I wrote this months ago but chose to post it now after experiencing certain circumstances last week that involved 16 hour days, sermons, and a pack of wild baboons.
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I’d tell others the reason I panicked in the outdoor store I ventured to in order to start collecting gear for my trip wasn’t because of you. Maybe I’d tell myself I was simply too tired and tell questioning people that it was overwhelming and I left with nothing because of practical reasons – the cost, the choices, the crowd, my inexperience with hiking gear, or I didn’t find anything that I liked.
But it was you. It was mostly you.
I don’t talk about you. The world has their distorted perspectives on what you are, I find it is easier to not use my voice at all in this mix of noise. Some overexpose you until culture becomes unbothered by the mention of you, like you’re the new trend that will come to pass in a few generations. That somehow you’re “cool” now. I don’t understand this, I’ll put you up for adoption on Craigslist if someone wants you.
The other way we swing is to remain in silence.
I feel like silence is safer with you.
If I talk about you, I’m suddenly labeled. I can already feel the heat of eyes skimming this page; judging, relating, scoffing, concerned after shaking out their taboo about you like unsnipping a stained shirt from the clothesline and holding it up to me. Does it fit? People might take their neatly boxed up stigmas that they apply to you and cover me in it.
When people look at me, I don’t want them to see you at my side.
Perfect men and women don’t know you well. Perfect men and women only have heard of you. Right?
If they see you, maybe they won’t love me. If they see you, maybe they’ll question everything else about me that is bold, steadfast, and lighthearted. If they see you, maybe they’ll reject me. If they see you, I just know I’ll be ashamed. Seen as attention-seeking, clingy, or over dramatic. You aren’t always the conclusion for my actions but you have your scenes. And some do manipulate your name to receive pity or the spotlight, but most do not that truly know your character. You aren’t glamorous and you aren’t something to boast about.
I don’t know if anyone has ever told you this before but you should consider switching occupations. You make people feel like they’re suffocating. That there is an imaginary elephant taking up residence on our chest. That there is some unforeseen threat looming behind that smile of a significant other sitting across from us. That we just know what those people must be thinking about us as we shake their hand and say hello. That the manager can hear you tell us that we’ll never make anything of ourselves, that we’re failures, as we nervously fidget as we sit through the interview. In moments, we cannot even find the reason for you hanging around.
You can make us feel consumed with inadequacy and fear about hypothetical situations that may never happen.
Keep ahead. Anticipate. The pain cannot touch you if you already know it’s coming. The hurt cannot permeate your bones if you already know.
Stay calm, stay calm.
But what if?
You cause thoughts to sizzle the mind’s synapses until we’re longing for a method to turn you down. You’re loud. You don’t say nice things and you’re incredibly rude. Your favorite conversation involves shaming, ruining confidence, instilling fear, and holding people back from what they’re made for. You can paralyze us with your words until we’re spiraling, drunk and disoriented on everything you have to share. And you talk a lot. It’s like a hundred people cramming and shimmying to fit in a room only designed for ten.
It’s not only in the head, but in the body. Muscles flickering like a string of lights zilched on battery power, dizziness that causes the room to feel a little off kilter, and stomach discomfort that has nothing to do with indigestion. Clammy hands and a skittering heartbeat.
A misconception is that you are us. You visit each of us in different intensities, times, durations, and forms. You’re a spontaneous arrival sometimes but I am thankful you no longer like me as much as you used to.
Because I’ve learned how to clip your wings. I used to not understand how to handle you but I’ve learned the skills to set my own traps for you, I can make you stumble instead of allowing you to pin me down. I was once unsure of your face and uncertain of your weaknesses but I’ve come to know you and I know you by name now. I can pick you out in a crowd. I don’t want to let you even be a possible sliver of the wreckage of things in my life anymore. You cannot have a role, you cannot be a part of the cast, and you cannot have the stage.
And I’ll make you useful, I’ll make you a tool in this upcoming journey. There’s some things you’re good for, it’s to tell people they’re not the only one. You stir deep feelings, I’ll give you some credit of being a piece of fostering empathy.
God and I can put you to work to create connection instead of distance.
I’ll use my voice to tell people they aren’t struggling alone even if it puts me at risk of being seen by others as somehow flawed. Maybe I should welcome it, because that’s the truth, I am flawed. I’m not the untouchable woman.
I’ve become fed up for a while with hustling to reveal myself as someone perfect because I thought that was the recipe to being loved. This includes shoving you under the bed when guests ask to see the workings of my heart and mind.
I’ve hustled to project an image of reality that is false. I do this in life at times. We revel and tweet about the essential need to be authentic with each other while we simultaneously dress our pictures up in filters.
I’ll haul you into the light of day even if you fight to escape back to your hiding place, everyone should see you. Your preferred home is in isolation but those reading this that have met you too should know you sneak into a lot of our lives, sometimes accompanied by your close companion. That you’re actually frail and that they aren’t individually stranded in your vices.
You are real but you cannot have domination. You’re cunning and deceitful, you weigh my thoughts and you set stones into my heart. You may be real, but what you are mostly is a liar. My God speaks truth over me, the sweet whispers that you have no hold over me. He made me free. I am free. You can try to smother me in thoughts, try to coax me into fear and worry, but I’ll never stay because He always comes. Him and I together will continue to overcome you.
