Choked. Like somehow someway a cloud was wrapping itself around my neck and choking me. Like standing inside of an empty house. Birds are chirping, it’s a beautiful suburban scene playing in the background, a boy rides by the house on his bike. And I am standing in the window, pounding on it, hoping, pleading with my eyes for someone to call the fire department. No one sees me and no one can see the flames. My house is burning down and I’m choking on the smoke. Invisible flames, the damage invisible to all my friends, family, neighbors.
It will never be okay. This web I’ve painted for myself. The life I have lived so far has already been excruciatingly disappointing. I often wonder am I the only one that feels this way. Am I the only one that thinks this whole game of life is one colossal joke. Am I the only one who sees how truly absurd humans have chosen to be? How cruel we are to each other? How much we lie to each other? This kind of thinking makes it hard for me to have hope. It makes it really hard for me to trust.
I went to see a therapist at my school about these issues. Feeling crushed from every angle. Feeling isolated and alone. Encaged by own decisions, by my mind, by my looks. I was cracking. The lady was nice enough but then she asked if I’d prefer a black therapist or another therapist of color. I thought, “would she ask someone not black this question”. I pushed the thought aside. She provided more insight. She suggests I join a gospel choir. I’d already mentioned my disdain for organized religion. I rationalize the behavior. I had told her I liked to sing. She’s trying to be helpful. Addressing race is weird and hard and easy and weird. I go back for session two. I absolutely need help. Somehow, someway Black Lives Matter comes up. I don’t engage. My blackness was not my issue. I weigh my options, confront or leave. Which is easier. I leave. And now I’m back. Back to black says Amy.
I have created the perfect no way out scenario in my mind. And then it is confirmed when I step outside. My dreams have been waiting so long I forgot they existed. I have forgotten or perhaps I never knew what made me happy. What kind of an idiot does not know how to be happy? Doesn’t know how to dream anymore? After life burned me, I became obsessed with making the right choice. Only to discover there is no right choice. There is only what is right for you.
How was a broken girl to ever become anything but a broken woman. I learned as a child how to break things and leave them in ruin. I never saw redemption. I never saw growth. I saw broken people avoiding and running. Living in denial. Enabling abusers and users. I lived in a world where nothing was ever good enough. You could die tragically at any moment. Your day could be squashed by the most trivial mistake. Life was either or. You were either blessed or cursed and surely enough I had been cursed.
This incurable gift I have that wants to help others. To save the world. While the devil inside only wants to watch it burn. We don’t deserve this wonderment, I am convinced of this. As convinced as I am that I will never win. If there is a God he has forsaken me and I him. We never too much got along.
