intersectingdreams

[intersectingdreams]

There is a war within me.

I am also the collateral damage.

I don’t see a future where I come out unscathed.

I am tired and I’m my defenses are down, so I revert back to my golden retriever energy and wag my tail when you walk in the door even though you kicked me before you left. I know this (and love this) about me, but you probably love it more because there are never any consequences and you’re free to do as you please. I do believe in personal freedom above most else, but in freeing you I have caged myself. Treating you with respect means disrespecting myself. Prioritizing your happiness means devaluing my own. Building you up means I’m positioning you to knock me down. Being vulnerable with you means dripping blood into a pool of sharks. That’s not sustainable for me, but our dynamic has to evolve if we plan to stay in each others’ lives, and you don’t want that. You don’t see a problem with way things are. I can see why. I haven’t even asked for the bare minimum in our relationship, and because I didn’t expect even that, you didn’t deliver even that. And that was my fault for not seeing it earlier. It’s not like this came out of nowhere. It’s more likely that one day I just woke up and thought “wow, I spent over a decade begging these people to love me,” and from that day forward I have been weary. My distance is jarring to you because you’ve never seen this side of me. Now I’ve changed and you’ve noticed, but even after all the talking (🤮) you do not believe that you contributed to this problem.

I have always loved that you’re confident and hard-headed. I value those traits - mental grit and fortitude, perseverance, and a strong character. But what happens when someone with those traits uses them in a hateful, destructive way?

The possibility that a dream I have had and been working toward for 20 years could be down the drain because of your careless, spiteful actions is still shocking to me. I don’t want it to be true. I’m just delusional enough to believe that I may skate by and still be able to build my dream, but the unnecessary stress involved is an unfair price for me to pay for your ridiculousness. I can’t imagine that you could watch the pain and the devastation and the tears and the begging and not be moved to change. I don’t want pity, I want teamwork. If I’m still here sticking things out and fighting for the family, how can you so callously expect that your mistakes are my cross to bear?

The more I think about it, the less I want to forgive. I’d like to sit in this fire of rage and anger and burn alive if it means I will be able to step forward. A masochist needs pain to feel alive, and this may be the most alive and connected to reality I’ve ever felt.

Long story short, you really suck and made my life harder on purpose because you’re not able to deal with your own shit. I feel bad for you on one hand, but on the other hand, feeling bad for you means invalidating my very valid feelings in response to your abhorrent behavior.

I want you to have beautiful things in life while still allowing myself to have some as well.

[intersectingdreams]

I am deeply hurt and I’m not handling it well!

I want to smash everything all of the time!

I don’t want to get over it!

It will happen again and I can’t handle that!

This fucking sucks and it’s fucking whack and I am fucking dying by 1,000 papercuts and I’m reaching out from the floor for you to see me, to acknowledge what you did to get me here, and I want you to… help? I want you to… feel? I want you to… care?

I’m a fucking joke.

And I’m dying laughing over here.

[intersectingdreams]

I had an online journal when I was young, and the nostalgia is real.

I forgot how it feels to scream into the void.

There’s no name for the feeling yet, but I know what it’s not. It’s not freedom (in the namelessness) or bliss (in the release) or fear (of being found) or anticipation (of the interaction) or loneliness (in the echo) or the callousness (in writing my thoughts for no one rather than sharing them with myself first) or the dichotomy (of what I allow myself to feel vs the anger that bubbles up every time I run through a group of delicately connected thoughts)

Or what’s a feeling anyway

Maybe I need the feelings wheel and that will solve the problem

Maybe I need this.

I scream in my car,

I scream into random pairs of pants as I’m folding,

I scream into my work apron,

I scream in my mind,

I scream when I’m singing along,

I scream when I’m lying on the floor,

I scream with no visible emotion, just a disorienting shriek from a wraith in the fog of a dark night.

Sounds dramatic, but it’s just a random buildup of random emotion that my body needs to release, and it’s glorious.

I’m not an animal - I don’t do it for attention or when anyone’s around or to express dissatisfaction or to signal that I’m about to implode.

But it’s nice to yelp with joy, let out a high-pitched gurgle when the traffic is piled up, say something out loud that makes me feel silly and goofy and electric and then scream it all away. The pressure slowly releases and the optimism come back and the smile goes on and the motivation rears its beautiful head and the delusion comes on strong and the work doesn’t seem half as hard and the possibility of failure is just a shadow in my mind rather than a pulsing living abomination strangling my thoughts and the air feels breezier and the inspiration flows freely and my mindset shifts and I’m back, baby.

[intersectingdreams]

It’s not a midlife crisis if my frontal lobe just finished developing, so I’m calling this teenage angst ✨the sequel✨

Emotional turmoil, existential crisis, nihilism.

Iterations of a life never lived winding their way through every hole love has created in my heart; every nook and cranny the drugs created in my brain; the empty spaces where me, myself, and I used to connect.

A shadow, a tagalong, a third wheel, an imposter.

Sometimes it’s “me,” sometimes it’s her.

She watches over “my” shoulder like a protective older brother, ready to burn it all down at a moment’s notice for any perceived slight.

She knows “I” am too tenderhearted for this world, and she’s ready to run and take “me” with her as the world burns down around us.

Escapism.

Drafting blueprints, sketching hypotheticals, scheming underground escape routes, building pipe dreams, all of them leading away from the pain I’m now numb to in search of more.

Nothing tangible, though she feels connected to the pain of the dream, the loss, the failure, the success.

If it doesn’t hurt, could it be real?

Living in the most agonizing memories in the quiet moments that are few and far between.

Smiling, laughing, charisma every time someone enters the room.

Temporary integration.

Simply net zero.

It starts again the second the room goes dark.