I woke up in the early hours of the morning, gripped by a black terror. Some dream woke me up. It was innocent enough. I was meeting his new girlfriend. She was younger than me. She had little kids. I was trying to open the wine and suddenly overcome by absolute panic. It woke me up. My jaw was clenched in pain and a vice gripped my skull.
It's like most nights lately. And early mornings. I never get any sleep past 0600, which is ok. My days have been more productive. I try to fill them with things to keep the pain at bay. I am working on avoiding the things that numb the pain but then I find myself numbing myself to the numbing. I pick up my phone a billion times a day and stare at it, finding absolutely nothing I was looking for. Not that I know what I am looking for. I've grown a hatred for the little machine.
I won't say I'm ok, because I am not. I will be, at some point. I have ok moments. I can laugh sometimes, with friends. I can eat, sometimes. The only thing that feels good to me is physical pain, so the gym has actually become my salvation. There's something cathartic about struggling to breathe and wearing myself out to the point that I am too tired to feel anything, so it's really a new kind of numbing, but maybe it's healthier. IDK.
I keep thinking about reaching out to a counselor, or a friend, but choices I have made have left me fairly isolated in this tell-all town and I don't want to talk to anyone. I can hear the questions of every therapist I've talked to and they're the same ones I ask myself over and over while I lay, sleepless in the dark. I know the answers. I don't need to pay someone to hash through that shit again.
Is what you lost really what you wanted anyway? Do you think you are just in love with the idea of being in love? What is so terrible about being alone? What is the Worst Thing That Can Happen? This. This is it. I can't honestly think of anything worse. But I failed to plan for this. I blinded myself to the possibility of every endless day on this side of the Worst Thing That Can Happen.
I know that I will be all right. I know that I am learning each day, new things. Last week I battled through ages-old bitterness to a new level of pain in understanding my ownership in the outcome of my life right now. I did this. Me. I made this bed and here I will lie, facing the consequences of all of my choices - every sparse moment of sleep riddled with nightmares.
I believe I will love again. I have faith this isn't the end of my story, somehow. But it's mechanical faith. It's not feeling faith. Part of me feels dead, but the sting is still so intense that these days lack the relief of death. I ride waves of hurt toward a plateau of peace, but just when I land there, a new wave crashes over me.
There is nothing about this life, right now, right here, that I want. Nothing. Not this place or time or any of it. Maybe I will look back at some point and see the value of these days. But right now I would give anything to skip ahead to a space without this pain.
The crazy thing is that I thought I was stronger than this. I thought I was resilient. I thought I was level enough to handle whatever outcome, and here I sit, completely destroyed. I don't want to be here. I want to be tough and hopeful. My head pounds with the weight of all of it.
