Left Behind.

Increasingly, and overwhelmingly. This is my life.

I am the one left behind. The one who got to play a role in so many people's lives. And then they move on.

I stand here with the water around my neck and rising. The pressures, the losses, the memories, the dreams...choking the life from me. I reach above my head, and wield a powerful lens. I point it at the living world and the creatures who live there show their love for me. They give me so many gifts.

But the waters are rising and I am gasping for air. Still, I defy all that tries to crush me and I smile. I laugh. And I fill my soul with the birds and the butterflies, the breezes coming in from the lake at the cabin. The memory of my mother.

And I hold on.

I watch as those I fell in love with...have moved on to lovers and partners where they live a happy life. Secure and happy.

I watch, as my own father finds love with a woman who can also solve all of his problems. She loves him for who he is...but she also has more money than she knows what to do with. No longer does he have to hold the world on his shoulders. He can and will share a life with her, as her friend and companion.

He will move in with her before too long. Certainly before the end of the year.

The woman I love can never see me alone. She is bound to her house and her mother, and I am alone every night. We try with all we have to make something work, but time together is fleeting at best. There is NO alone time at all.

Tomorrow I head to the cabin and the lake.

My last refuge. The last place I have left.

I watch as everyone I know. My good friends, my former lovers, move on to happy lives, and security, and I watch on things like Facebook and elsewhere as they celebrate their lives.

Someone told me very recently that I am an old soul. A man who can see and appreciate the world around me. Who is open to the gifts and the beauty of nature. And, I suppose I am.

I am an old soul.

One who must have in previous lives been a horrible person. Someone for whom this life is my proving ground. To suffer and persist and try to find the good. To try to Be good. To be there for my friends and those I love. To reach out and help others. To show people the beauty of the world and the creatures that live in it.

But to suffer all the while.

To never know what happiness is. To never know what security is. To never know what having a loving partner by my side feels like.

I guess that is for the next life.

I hope it gets here soon.