Release

I’m not posting this directly; by the time it makes it to the blog it will have been saved to my flash drive and posted from a computer whose Internet is currently functioning, unlike mine. But I’m having a moment of misery and finally realized that the only thing that would make me feel better would be to do what comes naturally to me: to write. So today is actually September 17, 2009, at 10:28 PM. God knows what time it will be when I finish.

Several minutes ago, trying in small, distorted ways to make sense of my life, I realized- or perhaps simply imagined- something. The reason that I hold not one, but many personas; the reason pretend and bury my emotions is because I know that if I expose myself fully to the bleak, cold light of reality I won’t be able to stand it, emotionally. I thought, “I may not be strong enough to cope with reality, but I’m smart enough to protect myself from it.” Though this statement is, at the very least, interesting, there’s a devastating undertone ringing in my ears. I have always- always- valued strength. Strength of body, mind and heart. I have strength of body (though it’s something I enjoy improving upon…), and I have strength of mind. I have motivation and resolve. I have the strength to take four advanced, accelerated or AP classes and still come home and make dinner. I have the strength to be persistent when necessary and to stand up for what I believe in. Yet somehow I don’t seem to be strong enough to fully accept what is true; what is real. Instead, I appear happy in the day and break down alone.

Lately something ominous has begun. Or re-begun. At times during my days I will part with someone or end a conversation and, as soon as I am detached from the other person, tears spring into my eyes as if they’d been waiting until no one was looking. Once today during a conversation I turned away from the person to walk in front of them in a stairwell and feel my face crumple into an image of despondency.

This has happened before, and what ensued was something that I will neither forget nor relive. Instead of suppressing my emotions I’m trying to let them be. However, this has very nearly resulted in crying in public—over nothing. I try instead to cheer myself, a technique that has worked spectacularly for me in the past. Nothing. I find that in me there is something that doesn’t even want to feel happy. That scares me. Nothing is so dangerous as the disorder which is accompanied by complacency; the disease which brings to the victim a loathing for health.

So I turn my mind to optimism. I think, “I work now for the future.” Somehow that’s not enough at the moment. Somehow the opposition from so many places is pulling me down. And were it not for my few allies, those who care enough to listen and understand, I may fight tooth and nail. But at present I simply cling onto others for life support while ceaseless fire reigns down upon us. Being an outcast is something I don’t mind. Something I even enjoy. But it is somehow disturbing when the adults—so-called role models—discourage and practically punish an adolescent for being willing to work hard and to pull more than their weight.

Perhaps the most tiring thing of all is that my personality is such that people sometimes cannot help but take advantage of me. I offer myself up as a doormat, unquestioningly accepting work and responsibilities that others simply don’t want, or lending out my patience to people with long and ultimately mundane problems or a desire to waste my time. Even those people I am closest to can’t help it. I want not to trust them; to be callous or rude and deny them my effort and my patience and use it for my own means. Yet I cannot and do not want to. If any strength remaining in me is admirable, it is that patience which enables me to be taken advantage of over and over and continue to give unconditionally. It is both disgustingly unrespectable and deserving of great respect.

Once again I feel as if I owe some gratitude to the wonder of technology or to the art of writing, for in a short time my frustrations have been wholly cleared. Oddly, even though I am very much inclined towards visual art, nothing allows me peace of mind like writing. Whether I write about my difficulty or about something completely irrelevant, I invariable feel new afterwards. Now, to my great displeasure, I must return to the objective, boring work of everyday life. Perhaps if I am at a library soon I will have time to write some fiction—I’m in the mood to write myself into a vessel of space and time and explore the bounds of reality.