I’m knocking softly on 2019’s front door. I’m patiently waiting for it to open wide, to welcome me in, to tell me to make myself at home and that good things are awaiting me. The door is open, and I can walk in and find some source of life again.

And yet, I still feel dead inside.

Why am I so numb? What have I become? Am I just a phantom of whatever living being I used to be? I’m endlessly searching for the answer, but everything just fades away.

There’s so many things I want, but my energy to reach those things has diminished. The energy and the fear team up and take me down.

I can’t make up my mind; I’m afraid and then I’m not. I’m brave and can face anything that tries to break through me. But then I close my eyes and I’m frozen in fear again. I can’t move, I can’t find the safety I had moments ago. Why can’t I stay in one place? Why has this instability followed me around through my life? It’s the friend I never wanted, I never asked for. It’s not welcome here and yet it continues to curse me daily.

When anything good happens, that fear emerges and tells me it’s not real. It tells me that these good things aren’t meant for me, they aren’t mean to last, and the curse I’ve been cursed with will chase it all away eventually and I’ll be alone once again. I try to reason with the fear, I try to calm it down, I try to shove it down a dark hole where it can’t get to me anymore but like an octopus with no skeleton, it slips through the cracks somehow and chokes me mercilessly.

My words may not make sense, but I close my eyes and write this out anyway. I need to find a way to get this darkness out of my veins and onto something else that can carry the burden, even just for a little while. I haven’t had much desire or inspiration to write but I know I have to force myself. Just like how the fear forces me to look away to stay “safe.”

Once upon a time, I used to be so open with my heart. And it only feels like recently I’ve put it back up on the shelf, and now it’s collecting dust. But at least it’s safe there, nobody can reach it. Hell, I can barely reach it. So many have touched it, shattered it, walked away from it without any regard. I’ve become so tired trying to keep it together and hand it off to someone else. It’s just so much easier to leave it where nobody can find it.

But there’s a pair of hands that have found it through the darkness and the cob webs that have collected around it. And without me even looking, they’ve plucked it off of the shelf and they’re holding it carefully. I’m in disbelief and I’m afraid and part of me wants my broken heart back so I can throw it back on the shelf. But then the other part of me is curious to see how these gentle hands handle my cold heart. Fear is telling me to snatch it back, trying to shove any reason at me to get it back, to abandon ship, to run away, to push away any chance of loving redemption… but then I hear a little voice from somewhere within me telling me to trust these hands, because they mean to cause no harm. But of course fear tells me that these hands will crush my heart eventually, and that I’ll be back to square one. I’m on a tightrope trying to make a decision; I’m not sure how much longer I can balance before I fall off.

It takes so much time to heal, to forgive, to forget. Sometimes not all of those happen in order, or at all. I see those hands and they’re everything I could want. But fear is overruling my logic and causing me to second-guess all the decisions I make and feelings I feel. I’m doing all I can to silence the fear. It takes so much time.

I haven’t had much luck with this whole love thing. I’ve said it before, but I’ve become my self-fulfilling prophecy when it comes to these kinds of things. My mental health goes out the window, I forget everything I’ve learned about my disorder and how to manage it when things get messy. I don’t want to put this burden on these gentle hands. I’ve been touched by someone who is so pure in every way, and I don’t want to taint their hands with my cursed hands. Fear keeps telling me it’s going to fail. I’m going to fail. I don’t want to fail.

I’m my own worst enemy, and I still haven’t figured out how to manage that part of me. Do we ever learn how to manage it? I feel my mind going somewhere else, the dissociation is beginning. I’m trying to fight it. My mind is going blank though.

I will try to let these hands hold my heart. I just hope it’s not me who smacks it out of their hands because fear told me to do so.

 

 

Let me go, fear. Release me.

 

 

xoxo,