Ramble 1
I was trying to get over my writers block by writing something.
I feel this ran away from me a bit...
Here’s the thing about having a crush on someone for fifteen years; it never goes away.
Sure, it might ebb sometimes. You’ll meet someone else, they meet someone else. You change jobs, move cities or countries, get on with your life. You’re fine. Really, you are.
And then...one day, just out of the blue, there’s a picture posted and your stomach contracts painfully. Because there they are, smiling happily at the camera. And there’s this nasty little voice in your head cursing them. Why? Why are they happy without you? Who’s making them happy? Why can’t it be you?
But then the rational, logical part of your brain takes over and you smile, because, at the end of the day, you’re happy that they’re happy. Maybe you couldn’t have made them happy. Maybe it just wasn’t meant to be. And maybe you should work a little harder on your own happiness.
Sometimes, in the dark, quiet hours of dawn, at the bottom of a bottle, you allow yourself to imagine things. Imagine a reunion. Imagine a confession. Imagine a future. But then that little voice that hides in your self-disgust and low esteem pipes up and banishes the thoughts. Get a grip. Move on. For Strummer’s sake, move the fuck on. They don’t spare a second thought about your existence, so stop wasting all this time. You were friends ten years ago. Now, you’re a fucking Gotye song. No one deserves that. At the most, you can be that P!nk song.
So you like the photo and continue to scroll, letting it be buried amongst the hundreds of others on your news feed. One day, you too will post pictures on there of you smiling. In the meantime, you continue to post amusing, sassy memes and quotes. At least until you can convince your lips to stretch the way they should - in an outwards and upwards direction. They seem to have forgotten and spend more time thin and pursed.
You try to distract yourself. Find someone else. Find someone who wants to talk to you, hear your thoughts, your jokes, your fears. Find someone who makes you catch your breath and feels the same.
It’s like that Alanis song - you’re surrounded by ten thousand spoons, when all you really want is a knife.
You’re shouting into the abyss - I’m here! Don’t you hear me? Don’t you want to hear me? And the returning echoes are all variations of rejections and scary comments, cutting into your skin. Like spear shaped hail. It drives you back into your shelter, your solitude, your self-imposed sanctuary. Here you may be alone, but you are safe.
Until that voice comes from the back of your mind to cut you down from the inside. To julienne your confidence and liquify your courage.
Where do you go then?