A revelation - by Liam R
Epiphany - e·piph·a·ny (ĭ-pĭf'ə-nē) n., pl. -nies.
1. A Christian feast celebrating the manifestation of the divine nature of Jesus to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi.
2. January 6, on which this feast is traditionally observed.
3. A revelatory manifestation of a divine being.
4. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
5. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: “I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself” (Frank Maier).
[Middle English epiphanie, from Old French, from Late Latin epiphania, from Greek epiphaneia, manifestation, from epiphainesthai, to appear : epi-, forth; see epi– + phainein, phan-, to show.]
epiphanic ep'i·phan'ic (ĕp'ə-făn'ĭk) adj.
And who says we don’t live to inform? Now as you may have deducted from my assorted ramblings over the last month that I’ve not been in a happy place recently. In fact there have been times when I’ve been as far away from happy as it’s possible to be and other times when I’ve turned into a right moody wanker. This could only ever be caused by a woman but in this case, as my epiphany came to me and said to me, this is entirely my own fault. As one of my friends told me, I completely misread one night in a far away place as something that it wasn’t. I guess what’s more galling is that I knew this was going to happen and told myself “don’t fall, you’ll only get fucked up” but I did and hard.
To place this all in context though, you’ve got to go back a few months before all this. As I am now, I was just settling into my job, earning a fair chunk of change but I was a wanker. A foul mouthed, fuck-the-world-I-don’t-give-a-shit wanker. It was a façade of course, but I long since learned a long time ago (from people that were not me) that showing any sign of compassion can lead to someone getting fucked over royally. It’s probably why that when I was getting a roasting for ending it with my last girlfriend (a decision that I seem to be regretting more as time goes on – she’s popping up in my dreams again) I seemed totally non-plussed. Like a good wrestling bad guy, it didn’t matter that what I did was wrong, but I felt totally justified so that was okay. The façade didn’t crack once, so I was free to give the outward impression that I truly didn’t give a fuck about anything or anyone.
That of course all changed in the last two months as I ran the total run of emotions and that façade cracked and then was blown to pieces. All that time carefully cultivating a mindset which could deal with anything life could throw at me by discarding it completely without a second thought, all came crashing down around me with one night on a sofa nursing the mother of all hangovers. Of course, if I had decided to leave it all there it would haven’t lead to anything else (hindsight being 20/20 and all that but I’m also a fucking idiot) but I didn’t and I allowed myself to get further and further along despite the fact that she was constantly telling me that it wasn’t going anywhere. I did the oh-so mature and rational thing and ignored this completely (well not completely, because at least now I can say that I truly saw it coming) and then BOOM!BANG! KAPOW! A solitary Friday night text after X-Men 3 and the shit well and truly hits the fan. If this was boxing match, I’d taken the opposition’s best shot and would be staggering around the ring punch drunk, praying for the match to be over so the pain would go away. And if you wanted to see a grown man acting in a decidedly unmanly way, you should have seen me the morning after. Wounded soldier stance? I’d had both my legs blown off.
Which comes to a few days ago as I was walking to the shop to grab some beer. After a few weeks of going from high to low over the course of hours, to the return of my waking nightmares (they’re getting so much worse it’s not even funny, I had a fighton my hands to stop myself throwing up) it just hit me as I was walking down the street. This is the best thing that could have happened to me. I may only be 75% sure of this at the moment but that’s a hell of a lot closer than I was a week ago. I’ve learnt that maybe it’s okay to feel human again, that maybe the world doesn’t hate me as much as I’d made it out that it does. I would have liked it to work out (and my behaviour has pretty much ruled that out entirely – I have been acting that an adolescent prick through all this) but it wasn’t meant to be. I’ll move on, go through it again but it’s just part of being human and one day I’ll get it right. Hell, maybe I do give a fuck after all…