Tag: self

Because even the happiest of people feel sad sometimes.

The burn on my lips, the taste of blood, the aching in my jaw, all are signs that I am trying, desperately, to overcome something inside of me that is gnawing at my liver, deflating my lungs, and lobotomizing my brain. 

Let me rephrase a bit. It’s the whisky that burns as it touches my mouth as I sip at it slowly. Bits of cheek and cracked lip are bitten off as I nervously fiddle in my seat. Tears, or screams, or some other unknown force inside me are trying to claw itself out of my throat, and I clench my jaw hard to keep it all in. 

If giving it a name would give me relief, I would call it something gallant, something powerful and awing. Because what it really is, the mix of anxiety, undiagnosed depression, and numbness of the mind just makes me feel pathetic and lame. But, that’s what the constant gnawing is, the boxer to my lungs, and the nail hammered in my head.

It’s really not that bad most of the time. Most of the time I am content, in the best definition of the word. But sometimes, I will get the rug that I’m standing on pulled out from under me and I’m left on my ass looking around wondering why I was standing on that fucking rug in the first place. Questioning things is something I think is important, but sometimes it’s the questions that hold me over the ledge of sanity. Conditioned insecurities run rampant in my mind’s revolving door. Why do I even have that door? 

Understanding that I, alone, cause the pain inside me is as easy as it is difficult. Yes, I see what I’m doing to myself with the unnecessary overthinking and worrying. But no, I don’t always feel like I want to take the blame. But, it is what I should do.  

Sometimes I want to sit in the puddle of shame that I create for myself because when I get cold I realize that I should maybe stand up and find dry land. Maybe, anxiety and depression are a good thing. Without them, where is the push to get out of that puddle? Hell, what if I never realized I’m standing in one? 

It does bring me relief, feeling love for my anxiety and depression. Giving them light, don’t get me wrong, hurts, but there’s also a pulse of healing that runs through me. I can feel it when I meditate. I literally can feel it expunge itself out of my stomach and up my throat and out of my eyes. It’s after the pain that I feel relief. I’ve let all the air out of my lungs, all the tears out of my eyes, and I have nothing left to do but take another breath. With that breath, I imagine my eye sockets sucking the overflowed tears back into me, down my nasal passage and into my throat. I swallow hard and enjoy the refreshment. 

What Matters: The long ride after the longest ride.

This is a new segment of my blog. It’s called What Matters.

Millennials are supposedly the loneliest generation. We have the luxury of connecting with each other in more ways than what has been possible in the past. With the emerging of the internet and social media, we can connect with humans across the world from us, instantaneously. So, why are we so lonely?

We live in a society where no one talks about their real life. Maybe it’s from the stigma and shame of vulnerability. We think no one wants to know how we are really feeling, so we respond with “I’m good, how are you?” 

We choose to show how we want to be seen by posting our active moments, our adventurous selves, and our beautiful faces on social media. We cover our blemishes, our scars, with filters. Even those not participating in the social media world put filters on themselves and what they share with others. Nobody gets that close to anyone. What we give are the good looking framed pieces of our lives. 

So, this segment is meant to shed light on the real moments of life. On the moments that we don’t talk about, the moments that we don’t think anybody cares about. Really, the moments that we are scared to share. Because life is not all good. We forget that we all lose our cool sometimes. This is not meant to be a pity party, or me venting, but to show pivotal moments in my life that are real, are ugly, and even embarrassing. Because I am not just the filtered cropped pictures on my socials, and neither are you. If we share ourselves with each other more, really become transparent with one another, we may realize that we are more relatable with each other than we thought. From there, maybe we can beat the loneliness that consumes our generation.

Every moment in our life matters. Our feelings matter. The small things matter.

So, I want to share my moments. Because they mean something to me. I might leave out the backstory. I might leave it vague. But, I aim to share some small parts of my story, my life, that would normally get shoved under the rug and never spoken about. 

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THE LONG RIDE AFTER THE LONGEST RIDE

Sitting there, after ripping my own heart out just hours ago, I hold a carnation given to me by a stranger. I feel every bump of the shuttle ride. I shift around my backpack on my lap and stare at a spot on the floor.  I feel eyes on me by the people sitting across from me. I know they can tell I’ve been crying. I let it stain my face. I don’t care. I sit there with a broken heart and a shattered frame of mind, flower in hand. When I get home I put the flower in a glass of water. The next morning it starts to show signs of wilting. The next day even more so. I let it sit on my kitchen table until it bends low below the rim of the glass, dead in a puddle of water.

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