Espérer

To hope.

My heart lies heavily in my chest this evening.  I have been trying to let go of all the things I wrote about last night.  I had classes today, which was a welcome distraction, but I am feeling a little under the weather.  I took some hair clients when I got home, and after chatting all afternoon, I'm experiencing some mild laryngitis.  For a singer, this is devastating.  All I do almost every day is sing.  At school, at rehearsal, even at work or at home... always singing.  I have to take a singing test tomorrow and I am not sure it is going to happen.

I also got some pretty heavy news regarding a family member.  He is very sick and I'm not really sure what's going to happen.  He will be receiving treatments, but he will have to drastically change his lifestyle, and this will certainly cost him his job.  I'm less worried about how this is going to affect me, and more concerned about how it will affect other members of my family.  I just don't know how to properly cope with something like this.  I'm tired of losing grandparents.  I don't have that many left... so all I have is hope.

Life is overwhelming.

To hope.

Too Long Has Passed, Too Little Has Changed.

Greetings, friends.  It has been entirely too long.  I feel as though I have lived a whole lifetime since my last post, but there are reasons for my absence.  The greatest if these reasons is that for nearly two years, I have been living unmedicated for my conditions.  The world has been a swirling mass of confusion and reckless emotion.  It takes everything I have every single day to process, compartmentalize, and decompress.  I hardly have a moments' peace to try to put words to all those feelings.  It's hard enough to chew up the emotion and anxiety and swallow it without having to try to explain it to the world.

For the most part, I do quite well.  It's like riding a bike- your legs are shaky at first, but eventually it all comes back to you.  The coping mechanisms, finding someone to confide in who can help you navigate when to walk away and deal... finding like-minded people who aren't annoyed when you have to bail because you can't bring yourself to leave the goddamn house.  You know, because sometimes you just can't leave the house.  Sometimes, a sunny blue sky feels like it adds 15 pounds to each shoulder.  You can't even find joy in the rain.

In the almost two years since I last posted here, good things have happened to me.  I feel like I owe it to my two readers to admit that.  I have had moments of excitement and joy.  Outweighing those moments, however, has been wave after wave of frustration, pain, malcontent, paralyzing anxiety, and hollow, dark depression.  I owe it to you to admit that, as well. There have been times where I could barely lift my head.  It felt too heavy, and the things I was seeing were too much to bear.  If I kept my head buried in the sand, it was just easier.  Or, i thought it was...

It wasn't.  Hiding is never an appropriate or effective coping mechanism.  I have to keep telling myself this, because lately hiding has been my go-to.  I distract myself with projects, school, trying to help friends that seem like they might need me...

I am desperate for that kind of love in my life where I feel secure... where I can just be open and free and honest with all these insane things that make up so much of me... but lie hidden from the world, minute by minute.  I feel most people don't have the time to love me like that... it's time-consuming and emotionally draining to make yourself so spiritually available to someone who needs so much.  And whenever someone comes forward with statements like this, they often get inundated with messages of "why don't you call/text/message/carrier pigeon me?  I'm always here for you!"... before that happens, I beg you to please consider all of the responsibility that comes with that.  You will hear sad stories that make you worry, that make you wonder if you shouldn't have me thrown in a facility somewhere... it's hard to mentally equip oneself for the kind of burden I am.

I have been trying desperately to open up to people, but I often get the vibe that I'm over-sharing or making people uncomfortable with my awkward approach.  Or I find someone I even more desperately want to connect with, so as to have a kindred spirit in this world, but I hold back because I am not good enough, cool enough, I'm too damaged for their life.

The damage in my subconscious has already been done, and the fire feels like it's a slow spread, like magma rivers... burning its way down the hillside to infiltrate and destroy everything that's good, green, safe.

Do not feel pity for me, because this is just the way I was put together.  Do feel hope for me that I can get my head above the water.  I suppress so much that my dreams are exhaustingly vivid and distracting, but I got all my medications renewed today.  That's why I'm back here... to start the journey fresh and see if my once-revered meds can get me back to healthy, or to see if this is just my burden to bear in life.  It will be an interesting journey... please join me, if you'd like.  A little support goes a long long way with me.