I started writing thoughts. To get them out of my head. I'm looking for reassurance and validation. Connection. But does anyone care to read my words and thoughts? I feel like I clutter up the space in the lives of my friends. Befriending another's existence. Finding value and worth in their intrinsic essence, in absence of things they do, but just how they be or are. How does one measure that? Is there a barometer? Is it just biochemistry? In my usual self enquiry mode. In making sense of the self, perhaps it will make sense of the world. I ask friends questions in order to get a sense of my own self, as I haven't particularly had a good grasp of that for a while. Perhaps their perception of my intrinsic essence will help construct a sense of self. I'm probably full of shit and patting me on the head and telling me "just because" will suffice. At the very least it's a familiar theme of my experience. I'm probably not making any sense. It's why I write things down and read them back to myself. I'm not entirely sure why I bother with all this stuff in my head. Incessantly asking questions. The universe or anyone or myself not particularly providing any answers, just more questions. Maybe it makes it all more confusing. I wrote some ponderings down recently with no particular intention other than to get thoughts out of my head. Just like these thoughts. I haven't been doing so well. I wrote things. And then somehow it became words for a significant friend in my life. I'm hesitant to share them with my friend and cautious to share here on my blog. I suspect that some of it may be confusing and worrying. And I don't want to worry anyone. But I likely already do. So perhaps, by just leaving the words here, they'll find a comfortable space out of my head and I can fill their absence with peace.
The following is what I wrote...
I feel like my mind shattered and now medication is trying to stick it back together, but all the pieces are wrong and they're all being pushed together on top of the exploded mind mush leftover from the breakdown. Mostly I have been coping, functional. Well aware of the shittiest aspects of life, but trying to make the best of it. But occasionally, like now, the messy mind mush leaks all over the pieces that I've tried so hard to keep together and keep clear. To stay sane, to not go crazy. I went shopping the other day and I felt like I was walking in a dream, an unreality soup, I was there but wasn't there. Everyone seems to be looking forward to what the new year will bring, I'm lost and feel hopeless and helpless. People say they care, but they don't really, not enough to see. Not enough to step into others discomfort and out of their own. We're all slaves to our own discomfort I suppose. But I guess we're slaves to our desires too. Though I don't know much of anything anymore. I know I'm not well. I wonder if I ever was well. I know that when I fall apart, my guy will pick me up. He makes me feel safe. Even if I feel lonely and disconnected from him most of the time in between, staying safe is important. Who will do that when he's not here anymore? One day he won't be here and I don't feel strong enough. Staying safe will be more important then. I'm not scared of being alone. I'm scared of not having a safe place. It's hard to catch yourself when you're falling. I'm not done yet. I can't be done yet. But here I am feeling like it will get me. Last time it was acute, there was a sense of urgency about staying safe. I had enough self preservation and insight to know I wasn't thinking right. This time it is a slow burn. I thought I was getting better. I was supposed to get better. Maybe I've just been masking and distracting. I don't want to die. I don't want to live like this either. People say, " it will get better". It doesn't. You just get older. Sad, lonely, cynical, angry... I've isolated from my friends. I want them to care. I know they care. But I don't want them to see me in this place. Maybe it's contagious. It's too much to expect friends to hold all the space for this. I realise how contradictory my thinking is. It's confusing for me. I always have my feet in two different worlds, I hate myself for that. I worry about the children. They see me like this. Mostly I just try to keep doing all the things I usually do, so they don't notice. Sometimes I cry a lot. They notice that. Sometimes I get anxious and can't breath. They notice that. Even when I think I'm shielding them, I can't. I don't want them to ever feel unsafe. And I'm the safest thing they have, why would I take that away? I'm tired and can't sleep. I'm lonely and never alone. I'm invisible yet never truly seen. I have love from a lot people, but no love from myself. I see my therapist monthly, my psychiatrist three monthly. I'm a good patient. I took the new medication and it helped, a little. So here I am in suspended animation and I can't get over myself to save