Infinitely Human
It seems like today’s a big day of reflection for me. Kidding. If you saw the number of pages I have written reflecting, understanding, analyzing, and expressing over the course of my life, you would honestly probably be amazed, or you’d think I’m weird. Regardless, here I am doing it publicly. Why? No idea, I just feel like it today.
I’ve been writing a few poetry books that I am hoping to publish in the coming weeks/months. I am both incredibly proud of this and truly scared to be so completely vulnerable. It’s so odd, I seem to have this vulnerable, soft, emotional, and expressive image of myself in my head, but from other people’s descriptions of me, I don’t think they actually see that side. Plus, the fact that I quite literally have to fight myself to be genuinely vulnerable when it comes to true emotional expression (aka you’ll never see me cry).
By vulnerable, I don’t mean telling others about the very interesting things that have happened to me in life (by interesting, I mean incredibly unfortunate). With the way I have wired myself, I can quite easily tell anyone anything about my experiences if asked; it’s completely normal to me. That being said, I derive no real closeness from my storytelling, no matter how seemingly personal the contents may be. Because of the amount of severely ‘interesting’ things that I have been through, I have become accustomed to coping through humor. And, quite honestly, by never really being phased when it comes to anything that presents itself, including having to talk about some of the worst moments of my life. I can recount them to others as if they were a fictitious story I read in a book, completely, entirely detached.
When I say vulnerability specifically in terms of myself and what I don’t show readily to others, I mostly mean crying and expressing neediness. The real true emotions, not the storytimes, the intellectualized explanations or the jokes. There is something about feeling weak, or like a burden, that completely shuts my emotions off. I will be sad, but it will stay buried deeply within me until I get the chance to be alone. Even when I was crying for hours on end every day, rarely did I ever do it around anyone else.
Now I think a lot of that has turned into some far-away numbness. Some far away disconnect. I don’t know. I never really know if the things I feel are normal or not. Sometimes I feel real, sometimes I don’t. Maybe I’m crazy. Honestly wouldn’t be surprised. What else is new? Kidding. Did you laugh? I do hope so. I told you, I enjoy lightening the mood when it gets to the deeper, darker parts of me.
Some things I feel I think are normal. I’m sure at some point everyone has to confront their own mortality and must deal with it in their very own ways, realizing that this life is finite and that no matter the skincare routine or the healthy diet, we will all grow old and eventually die. And that sometimes the clock feels like it is really quickly ticking. I’m 22 years old and I sound like I’m 84. How nice it is to have a brain that doesn’t turn off, am I right?
It’s a weird thing to know that we all eventually die. It’s a weird thing to know that no fact is the absolute truth and that everything we grow up believing is just a series of thoughts and opinions passed down by others. Is anything at all objective? I really don’t know. It’s one of those nights, it seems. One of those nights where I dissect the meaning of my existence and the place that I have here on this earth.
Life is cruel and it is kind and it is everything in between, and I’m quite honestly not sure what to make of it half the time. Sometimes I’m sad, sometimes I’m happy, though I never stay in one feeling for too long. Well, it depends, it really depends. I’m a positive, adventurous person in many facets of my life, but deep down I’m a pretty sad human being. I think it’s my resting state, or at least it has been for quite a long time now. I’m not sure if you can ever really recover from some things. And though I know I work extremely hard to turn all the damage and pain into all things good, at the end of the day, there is still some part of me that is deeply hurting. I think over time I’ve just lost an understanding of how to access it as fully.
I used to hate this part of myself. This sadness, this grief, whatever this indescribable feeling is. I used to hate myself when I would feel it come back and rear its head. I was forever condemned to being my own self-improvement project. Don’t get me wrong, I still work to understand, to improve, to express my feelings, and to make things better for myself. But I approach it with a different lens now. Not one filled with frustration, disappointment, anger, and fear, although those feelings do still come up.
I have come to accept that being human, especially a human with a bit of a troubled past, means that there will always be ebbs and flows and that I can only learn to ride the waves as they come. Hating myself into healing only ever really brought me more distress. Yes, I get sad sometimes, and what about it? Who really doesn’t ever spend some time sad?
I’m learning to accept lots of parts of myself. All the embarrassing things I’ve done, all the things I was so ashamed of, all my attempts at connection and vulnerability that didn’t work out. At least I tried. No matter how silly, no matter how desperate, at least I tried. And in the ways I feel to be right, I will continue to try. Giving up has never really been my thing when it comes to other people, so why would I give up when it comes to myself?
Honestly, I have no idea who I am writing this for. Not sure that anyone will ever read it, and I’m honestly completely content with that. It just feels right, so really, why not?
