. Someday, it’ll be my dad who’s lived a full life and I’ll be trying to make sure he knows how much he’s loved by his family. It’ll be me wanting to buy him little things to take care of him. I wondered if I would either a) live long enough to be that old or b) have any children of my own to give that experience to. Depression has a strong way of influencing speculation on those sorts of things, though.

The drive back from my grandfather’s was a long, arduous process involving traffic and other obstacles. My family stopped off for dinner on the way up. In spite of my dad’s insistence, I paid for everyone. I don’t know. I have difficulty expressing emotions; a trait in the Hailey men I’ve gathered. But I wanted to remind my dad that it’s not on him to put the world on his shoulders. And that’s he not alone. I don’t know if I was successful, but I tried.

I wanted to get out of that car by the 5th hour. I’m a person that recharges by doing his own thing. No matter how much I like someone usually I find myself wanting a break to where I am just left to my own devices. There was a lot of social interaction this weekend, and I was ready to relax. I got home, my parents and sister left, and I felt this awkward sense of loneliness.

The world, as I knew it, went on in my absence. The people I socialize with and consider friends probably didn’t even notice I was gone. I didn’t have any place I had to be. Nothing I really had to do. I felt this weird contradiction of wanting to be around people but not wanting to be around people at the same time. I think part of me just wanted to sulk.

But sulk about what? I’m not sure. This weekend reminded me of a comparison I made to someone when I was in high school. I said that it feels like every person in the world is red, and I am blue. Only I can see the difference. And it separates me from people. It’s like I read them in a way they don’t read themselves, or I observe and place values on different things socially so I just end up not fitting in. And no one else is blue.

No one.

It’s human nature to not want to be entirely alone, but try to imagine the sullen futility in feeling like whatever effort you did make to act on the simplest of human urges would likely be met with some measure of failure.

I’ve tried being a more expressive, open, and vulnerable person. I think I’ve made some pretty big strides on those fronts. But I’m still blue. And the world’s still red. And I still feel alone.