A new day dawns, with an old heartache. A new month begins, with the
same distance that engulfed me the month before. A distance, not
measurable my centimeters, inches, feet, or even miles. This distance I
speak of is metaphorical, psychological, in all accounts, not distance,
just merely difference. This is a distance from me, from who I really
am, and who I’ve become as each monotonous day has dulled me. Who am I,
if I am not who I thought myself to be before? And when exactly is
before? Before what? I can’t remember a day that marked this change, I
can’t pinpoint a minute, or even a second in time where I lost myself.
It happened suddenly, and yet so slowly. I am not who I always was, nor
am I the person I am meant to be. I’m stuck in the in-between. I’m
striving to be this person, this professional, this adult. I’m being
forced by society to fulfill this role, that I’m still not sure I
believe in. I find so many cracks in the ideas that I’m supposed to
fulfill that I’m not sure that I want to be that person anymore. Go to
high school, graduate, go to college, and start over. Why? Take the same
classes every other psych major takes, and become a brilliant
psychologist. A brilliantly normal, and by all accounts identical
psychologist. We’re sheep fulfilling the criteria of the professional. I
don’t want to be a fucking sheep. I have my own ideas about people. We
don’t all fit into this criteria we’re forced to judge sanity by. If I
were to measure myself on the scale of mental illness, I doubt they’d
allow me to pass my judgment on to others. A self-diagnosis I’ve
revamped day by day as my symptoms worsen to the point of breaking.
Dependent, fearful of rejection, introverted, highly distractible,
unable to develop concrete goals…. In all reality, a completely normal,
yet uniquely complicated college student still getting a handle on the
world that is changing more and more everyday. I learn what I have to, I
do what I’m told, and I turn around and the world is different. I went
to grade school learning Pluto was a planet for Christ’s sakes, my child
years from now will look at me like some moron when I tell them that.
“Pluto isn’t a planet, mom, don’t be a dummy.” I can just hear it now.
Professor’s spew data like it’s scientific proof of the world, but it’s
not. Today’s facts, are tomorrow’s faux-pas moments. We have no idea
what tomorrow holds, we can barely uncover the truths of today, or even a
thousand years past. Dinosaurs were rendered extinct millions of years
ago, and we have yet to uncover a single clue. People die of unknown
causes every few minutes, and we don’t even bat an eyelash. The future
will slap us in the face one of these days, and all we’ll be able to say
is that the red mark that ensued resembled very closely a human hand of
today. So where does this leave me? In between. All I have yet to
figure is in between what? Will I be the perfect psychologist my degree
is molding me into? Will I continue down this path, the path a thousand
others have taken, and are taking with me? Or will I stray? Will I find
who I really am? Some days I wonder if I even want to know who I am, who
I was, or who I’m supposed to be. Life confuses me, death confuses me.
Things were so easy in the beginning. Friends were plentiful, family was
tight, life was sunny. Twenty years later I look back and wonder how to
survive without all that. Without a father, or a best friend, or a
proper family. I wonder if life matters without them. I wonder if
anything will ever matter as much as things did back then. Everyday I
search for my answer. Everyday I get a little more frustrated about the
world, and myself. The lights dim, as day turns to night, and the
thoughts intensify. The nights are the hardest.
Tonight is the
worst. His arms are not around me, though they will be when my head hits
that pillow. He loves me, with everything he is, and I know that. I am
absolutely sure of his devotion to be with me for the rest of our lives.
I tell him I wouldn’t but if he asked me this second to marry him, I
wouldn’t hesitate. He would never leave me. And yet, I hear myself each
time he tries to leave. I hear the crack in my voice as I choke back the
tears, and I wonder what the hell is wrong with me. I try to quiet my
fears, that he’s not going where he tells me he is, even though I have
no doubt in my mind that that is exactly where he is. I’m just afraid,
terrified by all accounts that I’m not enough. I never was enough.
Everyone leaves, everyone made excuses, and everyone always told me they
loved me. So how do I stop this? How do I believe that he’s not going
to end up like all the rest of them? I bore them. I don’t do anything
spectacular. I can do math at an unrealistically fast speed in my head,
but there are geniuses that can do it better. I can write a
well-developed paper for class in about an hour and get an A. I can
study for 10 minutes and pass my final exam like I will tomorrow
morning. I can read disgustingly fast, which allows me to always, always
finish first, but only turn my paper in second, because I’m a little
unsure of myself. I’m not special. I’m not different. I’m not who he
thinks I am. That’s what scares me the most on these nights, that he’s
finally realized I’m not that girl he has in his head anymore. I’m not
that writer anymore, or that genius, or that fantastic cook. I burn
toast, I can’t flip pancakes, I can’t form a coherent sentence half the
time I try to write anymore. I’ve spelled 7 words wrong in the last 2
sentences I’ve tried to write. I’m falling apart. I’m disintegrating at a
rate so fast that I might lose myself before I can tell him any of
this. I’m just so fucking lost. I need my best friend, both of them. No
matter how broken he is, or how busy and still somehow disappointed in
me she is. I need them. I need a glimpse of what was in order to keep
going towards what will be. I’m broken, and bleeding, and no one’s
holding the wound anymore. No one is dealing with me anymore. No one
cares. And it hurts more that I ever thought it would. Numbness is
appealing in situations like today.
I hope that one day I can get
over these ridiculous fears. That one day, or year, or month from now I
can be okay. I hope it happens gradually, and shows up all of a sudden,
just like how I got here. I hope this in between will disappear exactly
as it came, without recognition. I do not want to remember these days.
They are monotonous, tear filled, and hard to swallow. The one sadness
that only strengthens when you try to drink it away. It tries to choke
you, and drown you in everything you can’t be. This world is fucked up
like that, it tries to kill you in the most ridiculous fashions. It
tries to kill you on the inside, so the person on the outside dies as
well. I won’t let that happen. I used to love who I was, what I stood
for. I don’t stand for anything right now, I can barely stand on my own
to be honest. I’m tired of it. I’m scared of it, and it’s going to
change as soon as I can find a breath of reason.
So fuck the world’s ideas of what I should be, because tomorrow, they’ll only want me to be something different anyway
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