You've Got To Be 8

just a thought?

So I buckle down and I keep kicking. I’ve had waves go over my head, my chest feels tight, my legs are burning, and I really really just need a pool floaty for a few minutes, just so I can catch my breath. But now people have seen me do this for so long, that they don’t even seem surprised anymore. If anything, they see me as this champion swimmer, someone who surely can battle any wave. And when they tell me this, I feel a strange sort of pride. Pride in the pain, in the struggle, in the lack of a break. But I also have this creeping exhaustion, and I wonder how much longer I can keep being this star. And if I stop, how will it make me feel to no longer be the one out there battling through tough times? Will I be relieved? Or will I feel like I’ve given up?

All this time there’s grabbing hands under the waves, sometimes just lightly brushing legs, sometimes grabbing ankles and tugging. And we all talk about it, a little bit, but it’s mostly joking. When we’ve faced stronger grips, been pulled under even, it’s not out loud that we confess. It’s in whispers to one another, clinging tearfully in fear of other hands. Or, for some of us, pretending it never happened, telling no one. Because, in the end, telling isn’t going to make it not have happened. And trying to tell people often ends with dismissal (”Oh, come one, that wasn’t a real tug, just a brief grip! Surely it wasn’t that bad”), accusation (”You’re the one who was swimming alone in the first place, you should’ve known better!”), or empty sympathy (”That sucks man, sorry to hear you got tugged down! Man, those hands suck don’t they?”).

It’d be a lot easier to swim if it felt like there was a sandbar nearby to catch my breath on. And it’d be a lot easier to brave company if I didn’t have the memories of those hands around my ankles, dragging me down without a sound because I let myself trust to isolation. It’s hard to trust others to help you swim when you’ve seen the face of the hands dragging you down, and it’s the face of the one who claimed to love you. And then the face of another who claimed to love you. And when you’ve been dragged down by several, and abandoned by others for your shaken trust, it seems pointless to keep trying to trust.

After all, I’ve made it this far swimming alone. It’s not often fun, and it’s kinda lonely, but it still beats being abandoned, beats being told that your depression makes a relationship unsustainable long-term. And it’s better than being degraded and abused for months in front of an entire house of people who claim to be your friends, without anyone stepping in to stop it.

I know this is really sappy and emo. I don’t think I care, not right now. Between school and work, I’ve been working at least 50 hours a week for 2 years, if not more. Even since graduation, that hasn’t stopped. In fact, I now work 55-60 hours a week between 2 jobs. I’m also solely in charge of unpacking & cleaning an entire house, coordinating all bills for two apartments, and dealing with very high-stress work drama involving harassment, a growing fear culture, and lack of support from management. I’ve been struggling with my own mental health for years, sometimes doing well, sometimes thinking I’ll need to check myself into an in-patient facility. I have trauma from 2 severely emotionally and mentally abusive relationships that I’ve never been able to work through either on my own or in therapy, as well as trauma from the assault(s?) that they inflicted on me. And on top of all that, I still have to deal with the daily tasks. Hygiene, eating, drinking water, waking up on time and not being late for work, paying all the bills on time, balancing money issues, being there for my friends who are also struggling with life, money, heartache, mental health, and abuse. Keeping in touch with my friends and my family, not letting these important relationships fall by the wayside even when I can barely breathe. It doesn’t look like a lot on paper, but when I have people ask me what my hobbies are, what I do in my free time, and I realize that I have nothing to give them other than “oh, I listen to music while I get stuff done!” I think maybe, just maybe, it’s more than it seems.

I’ve told people about the abuse, a little. For one of the relationships, the longest one, several of y’all even know the guy and saw (some) of it. But I’ve kept a lot to myself, and I’ve never really opened up about the worst parts. For example, did you know that the abuse got so bad with that longest relationship that I learned not to show my emotions? That I learned how to control my tears so well that I can’t even cry when I’m alone now? That’s ok, I don’t need to make other people live through it second-hand. But it gets a bit much in my head sometimes, and to be honest I’m not always doing great. I know I need therapy, but I also have a lot in the way of that. Cost is not bad, I do have health insurance. But I have no time. And, having been aggressively chased around campus by one therapist and having my long-term one not even notice the abuse I was going through... I don’t have a lot of faith or trust in therapists. I am going to try again, someday. Just... maybe not right now.

I feel lonely but no one can ever seem to address it. Their attentions are all wrong, too much attention or too little, too much joking or not enough, too affectionate or too distant. I feel picky but I can't seem to adjust. I'm too loud or I'm too quiet. I babble when I'm stressed and tired and lonely but it just makes people take a step back. So I hush myself but they never step forward again.

I flip-flop between extremes: loud, animated, effusive, and anxious; quiet, slow, withdrawn, and depressed; silent, calm, analytic, and uninterested; cheery, emotional, and engaged; wanting sex, afraid of it, wanting touch, hating it, unaffected by the world, overwhelmed by every bit of stimulation.

I just want to curl up in bed, feel arms around me and a soft kiss on my head and a truthful promise that I will never be alone, that I will never be too much and that I am loved regardless of my internal state and ability to react appropriately to events. A purpose and someone who calls for me to come home.

I think it's bull that we all have to fix our own 'problems', to become averagely perfect. There's some things that can't really be ‘fixed’, that are part of our own individual personalities and experiences. I have a hard time saying no directly; rather than expecting me to 'get good' at that, maybe learn to read my ambivalence for what it really is. I don't always like physical contact; rather than expecting me to tell you straight up, learn to ask before smothering, and learn to hear "i'm not in a cuddling mood" as "please stop touching me". I'm not good at communicating emotions and setting boundaries, but it shouldn't be entirely up to me in a relationship of any type. It's on me to try, but it's also on you to observe and not just assume. I’m not fucking perfect and I never will be.

Do you ever feel like something's missing? A lover, a sibling, a friend? Like if you just turn your head, in some other universe or timeline, they'd be there beside you? Like if you could just wake up, you could call out to them?

I had a dream this morning that my parents had separated and my mom was marrying someone else. I never felt so relieved to wake up and know that that was not reality. Sometimes I think that I could be dreaming still, that this deep-seated anxiety is simply my unconscious mind knowing that there really is something missing and if I could just wake up....

So I go about my day, I turn to look at the passenger's seat or I scroll through my contacts, I turn at night in my bed and stare at my pillow.

But no one is there.

I hold conversations in my head with imaginary characters, lovers and friends and family that live in other worlds and other realities that I daydream about waking up to. I spend hours and weeks and months playing and replaying scenarios that might happen, movie nights and dates and snowball fights, adventures and grief and comfort that I'll never quite experience.

Sometimes I'll dream about these things in my sleep, and it's always just a little sad to wake and know that that reality was not the one I'm actually in. I wander through my life waiting for the magic to pop out that will change my world into the one I see in my mind, a portal to take me away where I can feel happy and purposeful. I look at the door and wait for that person to walk in.