I’m feeling awful. Really, really awful. That’s been me for a while now. Sometimes I laugh about it. What else can I do? I can’t even cry anymore. The emptiness… it just sits there, like an awkward guest I didn’t invite but now I have to entertain. I don’t know what to do with it.
To be alive, at least for me, is to pretend I’m okay.
If I could do anything right now, I’d like to ride a bicycle. Somewhere quiet, surrounded by trees. No psyched up strangers or friends telling me, “You got this!” (I don’t.) Just me, riding alone, stopping to breathe every minute. Trees don’t judge you for stopping. Trees don’t make you feel like catching your breath is some kind of crime. They let you be.
If I’m lucky, maybe I’ll catch that feeling again. The one I used to have when my friend cycled, and I’d sit on the back for hours. I don’t know what to do with the new feelings I’ve learned. I just want to sit and be. I miss that.
If I could do anything right now, I’d like to run.
It used to be my secret wish, i’d pray, actual prayers, for madness. To wake up wild and reckless, running with no destination. To run and not feel. But now I know madness comes with a price. It’s not the freedom I imagined.
Still, I’d like to run. Fast and far. Too exhausted to care.
Most days feel impossible to survive, the emptiness, it just hangs around. But dying? That’s not easy either… I’m too afraid. So I’m stuck. Unable to live, unable to let go.
Thank God for Netflix’s From Scratch. I stumbled upon it again today. My brain, mercifully, forgets the plot and only remembers the feeling. It’s like watching it for the first time.
It’s getting harder to feel these days. Harder to lose myself in a story and believe, even for a second, that life might hold something magical. These endless loops of days… But for now, I’m glad I pressed play. Watching From Scratch, I felt it again. Just for a while, I feel it again.
PIECESBYRUTH 