Why Am I Not Happy?

It's been 6 months since your life fell apart,

A steady decline over years until it reached the pitch of your soul.

You thought you'd hit rock bottom, it hurt too much,

But pain can manifest itself in other ways, as you would soon find out.

-=-

It's been 12 months of patching your life back together,

Picking up the fractured pieces to attain what once was.

You've re-established old connections and started seeing friends again.

But it isn't the same: you're guarded, wound up, mistrusting.

You don't feel the same, you barely feel at all.

It makes it hard to reconnect, harder to explain

All of the thoughts racing through your brain.

About how you feel, how you don't feel, the struggles, the anxieties, the judgement, the guilt, the pain.

-=-

It's been another 12 months, things don't seem so bad.

You've been seeing friends, reading, cooking, trying to learn new things.

And at times it really works; you've removed that crushing sadness,

The overwhelming numbness, the futile rage, the desperate wallowing and myopia.

It's gotten so good, you've started playing in a band again.

Rediscovering passions, what makes life worth living, what makes your life worth living.

-=-

So why aren't you better?

Why do you mercilessly berate yourself every time you add too much pepper to your dinner?

Why do you punch the wall every time you play one wrong note in the new song you learned 20 minutes ago?

Why can't you pick up the book you were reading yesterday because you didn't finish an entire novel in one sitting?

Why can't you take that job you've never done but always wanted to try because you're too afraid of making mistakes?

Why can't you see your friends without constantly worrying about what to say to them or rebuking yourself for something you did say?

Why aren't you better?

-=-

You should be, you say to yourself.

It's been years since "rock bottom".

You've had the time to get better, you are doing all these things that you wouldn't be doing at the time,

So, you must be better!

It's illogical and weak of you to be feeling the way you are in light of how far you've come.

Tough it out; be better.

-=-

But you realise why.

You didn't "heal" properly, that time spent patching yourself back together was exactly that - patchwork.

Shoddy at best, covering up the ugliest, most damaged part of yourself as best you could in order to claim your life back in some way.

But sometimes it leaks through, a tear in your amateur craftsmanship,

And with it, all the memories come flooding back, each one a visceral blow,

Unveiling the parts of you better left unseen.

And every time, it hurts.

-=-

But the most painful part of all,

Is that you weren't as far along as you thought.