Maybe I’m going deaf.
My whole life, I’ve tried to soak up everything I’m supposed to know to carry on in the best way possible. I listened to so many different things – my parents, teachers, music, and I think I imagined that everything combined would create this amazing final assessment. Some glorious “a ha!” moment that would pave the way to happiness. I don’t know where I developed this theory, or if it was more something I was lead to believe, but at 28 years old, I’ve started losing faith in its promise.
The past few months have rocked the boat. Not that I was smoothly sailing, but out of nowhere all of these things just started coming at me, rapid fire. And if the good old saying, “when it rains, it pours” means anything… I surely needed an ark. A no-nonsense ship of steel to float me through the storm. A BAMF, if you will. But there was nothing in sight. The beacon was broken. I was lost at sea.
At the local diner in a pile of sweatpants and tear-stained skin, I was spotted. It was so strange because it was at a time in my life when I couldn’t even see myself. I had been avoiding mirrors and all things familiar because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t see past the pain. I had been hiding as much as possible, only allowing others to see what was absolutely necessary. And even still, it wasn’t much. It was the kind of uncomfortable that didn’t need hindsight to recognize, but someone broke through.
I was caught off-guard. I had decided the outcome of the situation before it began, but as the minutes passed, I floated higher and higher above my body. I was looking down at this girl, this poor invisible girl, as she got the shit kicked out of her by the most beautiful assailant. My gut told me to fight, but I knew better. There are decisions in life that we make because they are morally right.. the kind of right that we’re raised to adhere to. And then there is the kind of right the only exists in unique situations. The ones that you have to experience in order to learn pieces of yourself that would otherwise lay dormant forever. Some of the best and worst decisions all wrapped into one. Basically… magic.
Maybe I’m going blind.
Thinking about it now, I’m still not sure if the weeks that followed made me happy or if I was just trying to keep the wounded childlike version of myself at bay, but for what it’s worth, it got me through just a bit more of my new life, and I’ll take anything I can get at this point.
It’s really bizarre how emotions work. Since I think so much about, I dunno… everything, I normally have a pretty good understanding about the “shoulds” in my life. You know, things like, “Becky, you should do this…” or more appropriately lately, “Becky, you should NOT do this but you’re going to anyway so just come up with a really strong rationalization for it and worry about all the chaos later.” Since I spent the first quarter of my life following what I felt I “should” be doing and it ended up in a way that was less than glamorous, I sometimes feel like I owe it to myself to just say “fuck it” and do whatever I want. Throw caution to the wind – and try to learn the way everyone else seems to be allowed to. By messing tons of shit up.
Maybe I’m out of my mind.
I started writing this journal entry about six weeks ago. When I logged onto my journal tonight to talk about the latest thing destroying me, I thought it was interesting that the very thing that was the topic of the hour back then is not even something that shows up in my present day. I always wish in moments like that that I could just go back and slap myself for complaining about nothing, and I’m sure my future self would like to do the same to the one typing these words right now, but all I can really express is the pain I’m in when I’m in it, and hope to learn from each heartache as I venture into a different one.
And there always is.
The Four Eleven 