When Do I Give Up?

When do I give up?

It is late.  I should go to sleep.  I need to be up in about 6 hours.

I spent some solid time adulting today.  I balanced my checkbook.  I did laundry and dishes.  I sorted papers and got some stuff recycled.  I called a friend.  I did my homework for work.  I packed up my work bag for tomorrow.  I read quite a bit for the adult summer reading program.  I caught up on my Bible reading plans.  I ate some fruit.

But you know what, I don't know if any of that really makes me feel better.  Everything feels eerily quiet.  I have no doubt it is my own doing.  I have a bad habit of kind of shutting myself off from people at some point and not remembering the way back.

It's funny because I'm the person who will buy bobby pins and extra make up wipes to share with everyone in a show or pack baby wipes and extra mints and hand sanitizer because I know everyone will want them at camp, and I like doing this.  It makes me happy to make the people around me breathe easier even if they don't seem to realize why.  Normally I don't mind the quiet of no one noticing, but it would be nice if just one person did.

I am tired.  I am tired in the Dean Winchester sense of the word tired.  I am tired to my bones and carrying some sadness in them because I live too far away from the people I'm truly close to, and I have improbable luck with the good friends I have here.  Of course, that's probably my own fault as well.

Right now, even while typing this, I am composing a to do list in my head of all the things I need to do better at so that I can feel human again.  It's a list of places I feel I'm failing and all the things I'm so sure will cure these issues.  Tomorrow I'll wake up too early for my personal happiness and go to a job that feels fairly thankless and try to remind myself that I'm less than 2 weeks from my trip to Ohio.  Nothing else should matter.  I just need to survive till then.

Plus, tomorrow is another day, right?


Favorite things of this very moment (10:17pm CST):

• Having ordered my latest t-shirt from Represent for Jared Padalecki's AKF campaign benefiting the Orlando victims (at least I can do something to help, even if it's not nearly enough)
• Fans
• My black bermuda shorts (even if it still seems weird to be wearing them...such weird pale legs)
• The adult summer reading program at the Mt. Morris Public Library
• Agnes & the Hitman
• My paycheck (not huge, but it's something)
• Calle's advice on boys
• Polite, if somewhat heartbreaking, response back from adorable boy I thought might be a good thing (apparently not, but he was kind)
• Having the aggravation known as Care to Learn's done on time
• Cool night air which should mean I sleep tonight 

I'm Tired.

You ever say one thing when you mean something totally different?  I do this on a daily basis.  Most of the time it's unintentional.  Usually it's me trying to answer someone's questions about how I feel about something.  I'll get done answering their question only to realize that I said one thing and that it probably meant closer to the exact opposite of what I meant or at least it was different enough to cause confusion.

Sometimes my brain just does this great thing where it automatically reroutes my answers so that I can tell people generic things in an attempt to protect them from me.  After I say something aloud it sometimes hits me that I just lied to someone about how I feel.  I hate it.  If I'm lucky I can catch myself and restate my answer.  Especially if it is to someone I know genuinely wants to know the truth.

Lately this has become a real struggle for me.

I find myself telling one specific lie over and over and over again.  I think it's just my brain's way of trying to derail a conversation and throw off any kind of suspicion before anyone can worry.  "I'm tired," I'll say looking directly into your eyes.  Lie.  Not complete, but not truly honest.  I don't sleep.  I've always had trouble sleeping, and when my depression or stress or anxiety gets the better of me, I'll start the cycle of sleeplessness all over again.  So it's not a full lie, I mean, I am tired.  Often exhausted, but the problem is, when you ask me how I am, I usually have about a million other feelings that are more unsettling or louder than just being tired.  I just don't always know how to express it.

I am tired, but I am also fighting.  Daily.  I'm fighting to be the best version of myself I can be.  I'm fighting to keep finding light through the darkness.  I'm fighting to see the good and not dwell on the bad.  I'm often lonely, and that's why I'm trying so hard to connect with other people.  That's why I try to make everyone around me laugh and why I try to write encouraging notes and remember the details about other people...I don't want anyone around me to feel this ache I feel.  I don't want anyone else to feel like this.  I am tired, but I feel like if I express to someone else the depth of the sadness or the level of anger I feel that it will frighten them.  My heart is the Mariana Trench when it comes to emotions and often the ones I feel deepest are the farthest in that trench and I try to keep them there.  I have them sunk in those inky depths for a reason, and it's probably because I think I'm protecting everyone else from me.  No one wants to listen to someone talk about their anger or sadness or depression, so instead of telling you that I feel hurt or alone or depressed or angry or frustrated or trapped I'll just tell you I'm tired.

Is any of this healthy?  No.  Not really.  I know this, and I'm trying to find a safe place to deal with it, but in the meantime I'll continue to write these weird blog posts that help me empty out my head like I do my pockets at the end of the day.  Hopefully they'll help someone else feel a little less alone, and maybe we can talk about it.

Broke Blind Bedlum

These days people are trying to convince me of my goodness, my worth, and that I'm going to be alright. I feel bad for them. No one should watch someone they care about feel like they're caving in. It's scary, messy, frustrating business. 

It's odd because I've been on both sides of this equation, but I feel like I live on the collapsing side now. It makes me angrier and darker. I am struggling to see how anyone could stand being near me or listening to me. 

And then I get a text from a friend reminding me she loves me or I get a perfectly timed email from my best friend reminding me why she's always been the "other half of my soul" or a sweet friend tells me that I just don't see the impact I have on others or I convince one of my brothers to write a funny 80 page story by Christmas as a bet or my mom asks me to read the story at the library story time this week or you find 2 TV shows with characters exactly your age going through their own twisted version of your life or a friend says she wants to come take a walk with you after work later this week...

Then I suddenly have Hugh Grant's words in my head "I have a sneaking suspicion if you look...you'll see live really is all around."

I genuinely have no idea what I want from life anymore or what I'm actually capable of because it's been a long time since I believed in myself or had a real dream that I wanted for myself. I have been thinking about it, and I'm honestly not sure I know the last time I feel like I was put in a place for me. I've gathered a truly amazing group of friends, but every place I end up feels like I'm their for everyone else's needs or to build them up or their dreams. I don't have a problem with this, but I'm hoping someday my heart can be one of the ones being fixed and worked on for a change because I'm wondering how I'm still breathing and how it's even beating with all these holes and pieces missing. 

I am a mess, but, thank God, I am not alone. I will hold myself together. These new wounds and breaks will become scars and I will keep moving.