myself. I write a blog, no one reads. I write poetry that's nonsense. I think of stories I'll never write. Paintings I'll never paint. Places I'll never see. People I've loved. People I'll miss. I don't see enough sunsets or sunrises or swim in the ocean or look at the stars and moon. That's the magic I will miss. I will miss you. My friend that does kind things and fixes things and puts up shelves and massages feet and washes them in ridiculously hot water. My friend that glues glasses back together and fries onions for no particular reason and paints stars on the ceiling, maybe to remind himself that nature has a patterned order even if human minds do not. My friend that is charming and blunt in a kind way. Who is sad sometimes and tries to make people happy. Who cuts me celery and called me Persephone once, which is quite apt really. Queen of the underworld, bringer of death and destruction. My friend who brings me homework on Christmas evening and it was the sweetest gift ever. I wanted to kiss his stupid face, but that would have been weird. His face isn't stupid. I'm stupid. The friend that I seen from across an intersection just before we met, something inside me recognised him and left my body and anchored to him. It was the weirdest thing that ever happened to me, maybe I made it all up. Serendipity made him walk across a room only minutes later and introduce himself. And I've loved him ever since. My friend that feels like home, when I don't think I have one anymore. People like that make you stay. One of my reasons to stay alive. I have many reasons to stay and one reason to go. Me. This sounds like a suicide note, a love letter and a goodbye. Maybe it is all those things and none of those things. Love letters to friends really should be a thing. I've wasted a lot of words from my heart to people who never deserved it. At any rate, all these words are probably just my mind spewing the mush out so I can try to put some of the pieces back together. Maybe I can just make new pieces. Maybe the new year will help me make some new pieces. I don't really know anymore. In 20 months I will be 42. Maybe that will be the answer to everything. Maybe I forgot my towel. I don't want a saviour. Nor do I want something or someone to take the pain and suffering away or fill the void. I know it doesn't work. It won't work. I could end all my pain and suffering anytime I want, but I would give it to others when I'm gone. Love keeps me here. There's this quote I came across about love being like your north star, it's the only thing in the world that's constant. When everything is changing. Though death and taxes are consistently constant too. Yet so are the stars and moon. And the sun still has 7-8 billion years left, that's a lot more sunrises and sunsets. Trying to look on the bright side and nothing is brighter than the sun. I'm sure there probably are brighter things. Our point of reference for brightness as humans is the sun, so I stand by it. Until you Google it and tell me otherwise. Anyway.
I think my compass to find my north star is broken. A sailor stuck on a ship of fools in depths of despair with a broken compass and the kraken is about to eat me. A voyage of life, forever asking why and why not. I realise why you gave me all those writing lessons now. I'm a terrible writer. That's why no one reads my blog. That and the fact that I'm mentally ill and it is self indulgent bullshit. Just like this nonsense. I don't care. It makes me feel better. But it doesn't matter anyway. Who knows if it will get better or worse or stay the same? It will probably just get different while I get old. Filling the gaps and space between the bad times. Distracting myself. Eating chocolate. Making the best of it while being well aware the worst of it is all in my head. Maybe I'll get dementia and forget that I've ever been depressed and sad and lonely. I will forget that my mind broke and I went crazy. It will be a different broken then and I won't notice. Eventually. I don't know why I started writing this ramble. I don't know why it ended up being for you. Maybe I will send it, perhaps not. Either way, it made me feel better and I know that's worth something. There's a lot of value in feeling better when all you feel is sad and empty. It's important that I write things like this down. And maybe it doesn't matter if anyone reads it. It still matters to string words together. Otherwise they sit in your head and clutter the place about, and it's already pretty messed up in there. We all end up as words in someone else's story, when our own reaches its last page.
I love you
Maybe one day my friend will find the words I left here. Perhaps not. But they've taken a leap of faith, out of my head and into the ether of the internet. Who knows what life they will lead. Maybe they will come back and tell me a story about who I am.
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