one thing that I have struggled with for a long time, and that I still struggle with, is feelings of intense guilt about being happy. I think a part of it's the trauma, my brain being used to suffering, and so when good things happen, it's new and different and scary.
but more than that, when things work out, when I work really fucking hard and my efforts bear fruit, when it starts to look to the outside world like I'm something smart and successful, when I get lucky, when the things I'm hoping for in my personal life start to look like they might actually happen, my knee-jerk reaction is just. guilt. a lot of guilt. I feel like I don't deserve it, like I should be suffering instead, like I ought to torpedo it all and run away to a crummy little life that will hurt so good, and live on ramen and a mattress on the floor, and ask for nothing, and take up no space, and become invisible. like, if there are so many people out there suffering, and I'm not, that's an outrage and a grave insult against them, like if I had any spine at all I would throw my life away in service to the most vulnerable, drain my meager bank account, walk down to the nearest ICE detention facility and throw myself in front of a gun.
now, this is. not a productive line of thought. not the least because I am disabled, and actively incapable of doing most of that stuff, period, safely or not. I can't even eat ramen anymore.
I remember feeling this way since I was pretty young. I know I committed the feeling to paper in a really terrible poem around fifteen or sixteen, and I think probably it was a long time growing. but I remember how wretched I felt then, how burned-out, how hopeless. how I wished for a dragon to fight, how I wanted to fix the whole world by myself, like wart, how I thought about being a nun, how I gave to every fundraiser that crossed my dash without checking to see if it was legit or whether I could afford it or not, how I looked at my future and hoped to be of service, to eat ramen every day, and nothing more. how I believed, deeply and truly believed that god was telling me to live a poor and simple life, that suffering would purify me, that my pain (depression, dysphoria, PTSD) was not worth getting help for, because help was something that I was supposed to give to other people, not something that was given to me. I was good in school, a "gifted child." I was white and able-bodied and from the suburbs. I was supposed to save the world.
recently, my wife told me that something she admires about me is that I'm ambitious. "really? ambitious?" I asked her. yeah, she said, you have your writing, you have a master's degree and dreams.
recently, I got married. I adopted a second cat, and I got a new job that will give me more time to go to my doctor's appointments and maybe even work on my writing. a new apartment in a safer city. such a bare minimum standard of care. it feels like a dangerous luxury, too good for me, too good to be true. I still feel like, if I had any fucking backbone, I'd be out on the front lines somewhere, living in poverty and simplicity, suffering for my neighbor, shaking the world til its fucking teeth rattled and demanding that it change for me.
but I can't. nobody can live like that, or if they do it's not productive and it's not for long. I know that pain changes you, it makes you tired and weaker and bitter and hurt. I know that the work takes everybody. I know that pouring from an empty cup isn't just stupid, it doesn't work—
but still, I see my half-full cup of water sitting there, meager inches in the bottom of it. and I hurt.
