Alone

I know how to be alone. Of this I am sure.

Silence must always be a choice; otherwise, it easily becomes a prison. To be locked away in silence masquerades itself as safety . . . as long as I have the key. Too many times the key hasn’t been enough to release me because I feel paralyzed by fear, and I refuse to even try to look for the lock. What lies on the other side?

Fear has a way of slipping up on me, pulling up a chair and staying a while. Before long I’ve taken it in and started treating it like family . . . until I finally realize that fear has grown into an appendage that I push, pull and drag around with me.   I don’t know how to live my life without fear, and it grows so heavy that it threatens to choke the very life out of me.

I am afraid of people . . . not just because I feel emotionally overwhelmed at times or because I was attacked and raped when I was young . . . though I suppose those two alone are reason enough . . . still I know my relationship with fear is far more complex.

Weightlessness must be its own kind of Shangri-la. Everything about my existence is heavy and dense. If I could will myself to be a different person, I would waste no time in doing so. I am so exhausted of being exhausted. I suppose it is not that I really want to be someone else. I just don’t want to be me anymore. Not wanting to be me anymore frightens me . . . still it is as true a statement as my eyes are blue.

I try not to use my “Bipolar-ness” as an excuse for anything in my life. The truth of the matter is that being Bipolar does have an impact on every part of my life. I have regularly found myself in situations where there is seemingly no reprieve and no redemption and no hope; that is a difficult place to be. I have burned many bridges and unfortunately watched many bridges . . . my only connection to others . . . be lit right before my eyes. The helplessness frightens me.

For as long as I can remember I have been a stranger in a foreign land struggling to live my life as the natives do. As much as I feel I don’t understand how other people live their lives . . . they appear so shallow; yet, they are living while I merely exist in a vacuum I have at least partly created for myself.

"As a rule, I am very careful to be shallow and conventional where depth and originality are wasted." ~Lucy Maude Montgomery I wish I knew how she did it.

I never imagined that I would be sick at heart and mind and spirit . . . yet here I am . . . trying to make sense of my existence, struggling to interact with the world around me despite knowing I am on the outside looking inward.