What's the difference between a shark and the ghost of a shark?
My life has been so shallow as of late. I've been so uncomfortable with it, so I've been distracting myself with pretty, shiny things. I don't think that's particularly healthy.
I've never been avoidance girl before. That's never been who I am. I'm the girl who hits things head on. And yet... I've been so far removed from the me I used to be that I barely recognize my own words. I feel like I've lost some key to my own inner workings. I feel like I'm stagnating, waiting for my life to start.
I don't know when it started, really. It was probably sometime around last Christmas, as disastrous and devastating as it was. It was right about then that my relationship with Mike hit rock bottom and I started to despise myself for clinging so tightly to him when I knew that the chance to fix us had long been past. I wanted to hope. I wanted so much to just be happy again. And I don't think I've ever regained that hope that I lost, that I'd be happy with myself again. I've never stopped being angry with myself for holding on so long. I feel so foolish.
There are sparks of life, here and there. There are times, even days when I feel content or satisfied. But I never feel completely comfortable in my own skin, not anymore. I feel like I wear the mask of who I used to be when the occasion calls for it, and it's someone I'm striving to be again. I'm not there yet, though, not all of the time.
I think a lot of that has come from living at home again. I never expected to have to move home. So suddenly, there was no alternative. I love my family because that's what you're supposed to do. I don't really respect my parents, not with their backwards and bigoted ways. Not when every time I hear them parroting something they heard on Fox News I feel like slapping them and screaming, "how can you be such ignorant puppets?”
I don't belong here. I can't have a conversation more than two sentences long without being interrupted because nothing I say is of any value. This place is rotting me.
And it's taken a toll on my self-esteem. I'm tired of hearing "Christina, you're too sensitive" any time something bothers me. I've taken to not talking about my feelings, just shutting up and dealing with everything internally, piece by piece. I'm tired of comments about my weight-- just this week, my mother told me that she's "sorry" that I'm not built more like my sister-- "she's so tall and thin." This is the fifth comment about my weight in the last two months. Every time I look in the mirror, I hear those criticisms. Any time I hear a compliment, it's drowned out by those criticisms. It's breaking me down.
I don't know what happened to that strong girl, that fighter. I guess she got tired of fighting. She got tired of feeling inadequate, feeling like her fists were hitting unmoved stone and coming away bloody and scarred.
I should be stronger than this. I used to be stronger than this. Instead, I let it fuel me to work out-- I've dropped nearing ten pounds, so at least it's marginally useful. I'm a size 5/6 now. Clothes that I bought a month ago are loose around my hips. I gave away a few skirts that still had tags on them.
I'm also having a hard time letting people get close to me. I feel-- well. I don't know how to put it. I don't want people to get to know me as I am now. I have so much work left to do on myself. I feel so incomplete, like a work in progress. I want people to see the me I was-- vibrant and strong. So I push people away, or I hold them a few paces back. I hold everything inside.
Romantically speaking, I think I'm upset with myself because I went so deeply into a relationship that I lost a sense of myself. Now that that relationship is over, I'm still searching for those pieces of myself that have disappeared into the ether. Hope. The ability to imagine a comforting future, a happily-ever-after. Wholeness. I'm working to get those things back. I got in over my head, so deeply that I nearly drowned. I don't want anyone to get close enough to take those pieces away again, if ever I should find them.
I can't, nor would I, deny feelings of love, but that doesn't mean that they don't terrify me. That they don't make me markedly self-conscious. That they don't make me examine myself for those real or imagined or accused flaws that have wrecked previous relationships. My entire definition of love has taken on such strange connotations. It used to be so easy, so natural, and now I'm overly critical of every emotion. I don't know what's wrong with me. I realize that some of the people that I care the most about know only facets of me. They know so little, and I've no one to blame but myself.
It scares me to think that such a lauded thing as love may one day put me in such a dark place again, might make me feel like I'm losing my mind again. That love might render me helpless once more, so unable to control my own emotions. I don't like to give up control. I don’t like being vulnerable. I guess I’m just the girl with the Mermaid Blues.
I know that's being unfair. I do. I shouldn't bring my own emotional bullshit to the table in a new relationship. I'm trying my best to be receptive, open. Please believe that.
Tomorrow, I take on a new position in the company. I won’t be dispatching any longer. I’ll be processing all of the company’s financial paperwork—three types of claims, all billing, all mileage, a million spreadsheets to update and even more random tasks. Each packet put together differently. I’ve had only bare-bones training for it, and now I’m being thrown headlong into the speeding train. I’m incredibly nervous. It’s a lot of responsibility to assume, and I feel completely unprepared for it. Everyone says how it’s so flattering to be entrusted with the job, but I don’t feel that way at all. I’m still working with family, which means that I’m expected to be perfect or otherwise told how I’m not doing well enough. I feel like I’m constantly under a microscope. It’s so much pressure.
And I keep having nightmares in which I forget all the words to songs that I'm performing. I've had that dream twice in the past week. I think it's symptomatic of something larger-- that I feel completely unprepared to deal with my life. Maybe I should see a counselor. This is not normal for me.
