03/14/2024
I was told today “You’re always just so . . . happy. I wish I could do that too.” But what they failed to realize is the amount of time that was spent trying to find the light at the end of a very dark hour, a very dark day, a very dark life. Time spent baking in front of sun lamps and baking under blue skies and trying to be bright and trying to become sunshine. And of course I tried therapy and I take pills and I tried drinking too much and suffocating my thoughts with smoke that choked the air out of my lungs just like living does. What she didn’t see when speaking to me is the years in fear and the time I spent drowning in tears, not only in mine but in everyone else’s. And obviously I tried reading and avoiding reality. What she missed was my eyes pouring over books of the past in hopes of a brighter future; drilling what went right and what went wrong into my head until my eyes were purple with fatigue and my heart and head were heavy with hopelessness. No wonder I tore myself apart. What she failed to see was how I was only able to find my light by studying the darkness around me; finding out that one is already who I am, and slowly slicing the other from my personality, trying to scrape away who I no longer wanted to be, line by steel line. Of course I savored the pain, but had to choose better. Someone told me today, “You’re always just so . . .happy.” I wanted to tell her I only look happy because I wish I could do that too.
