How I Am (The Honest Version)

Here's how I am (the honest version):

Things have been okay. I have not been okay.

I'm functioning, which I resent. It makes me feel like I'm making everything else up. I got two bachelor's degrees in four years and I graduated cum laude and I've held down jobs and I have a 4.0 working on my master's degree. If I can manage all that, why can't I manage myself?

Probably 75% of the last few years have been either Down Days or Dark Days.

On Down Days, I make things work. I wake up tired and shuffle through homework or lunches with friends even though I sort of feel like I'm going to cry. I get easily overwhelmed by bright lights or loud talkers or big crowds. I can put one foot in front of the other, but nothing is enjoyable. Nothing is fun. I count down the hours until I can go to bed. I just go through the motions on Down Days.

But on Dark Days, I don't feel alive at all. Everything is gray and the world is still spinning, but I am somehow apart from it. I don't participate in the world on those days; I don't participate in my own life. Sometimes I don't even get out of bed. I have let dishes pile up in the sink for months, I have watched dozens of Netflix episodes in a row without moving an inch. I sometimes don't shower or change clothes or eat meals. Sometimes I stare at the ceiling for hours, feeling sorry for myself or feeling angry at the world or feeling nothing at all. Sometimes the numbness is the most crushing.

Down Days feel exhausting, but Dark Days feel impossible.

I feel chronically empty, and I try to fill myself up with tons of stuff that never really works. I used cutting for a long time, then sleeping, then alcohol, then cigarettes, then Benadryl and alcohol (more sleeping), then alcohol and pot, then pot and food. I consider it a miracle that I'm not hooked on hard drugs.

I blame my parents for a lot of stuff, and sometimes I can't decide if they deserve that or not. They did a lot of things right, but I feel a lot of pain and anger toward them and I don't always know where it's coming from. Being with them feels simultaneously chaotic and stifled. We have weird boundaries that don't work for me. I spend a lot of energy seeking them out, I spend a lot of energy wishing they were different.

There are so many things I don't remember about the past ten years, especially surrounding being at home or with my family. It's frustrating and confusing and it makes me doubt my own recollection of my own life.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I feel like I was born a little bit broken. It feels like everyone else has so many layers between their heart and the world, but I'm sort of raw and exposed and grating gracelessly against a life that's tearing me to shreds.

Being ready.

I've always wanted to wait until I felt ready.

Every high dive jump, first kiss, job application, hard conversation moment in my life has been met with my heartbeat raging and this sinking feeling, "But wait. I'm not ready."

Life has always moved a little too fast for me, and I've always felt guilty that I couldn't keep up.  I've watched hundreds of people in my life match the pace of this world, and they seem genuinely fulfilled by the spontaneity and urgency of each passing moment. But the truth is, I think I was just meant for slower movement.

Because, you see, in my dark days, the world moves without me. The sun rises and sets, kids ride their bikes down sidewalks, people eat lunch and run errands and live their lives. On the dark days, the world does what it always does... but I cannot keep up. So I draw the shades and pull blankets over my head and close my eyes tight and beg out loud to no one in particular to please let me make it through this.

But the truth is, I don't know how I'm going to make it. And, even scarier, I don't know if I'll ever feel ready to try. But I do know that it's possible to do things before I feel ready. I know it's possible to take leaps of faith and show up and work hard and move forward, even if I'm dragging myself along one tiny millimeter at a time.

I do know that it's going to be messy and painful and probably beautiful sometimes. Most things are.

I also know that every time I write, it feels like I'm giving myself permission to feel the hard stuff. And maybe if I feel that freedom in writing, you will also feel it in reading. Because I know I have brothers and sisters all over this godforsaken Earth who are also struggling to know love under the crushing weight of this world.

But there is love is everywhere, if you can just figure out where to look. And I'm starting in my own heart.

My words are simple. They are messy and painful and probably beautiful sometimes (most things are). But they are also love letters to the darkest parts of myself, and maybe to the darkest parts of you, too.  They are confirmation of my honest belief that everyone deserves to tell their story... even me, even to a probably-empty-blogosphere.

I don't have to find perfect words and I don't have to spend hours editing and I don't have to be worried about who will read this or who won't read this.

I just have to write this love down.