I’m being driven insane.
But I don’t quite know for sure by what.
Perhaps it’s my own mortality. I’m excruciatingly and entirely too aware of the barrier of my own flesh. Of my confinement within it. Of my limits and other’s expectations. Of the fragility of my weak and tired soul, my weary heart, and my ever churning mind.
I’m blinking.
One.
Two.
Three.
The seconds tick by. They’re lost now. The minutes creep up and slip away without my noticing. Hours. Days. Where have they gone? I’m still here. I’m breathing. I feel my breath. I feel it push from my lungs to foster my life essence. I feel it so clearly it hurts. The searing pain of existing.
It’s almost too much.
I’m existing, time is moving. It all hurts like torn flesh and fresh blood. But I sit here unscathed.
No wounds adorn my body. No scars etch rivers into my skin. I’m fine. Too fine. I’m safe. I’m protected. Just like I’d always wanted, right? Then why does it feel like entrapment?
Why does breathing ache and living feel like unseen boundaries?
My mortality is driving me insane.
I could be out there, doing a million new things, exploring the great wide world, experiencing what everyone else calls ‘living’. I could be risking my life, causing my heart to race in excitement. Making something of my self on this horrible, soul devouring planet. That’s what they say, isn’t it? Have goals and ambitions. Live life to the fullest. They say you only live once. But I know that. I’m far too aware.
I could do all of it. My blood runs through my veins and my breath keeps coming. I could do it ALL!
But I’m too scared to walk out my front door.
Too scared that I’ll fail. Or won’t understand. Or misinterpret. Or mess everything up. Or become tongue tied. Or falter. Or let them all down. Or appear too dumb. Or inexperienced. Â
I’m too scared I won’t be able to handle it. I wasn’t trained for this. I can taste the bitter flavor of fear, shame, and embarrassment bubbling up the back of my throat right now. I feel it pooling on my tongue. It burns. I feel my restless mind concocting a terrifying succession of imagery. Cheeks burning hot and red. Blood pressure rising. Panic leaking into all the crevices in my body. There will be no one to help me. I’ll be all on my own.
I can’t deal with that kind of responsibility. I can’t have something so important rest on my vulnerable, weak shoulders.
Inadequate. Inadequate. Inadequate.
Fragile.
Breakable.
Scared.
I’ve been sheltered. I’ve been protected. I don’t feel ready for the world. It’s coming at me. Even as I sit here, alone, safe and warm. I know I should be. I know I should know where I’m going and what’s going on. But I don’t. I’m in the dark. In my safe, boring little world where the clock is ticking down and I’m still lost. I’m scared. I’m so, so scared.
I used to think I knew what I wanted. I ignored the world’s pressure and it’s screams and taunts.
I said what they told me didn’t matter, because I knew.
I’m delicate and vulnerable. I wasn’t built like everyone else. I was going to wait for the day I fall in love. I’ll fall in love, and everything will fall into place. I’ll marry a man who understands. I’ll have children. A lot of children. I’ll spend my life taking care of and nurturing them. One after the other after the other. I’ll teach them, I’ll love them. Then I’ll start over. All I wanted was to be a mom, love a man, and have a family. I didn’t need college. Or a career. Or worldly success.
I told myself that. And now that I tell myself that again, it tastes so sweet in my mouth. It tastes like sunsets in a pale pink sky. Open fields and tall trees. Cotton blankets and warm embers in a fireplace covered in finger paintings taped to the mantle. So right. So perfect. I was even beginning to think that might just be what God had planned for me. He created me for a reason. He doesn’t make mistakes, right?
But how is a girl who is afraid of the world going to find someone in it?
Who will see potential, and love a girl who is small, and scared. Who is twenty one years old and lives at home. Who doesn’t have a job and can’t even begin to think about working one without being entirely consumed with a bone chilling anxiety that causes physical sickness. Who didn’t go to college because there was nothing she felt drawn to enough to cash out on.
What would I say when he asks me ‘So, what do you do?’
I will say nothing. I am nothing. To the world, anyway. I could be a million different things on the inside. I could love endlessly. I could nurture a world so extensive and wonderful you’d never believe it. I could be insightful. And wise. And funny. And intriguing. On the inside. But how do you label things like that?
The world wants labels. Labels to define your standing in it. In a society that’s so unbelievably messed up.
21. No higher education. Unemployed.
That’s all they see me as. They don’t understand my reasoning. They don’t see me as a person. They read: Lazy. Unambitious. Unsuccessful. Unworthy.
If this is how the world sees me, how will a man ever want me? Why would he take in a stray cat with a tangled coat and no claws?
And that’s the beauty of this never ending cycle; I am not because I want you, but you won’t want me because I am not. How can I fulfill what I had once deemed ‘my calling’ without the crucial puzzle piece?
I cannot. Because my fear won’t let me try.
This is the reason for my claustrophobia.
I feel like I’m trapped, right where I am, but the time keeps moving. I am stuck. Why does it keep moving?
I’m aware of this.
Because I am aware of my own mortality.
My life has only barely begun, yet I feel as if it’s over. I feel like this is all there is. I’m doomed to this routine day in and day out. I feel like I have no future. I feel like what you see is what you get.
I’m aware that the world is going on outside me. I’m aware of the places, the people, and the possibilities. Yet I feel trapped. Subject to the made up notion of time and destined to dwindle down the exact same way as I have always done.
There is sun out there passed the horizon.
There is sand and the sea.
Cities and lights.
Sights and sounds.
Oceans to cross.
Languages to hear.
Things to touch, and climb, and caress.
Buildings to stare at.
People to stare at.
Words to learn.
Air to breath.
Papers to sign.
Books to read.
Pictures to take.
A life to live.
All out there on the horizon.
But I’m scared. So scared. Scared right down to the very bottom of my existence that I will never get to experience any of it at all. Or with someone I love.
But experiencing means leaving. Moving. Doing. Growing.
That’s another thing that scares me.
There used to be a clear, visible line that I would live along side of. There was me, a young teenage girl in school along with all the other young teenagers in school, and on the other side of the line there was the adults. But because of my mortality and the ceaseless progression of time, the line is growing dim. It’s fading. I am twenty one. I am not a child anymore. Not even close. I’ll never again have that luxury of carefree innocence. I’m deep and dark now. I’ve come to know. To understand. The line is fading. I see them, the adults, on the other side. I understand them better now. They don’t seem so foreign to me in their worldly knowledge, their pain, their thought process. I find myself laughing with them. Understanding their terminology. Appreciating their burdens and the way they make hardships seem effortless. Sometimes I catch myself desiring for them to see that I see them; I’m beginning to understand, I want to tell them, I’m not a child.
And I believe that is at the core of my insanity.
The line is fading.
I’m twenty one. I’m worthless. I’m single. I’m built for a life society will not allow. And I’m mortal.
And that scares me more than you could ever imagine.
Please, God, let me know why You put me here. Please tell me my mortal life has a purpose. Please tell me I’m not destined to collapse in on myself. Tell me I’m not going to die like this.
Please.
