Weakness

Weakness... One loaded word that is easily loathed. Showing weakness of any form is easily despised by the strong or by those aspiring to be so. Yet behind closed doors...

I have always believed that showing weakness in front of others was a terrible move to make. In order to be respected, loved and understood one had to always put on a brave face and breaking down, shying away from the facade in any way, would only result in others looking down upon me. So naturally I mastered the poker face and never let it be known that I was afraid, hurting, sad or any other emotion associated with "weakness".

As previously mentioned though, behind closed doors it was a different story. Being very emotional and easily affected by others I would find myself a ball of depression and devastation. The walls so easily fell away and I would be as vulnerable as a new born baby.  Helpless and afraid I grew to despise even those moments of weakness. I hated showing any shred of emotion that left me so bereft.

However, I started realising that the people I cared for or who cared for me became increasingly worried by my lack of emotion. My ability to hide all forms of pain and anguish scared them more than me bawling my eyes out - something I couldn't understand. I thought seeing me together and well would ease their worries but they yearned to see me vulnerable. They wanted to know I was human, I felt. Not that they thought I was an alien or anything! They just didn't understand me.

I believe, based on experience, that when you allow yourself to be vulnerable people easily take advantage of you. You are easily manipulated and used when you are unable to think beyond the emotions clouding your judgement. Having been in that situation time and time again I knew it had to stop, I had to stop letting people see me as such. The problem is in order to be such you have to shut people out. The fortress can't let anyone in. 

It works well till someone comes along with the sledgehammer and won't take no for an answer.

It is scary ... Letting someone see you at your weakest and all that is going through your mind is how will they use your present state to their betterment. What is even more scary is when all they want is to just be there for you... No ulterior motives. I have no idea how to handle the idea of someone just wanting to help me through the tough times. It makes me want to close up even more, hide away within myself. The fact that someone cares that much about me seems unreal and opening up, as hard as it is, and as perverted as it sounds, is rather difficult.

Trusting a person not to hurt you is incredibly hard but when you do, when you decide enough is enough and let yourself be vulnerable in front of someone, it is more significant than any declaration of love. It is an irrevocable moment, there is no turning back... You've given in...

Untitled

I have been grappling with pain I just can’t seem to escape. As the year comes to a close I find myself still drowning in the tears that first made me start this blog. Time moves on, yes that is true, but somehow I can not seem to move on with it.

That is what happens when you find yourself with all this free time and no way with which to occupy it. The campus year is over, stress has disappeared, friends and loved ones are off on their own missions and everyone just seems so happy. Yet here I sit, unable to sleep, tearful, in pain and I just cannot seem to find a way out of it and worse I have no one to share it with.

I have always been the kind of person who dared not share her issues with those around her. Appearing strong and together has always been my greatest confidence booster but now, all I crave is a shoulder to cry on, someone to hear my woes, comfort me and reassure me that this pain will abate and that they will be there always.

From the moment my cousin left this world and I spent my week of mourning crying myself into dehydration, I chose to bury the pain and grief in a corner of my mind. I filed it away and said I would never go there again and like that I found myself able to move on. I accepted that he had to go and all the other things that come with acceptance but I just could not come to terms with the fact that I would never get to see him again or even say good bye. So I guess forgetting my pain seemed the best plan at the time.

Studying and friends kept me busy and I had no time to dwell on the pain which was fine by me. Truth be told I really believed I had my shit together and that I would be fine. It is funny how one small moment can trigger a cascade of emotion just as a single laceration in the skin can open oneself up to a multitude of bacteria. It was something so small – a friend singing a song as he walked me home “shawty like a melody in my head…” and suddenly I was transported back into the past to a time where things were much different. I remembered the countless hours we spent listening to that song until we were so sick of the words that we could not hear that song without throwing up a little in our mouths.

Just like that I found myself growing restless every night, unable to sleep or eat properly and forcing smiles while secretly I was dying inside. Slowly the darkness crept back in. The box was overturned and the flood gates opened. I found myself falling apart and here I am… unable to breathe from the sheer force of the pain that is radiating through my chest. I cannot for a second understand how I made it through since April. How could I have possibly put these feelings off for so long? The loss I had to bear was so colossal, so unbearable that I cannot even comprehend how I am even able to type out these feelings. I guess when you have no one to talk to this is all you have.

I hate the pity I see in peoples’ eyes when I share this with them. I hate people feeling sorry for me and feeling bad for me. I miss the people who instead of offering up pointless “I'm sorry’s” would just talk shit with me for hours or tell me all the bad things in their life so I would not feel so bad about my own. Those people don’t exist in my life anymore so instead I have to air out my feelings to a virtual audience and just hope I can gain some solace from it.

I feel myself dying a little each day that I am forced to stave off these emotions. All I seek is the comfort of the closed box in the forgotten corner of my mind and even that eludes me. Would someone please roll me a joint so I may smoke away my pain? Because I am fresh out of ideas and I am dying inside, I am losing myself.

No, this is not a cry for help.

This is me just crying myself to sleep one day at a time.

