I'm Not Surprised...

But I never feel quite prepared.

When I was a very small child, I lived my whole life. By which I mean that my childbrain crafted the most fantastic dream spanning a lifetime. Full of color and depth, characters and emotions. Accomplishments. Failures. I grew and dreamed and cried and loved. And hated. Everything so vivid, everything real the way breathing is real. Then I woke up. More accurately, my mother woke me up because it was time for preschool.

My entire life I have felt the vestiges of that dreamlife resonating somewhere beneath the surface of my reality. I’ve always felt like this existence was a puzzle I’d put together once already. Some cosmic hand had scrambled the pieces, put them back in the box and asked me to start over. The picture would always be the same; the sequence would eventually unfold even if the pieces came back together in a different order.

I was 26 years old when I woke from the dreamlife as a child again. And part of me, sometimes conscious sometimes not, has always expected that would be the end of this assumed waking life.  

Three (nearly four) years ago I ran away from the home I’d burned down, every single lie I’d ever told nipping at my heels. I started b Honest with the intention of just that: to BE HONEST. With the new people I met. With the people I’d left behind. But most especially with myself. I wanted a public forum to hold myself accountable, somewhere to reflect openly and genuinely on my thoughts, observations, and feelings. What I found is that honesty is hard. Wherever you go, there you are, and here I am with all the lies I didn’t know I was telling starting to salivate offscreen. If time is in fact cyclical and unchangeable, this is the point in the story where I start drinking gasoline and swallowing other people like lit matches, trying to set myself on fire.

Or.

I can claw through the charred rubble of my own history and show you this vulnerable, beating heart beneath it all. This sounds hyperbolic because it has to be. It has to be steeped in metaphor because everything I’m feeling is too real, and I’m so very scared of you all.

Today I turned 27 years old. I outlived the dreamlife. And I wish I could tell you my first response was relief, because it wasn’t. Isn’t. It’s so much more complex than that. There are so many good things in this life. Good people, good experiences. But I am tired, and I thought I was nearly finished running. I’m staggering over the perceived finish line while the universe whispers in my ear that I have to keep going, and I’m not allowed to know how far or how long. And I’m tired. I’m running beyond the estimation of my capabilities and I’m tired. Terrified.

I’m not writing this so you can feel sorry for me. I’m not writing it so you can try to fix or reassure me. I’m just trying to get back to the original mission of this blog: a space to examine my thoughts and feelings. A space to be vulnerable and hold myself accountable. I didn’t die. I didn’t wake up. I have to/get to keep running this race. So here I go. Plunging into the next year of my life; this year I never expected to have. I am so thankful for the love and support you’ve all shown today. Every day.

I love you.

-b