untitled

It's 03.40. I've been lying wide awake in my bed for the last hour, contemplating my life and wondering where it all went so wrong. I promise I tried to be careful; I did what I thought I should've done and what was expected of me. The epitome of righteousness and maturity. I was adamant on constantly doing right by myself and the people in my life.

Then, how the hell did I go oh so wrong?

This is nothing new. I've felt this way for the last 5 years or so now, and I suspect I'll feel this way for 50 more. There has existed an insatiable need to feel fulfilled for as long as I have lived, and this void seems to grow bigger and deeper as more time passes. Every once so often, I thought I was close to saying goodbye to it, to finally having this need met and my thirst quenched. Now I know that that feeling has always been nothing but an illusion. Breadcrumbs, just enough hope to keep me going like a hamster on a wheel.

Ironically, however, I've become more closed off than I used to be. I seek deep emotional bonds with the people that I love, yet every time someone gets close, I shut down. For someone who is so openly vulnerable about the thoughts in her head on paper, I seem to struggle with being vulnerable when it matters the most.

Which leads me to wonder, am I truly being vulnerable, or creating an illusion of vulnerability where I "talk" about my feelings, yet you don't actually know or understand me? It would make sense. I mean, just look at this post. It is incoherent and disjointed, yet you feel so close to me and like you understand exactly what I'm feeling. Yet, if I posed the question and asked you to explain to me what I mean, you'd struggle.

Perhaps then the fault lies within me.

-

In 6 hours' time, I will have to be at work, interacting with people and making conversation like everything in my life is all sunshine and rainbows. And people will meet me, and enjoy talking to me, because that's who I am - I draw people in and make them feel like I've known them forever.

I can't remember who I mentioned this to, but I once said that I'm very good at forming an initial connection with people that I meet, but then when it comes to sustaining that bond, I'm very quick to lose. I'll explain why it happens. When people meet me in the beginning, I come across as an eccentric, quirky 21 year old with a zest for life and adventure. There's an air of excitement and thrill, because you never know what the next thing coming out of my mouth is going to be. I can either mention my childhood trauma, or that time I ate some really good doughnuts. I'm unpredictable, just enough to keep things spicy and interesting, because my life is dramatic and I know how to do my stories justice.

And then you get to know me a little more. As the days pass, you see through this facade that masks my emotional restlessness and inner turmoil. And you realise that I put up a front to draw you in, because I wanted to keep you around but knew that you would leave if you saw the rough edges and monster claws. The unpredictability that once excited you suddenly becomes a source of anxiety. The spirit for adventure that once inspired you becomes a constant state of exhaustion. The dramatic stories that you looked forward to listening to becomes, "Oh my god, does she ever shut up?"

And then you arrive at an emotional crossroad. Do I stay, because I am attached to her and under the surface she seems like a good person and worth knowing? Or do I leave, because she's a sinking ship and will pull me underwater with her? She seems to be a lost cause, yet I am drawn like a moth to a flame, and I don't know what to do.

I am here to tell you what you should do. You should leave.

Once the initial novelty has worn off, there's not much to me except for my anxieties and constant internal conflict. There are voices in my head that will never let me live in peace, but you shouldn't have to stick around to find out what happens next. The onus to save me should not fall on you. I am not your responsibility. You should always come first. You might think to yourself, "Oh, she will get better the more she learns to trust me," but the truth is that I will not. This has been a recurring theme in my life for as long as I can remember, and it will remain this way as far as I can see.

There are 2 ways this can go, then. You either choose to leave, which I would always advise, or you can stay and fight a losing battle in vain. I end up pitying the people who choose the latter version, and then do just enough to make them feel like they know me, that I'm letting them see me. I will tell you about the happenings in my life, and narrate these stories in such a way that you will feel I am allowing you to truly see me, but these are such surface level matters that I am never emotionally exposed to attacks and therefore not afraid of telling you anything. Even strangers know about these experiences. I'd be doing you a disservice if I didn't tell you at least a little more than that, considering that you tried to stick your neck out and stay.

I will give you what you seek - a sense of trust, connection, and belonging in my life. I will be able to fulfil this need and provide the emotional closeness that you demand from me, yet none of it will ever be real. Nothing with me is ever real, even though I try very hard for the alternative. I am a fraud, an imposter, and will always be this way despite my best attempts to not be.

-

I don't know when things changed, to be honest. I promise I was never like this. I spend most of my time sitting in silence, and the people that love me almost fear me because they never know how I might react to their questions. They know better than to push me to elaborate on my emotions, so they let me be. I live in my head a lot, and only speak when I am trying to alleviate others' concerns. I don't know how to talk to others without fearing for my emotional health, so I don't say anything at all. It makes for a lonely existence, but I am an economist, and if the overall utility in the world increases because I decided to be this way, so be it.

I think somewhere along the way, the constant blows from loving and trusting the wrong people (and I don't mean romantic partners only) ended up taking its toll on me. The constant nagging, expectations to be a certain way, and demanding more and only taking from me without ever giving me anything back has left my soul closing itself off indefinitely. It has resigned to the belief that there is no point in hoping for better things in this existence, and that everything and everyone will always be just like the ones before them. All my experiences are the same, with a few tweaks here and there to give it a fresh look. The only thing that changes is the intensity of the pain that I feel. Everything else is constant.

I'd like to say that I still have hope, but it would be so naïve of me to hold on to that. I've accepted that love, peace and fulfilment are pointless things for me to strive for. They have never existed in my life, and never will, either. And that's okay. Some people aren't meant to have these things in their life. I just happened to be one of those people. But if you do, and I really do hope you do, dear reader, please cherish them and hold on to them very tightly, because things can change in a blink of an eye.

I wouldn't wish this sorry existence on another person.

-

This is perhaps one of the better pieces of writings I've produced recently, yet the theme of hopelessness and self-defeat carries itself heavily in it, making itself known in every word.

I don't have hope - I've already established how naïve it would be of me to - yet part of me wants to believe that perhaps somewhere on this journey I'll meet a person, or a group of people, who will make me feel excited to be alive again. For ages, writers have written about this kind of love that promises to be so strong that it will glue together every fragment of you so that you can never be broken again. Much has been said about this surreal feeling, this magic that seems to exist and waits to be found by the ones most deserving of it. I cannot wrap my head around the concept of it; it keeps eluding me, maybe because I believe that I am not deserving enough of it.

All I truly need, however, is for just one person to love me as though the sun would stop shining if I didn't exist. To take every part of me that I hate and explain to me why those are exactly the parts of me that I should love the most. I don't mean to be crass, but gold doesn't come out of my arse when I poop, yet I wish that I would cross paths with someone that would act like it does.

I yearn for it, yet I wholeheartedly believe that I will never find it. What a cruel, cruel act of God.