ON THE DOWN SIDE OF BALANCE

I hope you didn't come here looking for answers, because I have none. Just more questions than I've ever had before in my life.
At one time I'd assumed that time taught us answers and removed some of the questions and doubts from our lives, but that doesn't seem to be the case for me. The longer I live, apparently, the less I really know. Because things I thought I knew when I was younger I now know to be more the hubris of youth than any real and concrete answer to life's nagging and troubling questions.
One thing time has done, however, is erode hope, faith and trust. When I was younger I believed things would get better, that I would get smarter, wiser and more accomplished. I also believed I would eventually find and be with the woman I love, that she was out there in the world somewhere and it was just a matter of finding her. And then not being in such a hurry that I missed the fact that she was the one.
I no longer hold on to such hope or have such faith, nor do I trust that, in time, all of this will make some sense to me and will help me become a better man. No, I have found that hope will linger a long time, but it fades as surely as dark clothes left drying in the sun. And faith grows thinner than a spider's thread when it is all that connects you to her, the woman of your dreams and the love of your life. And where I once trusted there was a reason for all of this, a purpose for everyone and everything, I now think that sometimes we suffer and lose just because, well, someone has to in order to keep everything in balance. That the only reason some of us don't get to be with the one we love is because somewhere else in the world two people who love each other are together. They won, we lost, and the standings have to balance so that for every couple that wins, another couple has to lose. For every person who gets to be with the one they love, there has to be someone who doesn't.
And I get to be one who doesn't.
The difference with me today is that I once used to think that, in time, I was going to get to be one of the winners, that one day I would wind up on the plus side of the ledger of love and life, that this dog, as it were, eventually would have his day. I don't believe that any more. I've come to accept that I always will be on the minus side, that winning simply is not in the cards for me, that this dog, as he is, will always be in the dog house. And nobody, especially the woman of my dreams, has any intention of letting me run free in the sunshine of her love.
But don't listen to me. Because I don't know a thing.