'Regrets Collect Like Old Friends'

Regrets collect like stars on a clear night. They are bright and visible to the eye but disappear when another brilliant light decides to come in to view. Yet no matter how often we forget their existence, they still come out to frolic in the darkness of the night.  

Regrets are born out of our actions. We approach situations incorrectly or don’t approach them at all and when things go south we blame ourselves and are doomed to forever live with the consequences of our choices or failure to make a choice.

Doing or saying nothing is by far the biggest regret we tend to find ourselves reliving 10 years down the line. We find ourselves in situations which warrant action to turn the tide in our favour but fear acting upon our desires. As a result things don’t work out in our favour and we find ourselves sitting in the dark wondering just how stupid and pig headed we were. Had we just opened our mouths and said the words we feared to utter out loud, we may be in a vastly different situation than the one we find ourselves in.

This brings me to the main point of my ramblings. Why do we keep things in? Why don’t we articulate the thoughts we keep to ourselves? We can’t expect people to read our minds and if we want things to turn out differently we will have to say what bothers us. Yet we are only human and live in constant fear of the repercussions of our words. We fear what will happen should we say what we feel and it mostly comes down to fearing the unknown. What happens once those words have been spoken is unclear and so we think of every possible outcome and our fear grows.

What we fail to see is that most times the other person is waiting to hear what you have to say. They want you to tell them not to go, or not to do what they were planning. They need to hear you say those words so that they can do the right thing by you. We are so caught up in fear of rejection that we forget the other person has fears too and all they may need, and you come to think of it, is just to hear you speak the words to put their fears to rest.

However, in my current dilemma, as much as I want to say what is on my mind I fear by doing so I am being incredibly selfish. To ask him not to leave, to ask him to stay by my side, serves only me. I can’t impose my desires upon another who wants something else. I am not the object of his desire nor am I what he wants so why do I feel like I should be telling him about the going-ons of my complicated mind? It won’t change much and it will most likely just cause tension but keeping all these thoughts inside scares me. My greatest fear is that when he leaves I will find myself submerged in regret for not speaking my heart’s desire. I can’t help but hope that if I was just as important and above all, if he desired the same as me, he would say it. However, hope is for the foolish and since nothing has been said the answer is as clear as daylight.

Sometimes we need to speak our minds, despite the fear that accompanies the action. If we don’t we will find ourselves living with the regrets and ‘what ifs’ for the rest of our days. We have to face our demons and if we get rejected at least we won’t have to deal with remorse. As for me, well I have never been very good at following my own advice and in 10 years, when grappling with the regret of not having spoken my mind, perhaps I will look back at this moment… or maybe not.

The Moment

I have this nagging feeling at the back of my mind that I can’t seem to shake off. It sauntered into my mind, with all the arrogance the word suggests, in the dead of the night and then proceeded to make itself at home despite my protestations.

Following its entrance it went on to plant many a doubt in the garden of its lovely home in my amygdala leading to all sorts of associated emotions. I am now spiralling down a dark tunnel of fear I would much rather avoid. The main reason being that avoidance of the issue makes it a nonentity thus I can continue as normal.  The moment I begin to think of the consequences and repercussions I can no longer just enjoy myself and live for the moment. Sure the happiness I feel right now is fleeting, but why mar these few moments that I do have with thoughts that will serve only to depress me?

Living for the moment has its benefits and as such also has its downfalls. While it is all fun and games in the moment when the time has passed you find yourself in the middle of an earthquake and the aftermath is not so pretty. You tend to avoid dealing with your emotions and many things tend to be left unspoken, which is okay if you don’t want to talk about it, but at some point all the things we choose not to say may be the single most important thing in turning the tide in our favour. It is however a really nice way to forget all your worries and just have unadulterated fun.

It works, for a limited time. Eventually you start wanting more, or rather without realising it, it comes to mean more. You start a flame, which turns into a roaring inferno that you are unable to put out. You find yourself overcome by emotions and you lose yourself not only to the moment, but to the hope that the moment will never end. You start thinking about the future and forget that this is merely a fleeting moment of happiness.

This is about the point that the nagging feeling walked in and nag it did. It posed all sorts of questions to me that I realised I had no answer to. Sure I am dealing with these fiery emotions but are they truly and honestly reciprocated or am I just being deluded into believing they are? Am I just another number, another name on a list? Oh and the worst one: am I the only one thinking beyond the moment? Any thoughts after 2am are BAD!! Just don’t go there. That is a time for sleep or alcohol not unanswerable questions which causes one to delve in to a sea of misery and despair.

This feeling won’t leave me. It has set up a home and constantly bombards me with more and more questions that serve only to cause me more grief and fear. I am afraid. For the first time in ages I am overcome with such fear that it strangles the air out of my chest and leaves me in such a panic I can’t think or sleep. I am powerless and worse, despite my constant probing I have found nothing to alleviate my suffering. If anything I have only worsened them with the realisation that I am in far too deep and it looks like I am alone in this. It is clear that of the two I am the only one incapable of living in the moment.

All I have learnt from this simple exercise is never to think after 11pm unless it is education related, don’t go for all “the moment” bullshit unless you are male and if you are female don’t buy in to his crappy ideas because you are programmed to want more as much as you tell yourself otherwise. Best stick to what you know best.