Starting is always the hardest part.
It took me twenty minutes alone just to type that sentence. After staring at the blinking cursor and trying to determine exactly what comprises that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that raw, slightly sweet, sickening feeling that sinks from my ribcage down and slowly rolls back and forth, threatening to burst out of my body in some form of tears or rage or a deep, sad sigh.
It is hard to express that feeling, though I know everyone has it at some point or another.
And it is my instinct to mend these uncomfortable moments with some other emotion or sensation.
Today I felt that horrible feeling sink into me in the middle of my work shift, following events I still don’t care to discuss, and quite frankly, it made me want to puke.
A year ago, perhaps I would have instantly flown into action to relieve that feeling. (What is it, even? It’s hard to treat if you can’t diagnose. I’d guess it’s a combination of disappointment, hurt, and fear.) I’d find a way to quickly self soothe, whether that’s to delude myself with some fantasy concocted to buffer the pain of reality, or to create a new situation in order to distract and distance from that feeling of dismay.
I still want to self soothe. It’s a terrible feeling, so mighty for me today that it drove me to the keyboard. The feeling makes me ache to write. To draw that feeling into something specific I can hold.
I despise feeling like I’m suddenly floating in a stretch of aloneness. That feeling immediately pulls me out of reality into an overwhelming sensation of doubt and discontentment. It stirs up an illness I didn’t know was there.
Lots of things can turn on this gross, nauseating pulse inside me. Finding out something you don’t want to know, for example. Bad news. Betrayal. Even just that feeling of dread that sometimes happens for no reason. And it’s a difficult feeling to feel. I try to put it into words, into something tangible, so I can turn the light on in the dark room of how I feel.
Feeling it is like holding a soapy dish, hot and uncomfortable, it threatens to slip from my hands. It hovers in my belly like a sick butterfly. I want to hold it like a ball of yarn and let it slowly unravel, releasing with it all the fuzzy thoughts I can’t quite materialize. How can you let go of something that you can’t hold? The feeling holds me, I am a prisoner to the whims of my mind, and it is this I am trying to change.
I want to flip the light on, banish the darkness in one fell swoop and take that first waking breath that assures you “It was just a dream.” Except it was not. It was real. What happened was real, and what I felt was real. But I can leave that feeling, or at least, I can try.
I just want to be loved. To be known. To live in a world without comparison. But that simply isn’t possible, because to live without comparison would be to live alone. I despise the fact that I am not just me, that I do not exist without the existence of others. How could I? To exist in a vacuum would not be life, if the main purpose of life is to create and perpetuate that life force.
I don’t want to be compared to her. To them. To all the other beings that I feel I compete with for love and companionship. To all the beings I want to love and do, or the ones I want to love but can’t - or even worse, the ones I don’t want to love but can’t help loving.
It sickens me that when I am alone, I am not fully me, because I am thinking of him. While he is away living his own life, I am also living his life. I live it inside my own life, so that my life doesn’t feel like it’s my own anymore.
I can never be fully alone, and that is what has struck me as I recently have tried. I, in my mind, exist alongside every person I’ve ever cared for. I hold onto them for far longer than I’d like to. Their words ring in my head, their touch lingers on my skin, the daydreams of what they are doing scatter through my mind as I try and focus on my life.
What is my life?
I have created a life in which I love other beings very deeply. A deep desire to connect with others has been a constant, permeating theme resounding through all my decisions. But what do you do when that all goes sideways? When you reach through the stretch of aloneness to grab onto someone else, and they aren’t there? Or, they can’t reach back. Maybe they don’t want to.
It took me twenty minutes alone just to type that sentence. After staring at the blinking cursor and trying to determine exactly what comprises that feeling in the pit of my stomach, that raw, slightly sweet, sickening feeling that sinks from my ribcage down and slowly rolls back and forth, threatening to burst out of my body in some form of tears or rage or a deep, sad sigh.
It is hard to express that feeling, though I know everyone has it at some point or another.
And it is my instinct to mend these uncomfortable moments with some other emotion or sensation.
Today I felt that horrible feeling sink into me in the middle of my work shift, following events I still don’t care to discuss, and quite frankly, it made me want to puke.
A year ago, perhaps I would have instantly flown into action to relieve that feeling. (What is it, even? It’s hard to treat if you can’t diagnose. I’d guess it’s a combination of disappointment, hurt, and fear.) I’d find a way to quickly self soothe, whether that’s to delude myself with some fantasy concocted to buffer the pain of reality, or to create a new situation in order to distract and distance from that feeling of dismay.
I still want to self soothe. It’s a terrible feeling, so mighty for me today that it drove me to the keyboard. The feeling makes me ache to write. To draw that feeling into something specific I can hold.
I despise feeling like I’m suddenly floating in a stretch of aloneness. That feeling immediately pulls me out of reality into an overwhelming sensation of doubt and discontentment. It stirs up an illness I didn’t know was there.
Lots of things can turn on this gross, nauseating pulse inside me. Finding out something you don’t want to know, for example. Bad news. Betrayal. Even just that feeling of dread that sometimes happens for no reason. And it’s a difficult feeling to feel. I try to put it into words, into something tangible, so I can turn the light on in the dark room of how I feel.
Feeling it is like holding a soapy dish, hot and uncomfortable, it threatens to slip from my hands. It hovers in my belly like a sick butterfly. I want to hold it like a ball of yarn and let it slowly unravel, releasing with it all the fuzzy thoughts I can’t quite materialize. How can you let go of something that you can’t hold? The feeling holds me, I am a prisoner to the whims of my mind, and it is this I am trying to change.
I want to flip the light on, banish the darkness in one fell swoop and take that first waking breath that assures you “It was just a dream.” Except it was not. It was real. What happened was real, and what I felt was real. But I can leave that feeling, or at least, I can try.
I just want to be loved. To be known. To live in a world without comparison. But that simply isn’t possible, because to live without comparison would be to live alone. I despise the fact that I am not just me, that I do not exist without the existence of others. How could I? To exist in a vacuum would not be life, if the main purpose of life is to create and perpetuate that life force.
I don’t want to be compared to her. To them. To all the other beings that I feel I compete with for love and companionship. To all the beings I want to love and do, or the ones I want to love but can’t - or even worse, the ones I don’t want to love but can’t help loving.
It sickens me that when I am alone, I am not fully me, because I am thinking of him. While he is away living his own life, I am also living his life. I live it inside my own life, so that my life doesn’t feel like it’s my own anymore.
I can never be fully alone, and that is what has struck me as I recently have tried. I, in my mind, exist alongside every person I’ve ever cared for. I hold onto them for far longer than I’d like to. Their words ring in my head, their touch lingers on my skin, the daydreams of what they are doing scatter through my mind as I try and focus on my life.
What is my life?
I have created a life in which I love other beings very deeply. A deep desire to connect with others has been a constant, permeating theme resounding through all my decisions. But what do you do when that all goes sideways? When you reach through the stretch of aloneness to grab onto someone else, and they aren’t there? Or, they can’t reach back. Maybe they don’t want to.
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