Lessons Learned

"I realized my main issue while listening to Coldplay.

Chris Martin was singing about the stars being all yellow and I had realized that I wanted out of my own life. Not in a suicide kind of way. More like, a everyone-leave-me-alone, burning-bridges kind of way.

I was overloaded by everything they wanted from me. Give, take, want. What the hell was I? A plate of cookies? They consumed me, every bit of me until I was mere bone. I stared at my skeleton self in the mirror, noticing each crack in my structure, wondering whose hit had caused which scar.

And all the time my inner radio played on and on. I had 8 easy steps for letting go of all of this shit; I had torn myself open again and again. Nothing changed. Nothing got better. I was overloaded.

How can you go through the days and let everyone take a piece of you away? You were once a great monument of strength. Days went by and the rain stained your stones grey, left leaks in your roof. Weeds choked the ground around you. And as time went by, everyone came and took your stones away, bit by bit for their own use. A place of comfort, a bridge, a fortress. And then you looked down and realized you were crumbling. Your foundation was giving way....you were leaning too far over, about to fall.

But you pretended like you meant to do that. And so no one offered you any support. Because you were so good at pretending.

They destroyed your own emotions so all you could feel was theirs. They left you open, stranded, too empathetic to break away.

Or maybe that's just me. The oversensitive one. The one who always gets too much. I know so much it makes my head throb every night. I feel so much that I'm numb from a continuous overload. The system can't compute. Error, error. Reboot.

Reboot my life. How did it get to this point? Where everyone says they care but then they always want something. Expect everything. They come with hands outstretched and what am I to do then? Tears in eyes--do I turn them away?

I can't.

I can't on principle, on moral, on the fact that I care too damn much for my own capacity. Draining me. Every last drop. The modern day vampires do not feast on blood but on emotion. Empathy. Sympathy.

Fuck my life."

I wrote the above rant almost two years ago. I never realized what a dark place I was in at the time. Last fall, I reached new levels of an all out low......so low I forgot about this previous struggle.

Since I seem to be on a reflecting on growth kick lately, I figured maybe this was something to talk about. I found this tonight when I was looking through old journals. I remember the exact moment of writing this. I'd escaped my room, armed with the green composition notebook, a blue pen, and my ipod I settled in the darkest corner I could find in the atrium of my dorm. I listened to only the most emotional songs that came up on shuffle, feeling sorry for myself as I scribbled as fast as I could.

I don't remember what drove me there....an argument with my then best friend? Another argument with my then fiancee? Or quite possibly, around the time I was told, in no uncertain terms that I would have to choose between the two?

I don't remember. But I do remember that action of writing. I remember the small feeling of relief after I got all of those horrible words out of me.

It was everything I'd been wanting to say but couldn't. Everything I felt like I couldn't say because it would hurt people. Because maybe I was being selfish and too sensitive. Maybe I was a weakling who couldn't handle this. I just needed to be stronger. If I spoke up, I made myself sound like a martyr.

That's not what I wanted to be. So I'd keep quiet. I can handle so much more.

That was my mantra back then. Avoid trouble at all costs. Sweep real issues under the rug. Life was easier that way, and at least if you did that, people still had your back. But I was lying to myself because the people who I thought had my back were, in fact, breaking it.

But I've learned. I learned to tell the truth. I learned to admit when something's bothering me. I learned to tell the people closest to me how I really feel. I've learned that true friends expect nothing from you and all they want is your friendship. And I learned that it's not selfish to want time to yourself, to want to step back, to need to do things only for you.

And it's okay to ask for help. This is not a weakness. This is not a sign that you're broken or a weakling or messed up. It just means that you can't handle everything on your own. And that's okay. Burdens are hard to carry by yourself. This is what Bill Withers was talking about when he wrote Lean On Me.

Please swallow your pride
If I have things
You need to borrow

For no one can fill
Those of your needs
That you won't let show

You just call on me brother
When you need a hand
We all need somebody to lean on

I just might have a problem
That you'll understand
We all need somebody to lean on

I'm still learning how to appreciate this. Another sign that you keep learning lessons, no matter how long you've been out of school.