How is it possible that a phrase can get stuck in your head? Like a song that you wish you could stop singing in your head. The phrase is there banging to the beat of its own honesty.  All you can do is think it over and over again until it inevitably expresses itself in words.

The phrase in my head I read in a glimpse, as I was watching a video on YouTube of all places. It was a  fantastic video, and the message was I Am, and who hasn’t contemplated what finite groups of messy things compile themselves to create their existence.  I do it all the time. So why did this phrase jump out at me? Why won’t it leave my head?

The phrase is: I am trapped in a brothel of clowns and loneliness.

Now on first observation, the fact that it mentions clowns will grab my attention because I really have an uncomfortable feeling around clowns.  They are just creepy to me, and they must be hiding something behind that mask of paint.  I, for one, do not want to know what it is. But, on the other hand, I don’t want them anyway around me.

 

Stupid Clowns Always Bothering Me!

Clowns have bothered me since I was a child, and I went to the circus with my family. These clowns were wandering through the stands doing “clowny” things, joking with the people who laughed along, encouraging him.  I was a timid kid, and this clown started asking me questions, like where was I from, so he could yell,  “Anybody else here from your town.”  I had seen him do it and was absolutely petrified to talk to him, he kept picking on me, and I eventually gave up my town name. Afterward, the clown said, “There, was that so bad?”

In my mind, I answered, “Yes, it was.”  for these reasons.

-I was scared to tell him where I live because he might come to find me.

-I thought it was a waste of time because I came from a small town, and even at a circus, I would know if someone was there I knew.  

– I believe that clowns are like ghosts, wearing perpetual smiles that mask a desire to do great harm. These apparitions would appear from nowhere to haunt me.

That phobia by itself was enough to bring this phrase life of its own in the movie in my mind. But that was only a part of it.

Emptiness In the End

Now back to the phrase, it also describes the way I have felt about much of my life. Even though you don’t feel or look lonely on the surface when you look beneath, into the depths, there is a truth that reveals itself when you are honest.  All of these people around me everywhere, yet they are all just players.

As Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.”

I have often wondered about how the play of my life would look, incredible highs, unbelievably devastating lows, some boring times you would gloss over, and I think the bulk of the show would be my incredible experiences with love.  I was in love three times in my life, encompassed years, and each I guard because should anyone know the depths I was willing to feel, they might only show me pity because each was irrevocably destroyed and disregarded. So all that is left is the empty spaces of the places they once possessed in your soul.

At the end of such things, there is a feeling of loneliness that can’t be compared to anything else, and although we are playing our part with others.  As you wait around in the bar of life waiting for that next love to come along, that feeling of emptiness subsists at least quietly in the background, like the music setting the mood.

So here I am thinking, “I am trapped in a brothel of clowns and emptiness.”  Reliving those emotions of what I was irrationally afraid of and having the realization once again that what is gone will never be replaced.