As it turns out …
Posted in Blog on August 28th, 2010 by Helio – 5 CommentsIt seems it is never as simple as just making the right changes in your life and then being happy forever.
My face is leaking. I keep. Crying.
I’ve been crying for a week. I’ve been crying for a year. I am so. sick. of crying.
And worse than simply crying is knowing that everybody can see on your face that the evening has not gone the way you’d hoped. Worse than simply crying is choosing between staying to let them see you sad, or walking away from them to let them worry. Perhaps chase you. But none of them are the person who can hold you till you’re ok (indeed, there probably is no such person) and you do. not. want. to. talk. Worse than just crying is crying when people can see you, when you’re chopping the tomatoes, when you change the song three times in a row hoping it will help, but the happy songs just make you cry a little more.
I never worry about being lonely when there’s nobody around me. I read or I watch seasons’ worth of escapist shows or I write or I talk to distant people on the Internet, and if I cry – so what? I cry.
But building closer relationships with friends means spending more time with them means that they’re there, sometimes, when the crying comes on. And I just want to go away.
Oh, what a stupid evening. What a stupid, miserable, mess of a night. What an ill-thought out plan, and a girl standing on a bridge looking out over the water and trying not to let the anger and the sadness and the bitterness through. It won’t help anything. It won’t improve anything, and nobody has meant to do anything to hurt me. Even where there might be some thoughtlessness, there’s no maliciousness, and I’m too tired of it all to set people to rights.
I hurt, and I am tired of explanations. I am tired of communication. I am tired of figuring things out and worrying about other people, and I am shit at believing and remembering that they’re worrying about me. And even if they are, it’s just one more thing to bear in mind, and I’m through with it. I just want to be on my own. I don’t want there to be anybody who can let me down. I don’t want to let anyone down.
But wanting to be on my own, needing to be on my own, doesn’t mean that I can’t be lonely. It’s so easy to be lonely, in a crowd.
And I am sick to death of mood swings. I had trusted the happiness, but the deep dips of sadness are getting more frequent. I am afraid of not trusting my happiness. People catch me the morning after a bad night and ask me how I am, and I’m so good! I’m great! What are they even fretting about?! but then night rolls around, or the wrong song in the car in the afternoon, and it all comes pouring back, and I can’t tell what’s inside me.
But at least it’s my problem. Sure, sometimes there are other people around, and that can’t be avoided, but nobody is going crazy over me but me. And I can go crazy over myself, and rearrange the pieces as many times as I need till I’m ok again. And nobody can let me down. And nobody can fail to be there for me when I need it, or tell me that supporting me is just not something they can do. If I just take care of myself, I’ll be fine. No one can break me or hurt me or bruise me, and sooner or later, please, this sadness will all have poured out.
And maybe I’ll just stay alone then, too. And let nobody in to do me good or do me harm. And give myself no chance to sublimate my needs to someone else’s. And then, ok. Maybe then. Maybe. I’ll be fine, y’know? Just fine, and stable, and as happy as I know I can be (I know it. I have so much JOY in me; if only the world stopped getting in the way of it).
And nobody could hurt me, not ever again.
Being alone isn’t always fun, and I am not saying that I want to do it forever. But it is so much safer, so infinitely much safer, than the pain that other people can bring.