I need to remember who I am. I need to remember that I will be okay when the sun comes up.
I've never been avoidance girl before. That's never been who I am. I'm the girl who hits things head on. And yet... I've been so far removed from the me I used to be that I barely recognize my own words. I feel like I've lost some key to my own inner workings. I feel like I'm stagnating, waiting for my life to start.
I don't know when it started, really. It was probably sometime around last Christmas, as disastrous and devastating as it was. It was right about then that my relationship with Mike hit rock bottom and I started to despise myself for clinging so tightly to him when I knew that the chance to fix us had long been past. I wanted to hope. I wanted so much to just be happy again. And I don't think I've ever regained that hope that I lost, that I'd be happy with myself again. I've never stopped being angry with myself for holding on so long. I feel so foolish.
There are sparks of life, here and there. There are times, even days when I feel content or satisfied. But I never feel completely comfortable in my own skin, not anymore. I feel like I wear the mask of who I used to be when the occasion calls for it, and it's someone I'm striving to be again. I'm not there yet, though, not all of the time.
I think a lot of that has come from living at home again. I never expected to have to move home. So suddenly, there was no alternative. I love my family because that's what you're supposed to do. I don't really respect my parents, not with their backwards and bigoted ways. Not when every time I hear them parroting something they heard on Fox News I feel like slapping them and screaming, "how can you be such ignorant puppets?”
I don't belong here. I can't have a conversation more than two sentences long without being interrupted because nothing I say is of any value. This place is rotting me.
And it's taken a toll on my self-esteem. I'm tired of hearing "Christina, you're too sensitive" any time something bothers me. I've taken to not talking about my feelings, just shutting up and dealing with everything internally, piece by piece. I'm tired of comments about my weight-- just this week, my mother told me that she's "sorry" that I'm not built more like my sister-- "she's so tall and thin." This is the fifth comment about my weight in the last two months. Every time I look in the mirror, I hear those criticisms. Any time I hear a compliment, it's drowned out by those criticisms. It's breaking me down.
I don't know what happened to that strong girl, that fighter. I guess she got tired of fighting. She got tired of feeling inadequate, feeling like her fists were hitting unmoved stone and coming away bloody and scarred.
I should be stronger than this. I used to be stronger than this. Instead, I let it fuel me to work out-- I've dropped nearing ten pounds, so at least it's marginally useful. I'm a size 5/6 now. Clothes that I bought a month ago are loose around my hips. I gave away a few skirts that still had tags on them.
I'm also having a hard time letting people get close to me. I feel-- well. I don't know how to put it. I don't want people to get to know me as I am now. I have so much work left to do on myself. I feel so incomplete, like a work in progress. I want people to see the me I was-- vibrant and strong. So I push people away, or I hold them a few paces back. I hold everything inside.
Romantically speaking, I think I'm upset with myself because I went so deeply into a relationship that I lost a sense of myself. Now that that relationship is over, I'm still searching for those pieces of myself that have disappeared into the ether. Hope. The ability to imagine a comforting future, a happily-ever-after. Wholeness. I'm working to get those things back. I got in over my head, so deeply that I nearly drowned. I don't want anyone to get close enough to take those pieces away again, if ever I should find them.
I can't, nor would I, deny feelings of love, but that doesn't mean that they don't terrify me. That they don't make me markedly self-conscious. That they don't make me examine myself for those real or imagined or accused flaws that have wrecked previous relationships. My entire definition of love has taken on such strange connotations. It used to be so easy, so natural, and now I'm overly critical of every emotion. I don't know what's wrong with me. I realize that some of the people that I care the most about know only facets of me. They know so little, and I've no one to blame but myself.
It scares me to think that such a lauded thing as love may one day put me in such a dark place again, might make me feel like I'm losing my mind again. That love might render me helpless once more, so unable to control my own emotions. I don't like to give up control. I don’t like being vulnerable. I guess I’m just the girl with the Mermaid Blues.
I know that's being unfair. I do. I shouldn't bring my own emotional bullshit to the table in a new relationship. I'm trying my best to be receptive, open. Please believe that.
Tomorrow, I take on a new position in the company. I won’t be dispatching any longer. I’ll be processing all of the company’s financial paperwork—three types of claims, all billing, all mileage, a million spreadsheets to update and even more random tasks. Each packet put together differently. I’ve had only bare-bones training for it, and now I’m being thrown headlong into the speeding train. I’m incredibly nervous. It’s a lot of responsibility to assume, and I feel completely unprepared for it. Everyone says how it’s so flattering to be entrusted with the job, but I don’t feel that way at all. I’m still working with family, which means that I’m expected to be perfect or otherwise told how I’m not doing well enough. I feel like I’m constantly under a microscope. It’s so much pressure.
And I keep having nightmares in which I forget all the words to songs that I'm performing. I've had that dream twice in the past week. I think it's symptomatic of something larger-- that I feel completely unprepared to deal with my life. Maybe I should see a counselor. This is not normal for me.
I need to remember who I am. I need to remember that I will be okay when the sun comes up.