this is me. running away.

Let me paint you a picture. Let’s say your friend has broken their arm, it hurts, they are complaining, and they can’t really move it. You being the smart person you are suggest that your friend should to go to the doctor, and your friend is adamantly against the idea because one time some doctor somewhere put a cast on weird, and something about it too hard to make an appointment. Ok, fine. But at a certain point, you can’t stand that the person is sitting there helplessly complaining about the pain while blood is spraying out of their wounded arm getting all over the new furniture WHEN THERE IS A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO THIS PROBLEM. The friend also knows how dumb this is and tries to limit complaints about their dud arm and sits alone in a painful pool of their own blood because they don’t want to be a burden to you and they don’t want to go to the doctor because… because they are an idiot. Round and round your friend goes, making everyone dizzy and annoyed.

And that, my dear people, is me. I set up circular reasoning and then light the ring on fire and refuse to move from its center as my skin melts off and my lungs choke on the smoke of my petulance.

I’m too depressed to sit up today.

Beyond that I have nothing to say about it. There is only one thing to do, stop complaining and go get help.

And I’m not going to do that.

Cool. Now what?

I just sit here until I get over it and get help, or it passes.

The last time I was in this neighborhood I made the call, I did the work. I gathered up my courage and my energy and all of my rationality and busted through all of my laziness…

…and it was the worst experience of my short life.

That is a story for another day, when I’m ready to pull back the corner of the rug that now sits in the middle of my life, covering the mess. I’m still using it to hold all the pieces down to the ground for fear that something may escape or float away before I can make sense of it all and glue it back together.

It’s painful work, and most days the idea of even peeling back a corner to take the tiniest of peeks needs all the energy I can muster. The rest of the days it’s any thought of the rug at all that does me in.

After those 48 hours I was left in tinier pieces than before. Small shards of my already shattered soul are embedded in my body and I don’t want to do the healthy, adult thing and clean up the mess. I want to lay here, let the blood dry until the glass is fused into my skin and move on… eventually. Half monster, half human.

And all of you smart, rational people out there have 17 trillion smart, true, beautiful, loving things to say about this. And I hear you. But
It. Does. Not. Make. Sense.
I understand your words. I understand how the words make sentences. I hear the sentences.
And I do not care.

Which makes this a non conversation, where your hands are tied with the same thread you watch me use to hang myself in this web of illness. Don’t stick around. It’ll be better for both of us.

But I don’t want to be alone.
…and I don’t want to get help.
I just want to be better.
Which is a pipe dream for people who aren’t willing to put in the work.

Most days when I run away I just want someone to chase me down and hold my hand as they force me to do what needs to be done, which some days just means not running farther. Hell, most days I just want someone to hold me together. I pretend I don’t want that, but I do. Grab me by the face and tell me this is worth it and that you won’t let go until it’s done.
I need that, but I know I can’t have that. I have to be the one that does the work. It’s my head, my life, my health and the work needs to be done by my hands.

Am I waiting for a rescue? Because it’s never coming. Life doesn’t work like that. This isn’t a fairytale.

It’s a slow work, done with my own hands, digging into my head and pulling things into the light to be healed. People can stand in the light with me and help carry things here, but they cannot reach into my head for me. They cannot carry my whole body, they can only help me carry what is in my hands.

Which makes me really, really sad because I feel really, really far from ready for that.

It’s too hard, and it already failed me.

This is the whole point of being alive and healthy, right?
You get stabbed in the back or the face and you have to decide every day to get up and keep putting yourself out there with the hope that one day you do not get stabbed in the back or the face and on that day you see it’s worth it.

Waiting for that day may be the definition of hell.

Strength, resilience, vulnerability, I have none of these. That’s what it feels like.
It would hurt more knowing I lack these things if I wasn’t so distracted by the feeling of being torn open and if my hands weren’t busy trying to shove my guts back into an otherwise empty cavern WHICH COULD BE EASILY FIXED IF I TOOK CARE OF MY SHIT.

But here we are.

The mess from the last disaster is still everywhere, the dust hasn’t settled and the blood hasn’t dried and I know all I’m doing is exacerbating… everything. But if you’re willing, I need you to stay here and be patient. Don’t give up on me. Don’t let me run.