I didn't ask for this
but, i'm the one who has to accept it? What a drag.
I am an ugly crier – this I know about myself. At least I’m honest, you know? Some girls can be pretty within their sadness, a la the Lisbon sisters in Sofia Coppola’s “The Virgin Suicides”, turning depression into fashion statement. But not me, I am no Kirsten Dunst. On the contrary, if we’re making celebrity references here- my eyes swell up like Selena Gomez’s the day after Justin Bieber announced his engagement to Hailey. Think bee sting allergy.
No one goes to Sephora and asks for bee sting allergy.
To my chagrin, I have never been able to hide a single emotion I have ever felt. Me and ‘mysterious’ have never appeared in the same room together; we do not run in the same circle. If there is something wrong, you know it. I have never come into close contact with an emotion without inviting everyone around to gather and feel it with me. To worship at the altar of my collapse, always hoping that maybe it would be easier if we felt it together.
Group therapy, group demise.
Like right now.
I invited you, didn’t I?
Somewhere I still harbor the hope that my breakdowns will lead to breakthroughs, allowing me to stand up afterwards, wipe my hands clean and say “Phew! That’s better”. Refreshed by the emotional outpouring, freeing me to move on with the rest of my day. Finally ridding myself of my karmic blockade. A bit of light, spiritual house cleaning, you know? But that’s not what happens.
I am not a maid of my own trauma.
My heart is in the right place, usually on the floor with the rest of me. But when it starts to build up… when the levy is about to break, I can’t help but let it. I cry often, and I cry heartily - like a newborn baby gasping for breath, angry and confused as to why he’s been displaced from the comfort of his home. He never asked for this.
Likewise, these moments are displacing me from my comfort and rebirthing me into displeasure. Gasping for breath, angry and confused. I never asked for this.
Yet, now we are both being forced to cry ourselves to sleep under the guise of ‘self soothing’? What a drag.
Wait, where was I?
Oh, Yeah. My hysterics are like expensive Christmas presents that I can’t afford, forcing me to put them on layaway until I am free to feel them to the depths of their extreme. My emotions are Jack Nicholson in the shining, axing into the bathroom door. Which makes me Shelley Duvall, hiding from his ever-ensuing break through.
Impossible to hide for long, and on very, very short layaway.
Again, I never asked for this. Shelley, never asked for this.
Naturally, this has me feeling some sense of frustration towards people who seem to have it effortlessly together. You know the type, people who can’t remember the last time they cried, and seem to be unbothered by the same situations that tear you apart. When do they collapse into themselves? Can I watch?
Of course it’s not healthy, but it would be nice to have the option to stuff it all down. Why can’t I be like Shiv Roy (HBO’s Succession. Are you not watching Succession?) , scheduling her grief into open time slots between board meetings. Grief is supposed to have these stages, but mine is free roaming, it does whatever it pleases. Should I be tracking it, like my period? One can assume that my grief can’t even read a clock, because it never shows up on time. Despite that, I remain very punctual. Waiting and wondering when we will fully turn the corner into the final stage deemed ‘acceptance’.
Can that be scheduled, too?
Just incase, remember - 5 minutes early is ‘on time’, and ‘on time’ is late.
Compared to others, it seems as if I am cursed with the inability to deny my own humanness, my very sentience. Maybe it hasn’t always been this way, but it certainly is now. Somewhere around the time I began embracing who I am instead of trying to force myself into a mold that didn’t fit, there was a concession. Something had to give (I was ‘something’). Now it is an act of compassion to fully give way to my emotions. Maybe this sounds contradictory, because I’ve been expressing a desire to change whilst then claiming acceptance - but that’s how it feels.
A push and pull. Maybe you should try it sometime, I promise to gather and feel it with you. To worship at the altar of your collapse.
Don’t get me wrong, accepting my capacity for feeling doesn’t change the fact that I still wish some things were different. I wish my hair always fell right, my skin was perfectly clear, my teeth weren’t crooked. I wish my family was normal, that I wouldn’t have to miss people who walked away, and that I didn’t find myself white-knuckle gripping my steering wheel and screaming as loud as I can in grocery store parking lots.
But hey, let’s be realistic.
How much can you really expect from someone who didn’t ask for any of this?
Exactly. and I accept that.
Enhance your reading experience with today’s Blog pairing menu:
Bit watch: HBO’s Succession
Catchy tune: Cry by Carly Rae Jepsen