Undone

It's midnight. I'm back to writing when I'm so compelled that there's no choice but to write. As I climbed in bed tonight I was overcome with a familiar dread that has creeped into my life. This fear that things will always be this way. Instead of suffering alone, as I tend to do, I took my crying ass downstairs and knocked on M.'s door and blurted it all out. I'm scared that the more and more self-sufficient I get, the more distance I put between me and men. I'm terrified that, with this next step in my life, that I'm just hammering another nail in the proverbial coffin of being on my own. Slamming the door on what I imagined for myself. They say buying a home and moving are high up on the list of stressors and while I've been fairly low-key during this whole thing, it's coming down to it and in a month I'll move and the next chapter starts. And it scares me. Which is probably precisely why it's necessary. I am a mess on the inside. It's all churning about in this horrific stew that sits like a lump in my stomach and travels up into my chest.

Someone recently made some sort of comment that they were glad to find out I wasn't perfect. It's not the first time I've heard that and I am surprised that anyone thinks it. Sometimes I wonder how it's hurt me - this perception that more than one person has had that I have it all together. Ask my roommate. I don't. I wish. I am a broken person. I need. And I am frankly now just too tired to keep up the facade that I am fine and strong and moving forward. It's a lie. I owe it to myself and to other women who feel the same pain. I am suffering and sometimes think I can't bare it anymore. I'm afraid of being left behind. I have danced around it, but the truth is that I have been grieving him terribly. I dream about him every few days and it's always the same and I wake up with a sore jaw from grinding my teeth. I am not okay with this. It was devastating to watch him walk away and I'm still in pain. Sometimes I imagine him knocking on my front door and taking me by surprise. Or I'm sitting in church and think "Maybe he'll slip in next to me and put his arm around my shoulder and everything will be okay." Or he'll even suddenly appear onstage and talk to me and tell me how he feels. I can't seem to shake these thoughts. I'm not even going to qualify any of this because I know there is worse suffering on earth and there will always be grief to deal with no matter what path my life takes. Whether or not I get the things I want. Or things happen in my timing. But I feel like I asked for chocolate cake and got pie instead. I don't like pie. But I'm pretending to like it and am trying to convince myself it's good for me. I am disappointed. I don't want the pie! And I don't think I can fraternize with hope anymore. That's just where I am right now. For what it's worth, I do think God is using this in my life to make me more myself, more genuine and at ease (I am terribly self-concious), and to help other women. It's high time I stopped playing it safe. This is me. I am unraveling. I once said I wanted to come undone, knowing inherently it somehow was so very necessary. It's happening. I'm not going to hide it. I met with an older woman at church. An amazing woman. We talked about some of these things and she marveled at how many times she's heard it from younger women. And we talked about the moral imperative of taking these things that shred my heart and revealing them, if even to just help some young women down the line. I'm opening up the conversation in a big way. I look forward to what lies on the other side.