I stopped writing for a while. I stopped writing because I couldn't write anymore. I stopped writing because I've been lost and drowning. I stopped writing cause I couldn't remember how. I stopped writing cause I couldn't forget how to write but didn't know how to make my fingers type, how to make words flow, how to share myself with people anymore.
Lately, my life has felt like a horrible analogy. Like a small child that hid in a closet while playing hide and seek only to realize they were locked in and afraid of the dark. That sounds dreadful and morbid but that's the reality. I've spent so much time here in Illinois hiding from my friends and family back home while trying to act like I'm enjoying my life to the people that I spend my time around.
Here is the reality: I haven't been okay.
I haven't been alright. I have been drowning in my own thoughts, my own dreams. Watching as who I knew myself to be has slowly been stripped away from my bones and replaced with hollow emotionless acting of an idea of what I think should be. The reality is, I have drank more in the last 6 months than I think I did in the last two years. The reality is, there are less than 5 people here (that is a generous number) that I have allowed myself to be real with and when I am with them, or talking to them, I feel like I am spilling the small bits of sanity that I have all over the table in front of them. In those few moments with people who see me I splurge all the things I need to say and have needed to feel in the short time we are together.
I am alone.
I say that not to be woe-is-me or my-life-is-so-hard but let's be real: I have struggled with depression and anxiety for as long as I can remember, feeling hopeless is something I am used to when I am lost.
I read an article today on how to take care of someone that is depressed. I have never read truer words or recognized how much I used to have that in Portland and how little I have that now. It's hard to recognize that you are now alone in a world where you used to be surrounded by people that took care of you before you realized that you were in a scary dark place. I drink because it's easy to be happy when you do. It's easy to fake happy when you do. No one wants to know that when you get home you fight not to cry yourself to sleep. No one wants to hear that. People want to hear that things are great. They aren't.
Since moving to Illinois I started falling for someone. He's one of the few people I let see me. That's probably why it's felt like I am barely holding on to the edge of a cliff at the end of my sanity the last week. I'm not saying he was responsible for my sanity. I'm just saying that for the first time in a long time I felt taken care of: emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually. I felt like someone intimately cared about my wellbeing and about me being taken care of. I have been in a lot of relationships where their needs came first. I've been "responsible" for taking care of my significant other when they were struggling and if I struggled I was on my own. That's probably why my friends so seamlessly took care of me, they knew I didn't have anyone else to take care of me.
It's been hard since losing him. Like I don't know who to talk to. I don't know who to call when I need to process my brain, when I need a hug, like a REAL hug.
Hugs are so under acknowledged. Like a REAL hug that lasts longer than 20 seconds has magical healing potential. I don't get many of those here. I actually barely remember the last one. I do remember. It was from him the day he broke up with me when multiple times in the hour I spent with him he just held me, like really held me and I felt loved, cherished, take care of, and acknowledged. I felt like I could breathe.
I miss touch. I miss having friends I could curl up and cuddle with. I didn't realize until right now how physically deprived I feel. There are real impacts that touch has.
I feel like this post is just one rolling amount of crazy spilling out of my mouth, out of my feelings. I don't feel like I can breathe half the time. I feel like I'm walking around in a world that doesn't see who I really am and I am slowly counting down the minutes until I get to go back to Portland and get embraced by my mom, by my friends, by the people that REALLY know me. I look forward to going back to somewhere that I have REAL friends, not just people that I hang out with but people that know me and want to know me.
I miss my life. I miss feeling like I'm living. I am tired of feeling like I am drowning. I hate feeling like I had found a life preserver and now it's been pulled away and I am just treading water praying I have the energy to stay afloat...
