I’m staring into traffic. I’m not in a car, I’m in my head. I’m sitting in a patio with music playing in my earbuds. But I’m staring, I’m not blinking, just staring into the vehicles that whizz by. I wonder if the people that are in those cars are daydreaming too. I wonder if they’re paying attention to the road with their full attention. I wonder what their lives are like, I wonder what happiness and pain inhabits them. I wonder what pain and happiness inhabit me.

Things become blurred and stir around inside my conscious and deep in my heart. Sometimes I can barely recognize it. I’m not always in my own head, but you all know this already. Dissociation gets the best of me more times than I can count. It holds me tightly in a foggy embrace that I’ve learned to call home. Here in this embrace, nothing phases or bothers me. I’m on autopilot. I don’t notice much around me, I’m usually fixated on something visually in front of me, not really taking it in though. It’s just a place for my eyes to rest while I drift away.

My reality and dreams sometimes get mixed up, and at times I can’t pull them apart and see which is which. When something consumes me and fills me up with positive feelings, I often wonder if it’s my mind playing a trick on me. In any given moment, it could all be pulled away from me, something grabbing the rug beneath my feet suddenly and knocking me down.

We all want the good feelings to last, we chase them frivolously in vain, convincing ourselves that it’ll stay this way forever now that we’ve got ahold of it. But it’s never the case. You can’t have sunshine without some rain. But you see, I’m so used to the rain. When the light shines through those dark clouds inside my heart, mind and soul, it blinds me and I shield my eyes away from it. But sometimes it’s persistent, the clouds melt away and I’m left with a burning heat that I’m trying to slip away from. But after a little bit, the sunshine feels so nice on my back that I have to turn around and let it shine on my face. I’m still so apprehensive though. I’m still waiting for the clouds to come back and the rain to fall on me. I’m ready for it. Because of this, I don’t always appreciate the sunshine that I’m basking in.

Sometimes it feels like it really is all in my head and all this happiness is made up in my head. So then when I come away from my dream world, I’m so sad and disappointed. I’m trying my best to separate my reality from my dreams. These dreams feel so much better than facing my waking life. Why can’t I bring those dreams into fruition? It takes so much time, it’s so hard, it’s so much easier to sit inside myself and just live there in my world of make-believe.

I know I have to wake up and face all that I’m slipping away from. I can create my own happiness through the pain. I know better, but sometimes it’s just necessary to fall away from reality and back into my world of wonder. I think I need to try harder as of late. I don’t want these dreams to convince me real life isn’t beautiful.

There’s so much beauty in the everyday. I just need to open my eyes, and my heart. I’ll find the path to serenity. I’m opening a new door and venturing into the unknown.

What will I discover? How will I feel? Who will I find?

Only time will tell.

xoxo,