I'm looking at myself now-
my eyes still crying, my face red and blotchy and peeling up where the tears burned, my arms and neck and shoulders clammy and bleeding and already scabbing where my fingernails dug in, my t-shirt soaked with tears and snot-
and I'm wondering how it is possible that two hours ago (three, by the time I finish writing), you were holding me and pulling me closer and softly tracing and kissing my face as if I were something desirable and very valuable.
I can't remember a time when my anxieties were that absent without the assistance of any milliliters of alcohol. There has been a time when my heart was just as full, but I can't/won't bring it back up. ofiagw.
Everything was okay, and then I fucked up again.
No, the accident was not my fault, but I sure as hell could have done a hundred things to prevent my involvement in it.
Of course it had to be a minivan going less than 40. It couldn't have been a semi-truck careening across the intersection, plowing directly into me and kindly removing me and all the burdens I heap onto the people around me.
It's hard for me to gauge the levels of sarcasm in my own thoughts right now. I would have been more than okay with having my final moments be loving you, saying goodbye to you, and feeling your embrace. But nope. This was pretty much a direct consequence of a series of not-so-great choices of mine, and I will deal with all of it as such.
No, I can't 'adult' as well as anyone, which is why I'm so incredibly useless in most contexts, and why I keep digging myself into similar shitty situations. It's why I say a million times I'll get better and still never do. It's why my mom cries and laments her failure as a parent, and why my dad has given up trying. It's why I attract primarily the predator types; they can taste my naivety and vulnerabilities and see my paralysis in the headlights from a mile away (Sara and Shawn, you were spot on about that, my friends). A year or more from now, I'll hopefully laugh at this and myself and how melodramatic I seem, but for now these thoughts and feelings are real and I can't stop hating myself. I can't see anything in me that doesn't create either destruction or disappointment if not both in generous amounts, because that pretty much is all that I've been doing well for the past... 21 years.
...
At least I can say, as always, that God is good. I thank* Him and you for being good to me when there is no good in me.
i'm torn on several dimensions.
ReplyDeletei want to fight for you, but you are one of your enemies, and your other enemies are mostly allies (if not friends).
i relate so strongly with the theme of this post (in a thematic sense, it's one i've written and rewritten many times), but i want to critique the shit out of it.
i want to engage you Socratically because the experience is fresh, but i know i should wait because the experience is fresh. there is so much to be gained from dialogue; but i will let you get there yourself first, and then perhaps we can collab.
today's my third day in a row of killing it at work but i really would rather be with you. desirable and valuable are phrases that just don't cut it. i treasure you.