The soss of self

The song of the hour is intentionality and intimacy, though to be honest we find it hard. Either we withdraw and refuse to touch it with a ten foot pole, or we go full blast thinking intensity necessarily means honesty. Lately I’ve been going through a lot of stuff. I’ve been dealing with personal and emotional dissociation and it’s been driving me mad. It’s like I “just can’t even,” but the thing I’m attempting to even is just existing, being myself, or engaging with people around me. Who knew that wearing masks your whole life and trying to take care of everyone else’s emotions was so exhausting? Who knew it wasn’t easy to keep up appearances and smile? Yeah, cause that’s the thing: I said earlier it was hard to be myself, but in actuality it’s gotten difficult to be the version of myself that people (myself included) are used to seeing. I’ve been working a job that’s taken so much out of me I get to the end of the day and want to sit alone in a basement playing Skyrim. Or watching tv, or whatever. That would be okay, except that there are other people in my life, and, you know, sitting alone playing Skyrim isn’t actually what I want. Obviously (if you haven’t guessed) I love writing. I want to make a career out writing. Unfortunately that takes time and effort, and some days I don’t think I have it in me and that’s just one larger goal. So I vegetate on the couch, playing and replaying Skyrim, and feeling less and less and less in control, and more and more like my life isn’t where I want to be.

I went through a long period of time, about eight months to a year, where I thought I knew who I was. What I mean is I didn’t think too much about it; I didn’t question it. I always knew what I wanted to say, what I wanted to do, where I'd rather be. I had answers, confidence, and a balance of contentment and discontentment. And then I guess my interests changed and I wasn't the same. Different things came into focus that weren’t before and things looked a little more unstable around me, emotionally speaking. Maybe I grew as a person. People tell me I did. My friends tell me I did. But I miss that sureness. In a world where nothing feels sound I miss the time when I felt strong enough. Now I'm here and I don't always recognize myself; all those old strengths I had are missing. I struggle to find the words I want now. Where I was confident and always knew what to say now I'm not sure. Where I was happy, and kind, now I'm judgemental, and angry; I hold grudges and resentment. What's wrong with me? What went wrong?

Well, there is a truth, beyond all of this conjecture and personal hearsay. It may hurt, but it's on our side. The truth is I wasn't actually 'all that' before. I did have strengths then I don't see right now, but I also have strengths now I didn't then. I understand things now that weren't even on my mind then. I know my friends are right; I did grow. I let go of some of the things I was holding so tightly and that meant I wasn’t as stable, but I was back on the right track to wholeness, or something like that. Sometimes it just goes like that, progress needing to look like a step backwards. I may have thought I was on the right track, but I was also a perfectionist, and I didn't let myself feel the things I needed to feel to be whole. I thought I was someone I wasn't, and I actually thought I was supposed to be more that way. Fortunately for me it didn't -- couldn't -- last.

Cause the truth is you're gonna feel like you're lost more often than not. You're often not gonna feel like yourself. But there's billions of people out there who don't know either. We're all looking for ourselves, and for our way back home to a place we don't remember. In the long run, in actuality, it's not gonna matter that some days I didn't have it in me to write and I watched TV or played Xbox. In the end, whether or not destiny is real, I'll get where I'm going, and I have it in me to be happy there. The hardest truth for people like me to live by is if I wear myself down to the bone on the way there, what's the point of getting where I think I want to go? If I break myself on the road to being whole, is it really worth the effort? Can I ever get there with a limp? Sometimes in life we need to slow down and do nothing, or we won't be able or ready when we need to be. If all we do is work, all of our work will suffer. If we want to do our best, we need to learn the value of rest, and peace. Some days we just won't have it in us. That's okay. That's inevitable. If we can accept it, we'll be okay. I don’t think I’ll get there, but I know where I’m going.