I Just Need Some Space.

ii. in the last month i have spent so much time up-and-down that my therapist is on a backlog - i run out of time to tell her things, so we’re a few weeks behind what is currently happening. she keeps threatening to spray me with a hose every time i start apologizing. sorry this is so much, i keep saying. i don’t want to burden her overly.

iii. when you are raised in a house where the peace is rare, you find peace to be stressful. i sense silence as a warning - it means something is coming, but i don’t know enough about it yet to actually get prepared. it’s easier once the storm hits; i know how to go heatless. i know how to shore up. i know how to breathe through it.

iv. at some point, the reality will hit, and i’ll no longer be able to compartmentalize any of this.

v. there is this term: resilience child. in the world of psychology, those are the kids that made-it-out. we bounce-back. we have this elastic quality where the time we spent under pressure has turned us beautiful, glittering. we are held up as wonderful examples of success. our grades, our laughter, all of it. we are in despite, always. there is a shape of a grave right behind us, in our shadow. it bends the light around us. we are always saying - well, it could have been…

vi. the breaking never happens where you expect it to happen. not the sick dog not the overdue rent not the flat tire. the breaking comes up slowly, when you are starting to relax. she puts her cold hands around your mouth and bites the lobe of your ear so tenderly. the thing about this isn’t that she surprises you - it’s that she’s gentle to you. and that being gentle is entirely alien to you.

vii. but yeah i mean, physically? i can squat 220 :) viii. oh, i will withstand this, because i am expected to withstand everything. there’s got to be more coming. there is always more coming. this morning i woke up and i thought - i am a beast of burden. i am boiling over on the stovetop. i am going to find-a-way, because i always do, because i have to, because if i don’t, the whole world slides away from me like soap. i will evaporate.