9:35 p.m. - 09/03/02
(-somebody: leave the :light: on-)
And it felt just like a winter machine/ that you go through and then/ you catch your breath and winter starts again/ and everyone else is springbound... -dar
*
Friday, I guess- though it seems like sometime last century- before I'd told him what was going on, Dr. R guessed that maybe I'd been struggling with the future. Either he planted the idea in my head, or he's prophetic because I've nearly gone out of my skin over it, today. The lack of shame I swore separated me from last January is fighting to regain power. Can I be peaceful and hate myself at the same time? No, I didn't think so either.
I remember how it feels. I've had it for long enough periods now that I truly can still feel it in my skin, the way the air moves around me when I feel like I am, at my essence, worth something. When I feel like I am good and good enough all at the same time. I know how this is, I know how much better it is, I know that *nothing about me changes* in order to make the feeling possible. Nothing is improved, nothing's fixed, no tweaking is necessary. My perspective changes, my sense of calm, my ability to trust that who and where I am in this moment are ok, improves. Nothing about who I am must be altered for me to like that person.
I know all this, but I also know how much of my life I've spent hating and hiding myself. I know how deeply and how violently the pain has run, how guilty it has made me, how desperate and how crazed. I know the things I've done to myself, and the things I've thought of doing. And I know they say that shame is just a feeling, that my feeling this does not make it true, but it's hard to hold that as truth when you want to trust yourself, and all your thoughts are clouded with "I'll never be enough."
I just want to be good. That's really the core of everything. I'm scared. I'm scared to submit college applications and maybe not get in. To get in and maybe not find the means to go. To go and maybe not pass the classes. To pass but not in a way that shows I'm brilliant. To be brilliant but not in a way that helps the world. To help the world, but not know I've done so. To know that I've done so, but still not love myself. I'm scared I'll have nothing because I deserve nothing, and I'm scared I'll have everything but never know how worthy of that I am.
It's hard to keep pushing through that fear, to keep pushing through the absolute terror that I will fail, that I will disappoint, when I'm not even sure the life I want is on the other side. If I *did* get accepted to Hampshire, if I *did* go there and learn a million things and move forward in my life, what would I *do?* What could I possibly make of myself? I don't want to have to make something of myself. The thought of it terrifies me until all I want to do is hide. To cease existing- only I can't say that out loud, or they look almost as afraid as I feel.
I'm so busy being scared I'll never have a life, I don't realize the one I do. But not all of that is due to my anxiety; after all, the life I have *is* minimal. I don't have friends to cuddle, people to interact with, a world to explore. I have a house I can only leave for the outdoors, two parents, one teacher, and a therapist. I have the Internet, schoolwork, and therapy. I have memories, the pain they bring, and the little hopes that sting and burn. The little hopes I cannot organize. Untidy wishes.
I want to walk into a room and be smiled at. I want someone to say, "We've looked over who you are and decided if all you do forever and ever is breathe, you will still be a blessing in our world." I want to be taken into a family, held, touched, and introduced. I want to say things that make people think, and smile mysteriously, make people laugh and take me aside in hallways to whisper thank yous. I want to be a quiet superhero, and a victim, too. I want to be strong but still deserving of being held, of being treated like a girl in need. I want to never have another thing expected of me and do more than they could dare expect. I want to have all the pressure, the subtle and the blatant comparing, judging, summing up go away, and just leave me to be who I am when I am free to keep from hating that person. I want enough people close in my life so that I don't have to be afraid I'll always be alone, so I can be myself and not feel scared of her. So I can see how beautiful things are and say, "See, I am enough; look how good things are" instead of "really it will be ok." I want to be able to love myself when I'm alone in a room, but I don't want to always be alone. I'm tired of that. I want love and a family and no expectations whatsoever. I want to evolve and let that influence others for their good, and I want to let that be enough. I don't ever want to be scared of tomorrow again. When I think, "just stay in this moment; can you handle this moment?" I want to say yes, I can. I can. I don't want to say, "but I'm scared of this moment, too." Am I scared of sitting on my bed, crying, the way I did this afternoon? No, I'm scared of all the pain behind the tears. I stay outside the moment. I stay in the future and the past and the extended present. The present as it adds up with the weight of memories and still-to-comes.
I will never give up my past. And I will never say that I want anything else than what I feel I want. I will never say that I love them any less than I do, or that I want to be there any less than the way that is so painful. I will never say that they were good then but would not be now. I want them in my future, and I want something like "there" in my future, if there is an impossibility. I want this, and I won't say otherwise. I don't want to be told that I need to quit focusing on them and move into my future. If I weren't so scared that I would never find them again, this wouldn't be as painful as it is. Stop trying to rush me through the pain to a future that is inflicting it. Stop trying to shower me with understanding you don't have. When you know me, we'll be in other lives. I won't have reason to be angry then. I'll be blessed by all the work I've done.*
I want to be blessed in this life, too. And I know I have been, that I am. But with everyone hours away; with everyone caught in last month and last year and maybe someday far from now, I start to get scared. I'm scared that the things I want are not things I'm allowed to have and that the things I want are not possible in a life with so many rules as this has. I'm scared I'll be forced into a path as not me as the one they offer. And I'm scared that even if I survive what they want from me, I will never get what I want for myself.
I want to go home and find my family there. I want everything to be ok because that one thing is. I had it once; I know it's what I need. I believe it when I have it; bring it back.
chord
*reading over, this paragraph's a bit harsh. know that the world it's directed at, more than likely, does not include you...
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