Dead Month, Dead Me

Another article from Thought Catalog.

I wake up heavy. For a moment, I attempt to smile. But the weight of my everything presses down on me and I recede into the dark heaviness. Be happy, I think, you have no reason not to be. Work with me, I say to my brain, but it just fades away. I try so hard to control everything in my life, chasing dreams and success and recognition, but when I turn inwards it slips away. I’m always running, running, running, but I can’t define the finish line.

My body rises, slow-moving and uninspired. I go through the day, drinking coffee to jolt my body toward a normal speed. As long as I keep running, it works. When I pause to take a breath, the heaviness comes crashing on to me and I reach my hand out from under it, gasping for another distraction, something I can control. Let me study, I can master it. Give me a book or a blank paper and I’ll luxuriate in the familiar ease of it all. But when I try to study my brain? The ease becomes oppression; I can understand and intellectualize the workings of my brain but I can’t shed the pounds of feeling. I’m a doctor who knows the anatomy lying underneath like the back of my hand, but I can’t get through the fat. I’m sad because of X, I say, I will feel better if I do Y. Do Y, I say. Please just do Y.

I don’t do Y. I start to try, then fall back. What if I try doing Y and fail? Failing, vulnerability: this is not me. I long to feel loved, fulfilled. But to be loved you must accept love; to be fulfilled you must make space. I open myself to too few people, too few experiences, and then demand too much of them. I was not raised to be vulnerable: I was raised to run. I was raised in privilege and I attack myself for this, questioning my right to be anything but happy. I look at the strange projection of myself that exists on a screen, pointing to my smiles and the people that surround me: look, you are happy. Brain, be happy. Do Y. Please just do Y.

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THIS. Oh such great timing. That’s why I keep reading TC. This matter has been puzzling in my head for a while now. I'm twenty-two and I have felt like I'm in a constant state of uncertainty and despair. I always feel like I have to find my "calling" to be happy. I'm tired of waiting for the future to be happy. I'm going to be happy NOW! There is this quote I want to share that makes me feel good and always telling this to myself, "Flow with whatever may happen and let your mind be free, stay centered by accepting whatever you are doing, this is the ultimate". I also loved the phrase "...I long to feel loved, fulfilled. But to be loved you must accept love; to be fulfilled you must make space..."