I wonder, why is that you affect me in such a way?
It's been five months since I met you and without trying or
meaning to that you changed my world. My feelings for you aren't love; I didn't
get to know you that well enough for that. And yet the sound of your voice puts
my heart in my throat; as well as instilling a feeling of adoration and want. That
are then immediately followed by feelings of embarrassment, anger and a
profound sadness. Whether you are there or not. I want so hard to be happy for
you and your relationship, but I can no longer pretend that I'm not interested
in people. Keeping that secret isn't fair to me or to others.
I need to live and learn to love myself so I will no longer
look into the mirror and feel disgust, both for the things that I did when I
was young and for the person that I've allowed myself to become. But it's time
for me to move on. I need to be better than my abusers and move past the horrors
of my youth. I need to love myself, for myself, so I can help the next
generations to learn from my mistakes.
They say that to learn to breathe you must first breathe
out. That the first lesson to truly relax is to accept that which you stress
over and then let it go. Even if you can only do it for a few minutes; in time
it will get better. For the past few months, I have allowed my anxieties, paranoia,
and depression control my life. The psychosis from my past has controlled my
future, and my hopes for the future have drowned my present.
For years I've tried to hide from my memories, and I have
gotten pretty damn good at it. Though at times my memories started to poke
through to my conscious mind and I was forced to go to Sanctuaries. Be they at
my friends or to church. But this year when I finally bounced off the ground,
when my memories started to return I had no sanctuary to go to. I no longer
felt safe at my friends, as they had betrayed me; I no longer felt at home in
the church. I couldn't even feel the presence of the LORD, while I was there.
For a long time I had blamed other for my problems. Though
they may not be blameless for my current issues, they are not the cause of the
root issue; my problems are my own. I have survived to this point, but I have
refused to live; as I was unable to love myself. I disposed the person I was as
a child and I hated the person I had become.
As this chapter of my life comes to a close, I look to the
present and wonder. What can I do at this moment to improve myself? I need to
take care of myself better; I have to begin to care for my health. To not just
use it as an excuse for others to pity me for it. I need to care my things, so
I can have control of my finances and my life. Yet, I won't make a promise to
do these things, for I have tried that before. And when I broke those promises
to myself, even if to no fault of my own, my psychosis got worse. Even if the
promise wasn't keepable.
As I think about the past, I can now see both the good and
the bad. I see that which I could not see before. Love from others, as well as
my own disrespect. Even though I was hurt when others disrespected me. I had
wanted so much of others, but I had refused to return those same wants.
It's time for me to breathe out, let it go, and move on.
~Nathan
