Over the Years

5-30-2020

There is a proverb that says, "you can try to save someone from drowning, but you can only hang on for so long before you drown with them". I'm not sure if that's the exact wording, but that's how I've heard it. My argument is that I'd rather drown trying to save someone, than having to live having watched them drown alone and knowing that if perhaps I had tried a bit harder then we both might have been able to make it out alive.

Not to imply that I'm a selfless person. I'm not. I'm actually pretty self-centered. I want what I want and when I don't get what I want I get upset. I try not to throw a fit, or show any emotion for that matter, when I'm upset. But I'm not as good at hiding as I pretend to be. I have my secrets. Everyone does. Things that I do and I'm not sure why I do them, strange guilty pleasures that make me feel better about myself. I'm not sure if they're a habit or if it's just me looking for a source of comfort when I don't want to deal with feeling things anymore.

For example, I keep food in my room. It's something I've always done since I was little. I always make sure that I have a stash of something somewhere hidden away, under a piece of furniture or in my underwear drawer. Somewhere that no one else will find it. So that I know it's mine and that no one else will take it away. I get scared of people taking things away. Even things I don't want.

I have trouble getting rid of things. I have so many clothes I don't know what to do with them all. I'm kind of split between three different places, none of which I feel like I can really call home. And so, each place I have a lot of stuff, but sometimes I feel like a stranger in my own skin or a ghost of the person I used to be. I travel in and out all the time and I've left behind little footprints of memories. But I'm constantly growing and changing, and my feet don't fit in those shoe prints anymore. I know that I used to be that person, the person that everyone expects me to be, but I'm not the same.

Did you know that the human body completely regenerates on a cellular level every 7-10 years? Meaning that over the past decade I've become an entirely new person. Looking at myself, I'm definitely not someone I ever expected myself to turn into. Of course, I never put in effort into becoming the person I wanted to be. I never really thought about becoming anything as a kid. I mean, we all dream about what we want to be when we grow up, but I suppose I was expecting to just wake up one day and be grown up.

And while it's true that one day I woke up and I was a grown-up, I'm not really grown up. I'm mostly just terrified. I suppose I was expecting it to be more magical, like a sudden transformation as opposed to... well, actually growing. I turn twenty in a couple of weeks and I'm still clinging on tightly to my past. All my childhood memories feel like they've been stained and broken, cutting into me as I hold them close. It hurts. But I'm afraid that if I let them go, I will forget them and lose myself entirely.

Because I know that these memories are who I have been, so maybe if I put everything together just right, I can somehow figure out who I am? And maybe somehow knowing that will help answer everything else. Maybe if I know who I am, everything else will just fall into place and I won't feel like such a-... mess. I still think to myself about what I want to do when I grow up. I think about the kind of person I want to be and what I want to accomplish.

I remember coming home when I was 12 and sitting on the couch and thinking to myself "I don't know what I want to do, but I know I want to do something that makes people smile". I remember being hungry constantly because there wasn't anything to do but eat. And I remember then going to the cabinet and pouring myself spoonful's of raw sugar because I was already fat and alone and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down. I remember how quiet the house was when it was empty, and I was there by myself. Of course, was it truly empty if I was there? Or was I just there haunting the rooms, quiet and nonexistent?

None of those memories mean anything. Not really. Perhaps they're a clue to the focal points of some psychological traumas, but my past doesn't define me. The things that I've done in the past can't possibly tell me who I am now. But I still cling onto these memories and try to find answers in them that I know aren't there.

In the past decade, I've learned a lot. I'm not wise, or per se educated. I've just... grown. I've gone through middle school and high school and some college. I've struggled with puberty and family issues and friends and crushes. I've witnessed death. Or mourning, I guess. Whatever it is left behind when someone dies. I tried to fall in love. It was unsuccessful. And then I did fall in love. Except it happened when I didn't want it to. That sucked hard. It was different than I thought it would be. It hurt more. Hurts more, I guess since I still kind of have feelings for them.

How are you supposed to make those feelings go away? Because sometimes it feels like loving this person is gutting me alive. They treat me like garbage. They're disrespectful and they only want me there so that they can use me. So that I'm there to comfort them when they're sad. Or to scare away strangers at the supermarket. Or just so they aren't alone. They want me there to take care of them and to give them everything while they're off doing whatever they want giving their heart to people who just break it over and over. It hurts to watch.

And I love them, so I don't know what to do about it. I tried the easy way out. Dying seemed like a pretty good option at the moment. I felt worthless and pathetic and alone. And I still do, but it's not nearly as bad as it was then. I guess I didn't really want to die. I just wanted to stop. I wanted to stop feeling and being confused and losing the things that I've been trying so desperately to hold onto as they disintegrate and slip through my fingers. Because it was so much; too much.

It didn't work. My heart wasn't really in it. Get it? My heart wasn't in it? Because I'm in love with them and they have my heart so I couldn't- sorry. That was an inappropriate joke. Although, even if it had worked, I don't think it would have made me stop loving them. I wanted things to stop, to stop feeling, but it wouldn't have stopped anything. I would have died and been stuck being the same person that I was when I died. I wouldn't ever be able to move on. I would die loving them and I would be stuck with that forever, unable to move forward. And I would become just another shadow, another imprint, that would slowly fade into the past overtime.

And I can't help but think that if I really hate myself and my life, why would I want to die and be stuck being that person? Because if I died as that person, that means that would be the only person I would ever get to be. I would only ever be the person I hated from that moment on into infinity. It wouldn't really be changing anything. It would be punishing myself for not being the person that I never gave myself the chance to become. And so, I'm glad I didn't die. Life is hard, yeah. Feelings suck. I don't know who I am or where I am going. I'm selfish and I have issues. But I'm here. I have the opportunity to grow and change. Every day I learn something new. As much as some feelings suck, there are other feelings that I wouldn't trade for the world. And if I don't like who I am today, I'm going to focus on becoming the me I want to be tomorrow.