Indifference (revised 6/09)

My mother said that when I was a child I always showed my emotions and expressed my feelings for the people around me.  I can only assume I never got what I desperately needed and decided to stop.  I do know that eventually I placed all my feelings and emotions into a box and locked it.  I had learned time and time again that I couldn't trust another person with my feelings.  Never again, Never!  To trust was to be betrayed.  Trust was pain.  I became a person of indifference and watched the world pass me by.  I was an observer, detached from everything.  I became so hollow, so empty of all natural feeling that I could assume any posture as it occurred to me; I used emotion as one might wear a shirt, changing it when it suited me.  Still, I believed what I felt - Anger, betrayal, sincerity, even love of a perverse sort - until I abandoned it in favor of another, more practical weapon.  I could make the offer of friendship, and make it seem genuine, because I believed it - if only for as long as it took me to say it.

My indifference, what I now call grey, had a downside.  I'm not able to recall any substantial feelings or emotions.  I can't recall memories of time spent with friends or family.  My time spent with them didn't mean anything to me.  I didn't appreciate it.  I moved through life not paying attention to names, places, or events.  I didn't care.  I got up in the morning and went to sleep at night.

My wife once asked me why I never got jealous.  We could go out and men would buy her drinks and hit on her.  I didn't care.  My wife had never given me a reason to doubt her.  I enjoyed taking her out.  I'd like to say that there wasn't any jealousy in me because I knew the attention she would get from other men, meant nothing to her, so it meant nothing to me.  The truth is, I new if she left me for another, I'd just find someone else.  I was indifferent.