a reflection of my emotion-suppressing 19-year-old self
I’ve been taught since young to self-medicate my emotions.
This does not necessarily mean self-love
— no.
I was taught to endure, rather than address pain.
I was told that my pain could not compare to the pain experienced by those less fortunate,
hence sadly I adapted —
to the false reality that I did not deserve to speak of my emotions.
I was constantly told that there was always someone else who couldn’t take it,
so I had to be the one who could.
And soon enough I started to love,
and it became wanting to be the one who would.
I don’t know who would truly accept me,
if I really broke into myself;
if I really told the world the extent of these bottled-up emotions —
I too, worry if I’d accept me.
We can be a totally functioning and mostly happy people,
but there are things that many of us have concealed.
I made my mom laugh by re-enacting the course of my day,
my dad — with singing deliberately made obnoxious and off-key;
my grandmother — by complaining about my horrible fashion sense and love of hiding behind dark colours,
my friends and colleagues — with my random anecdotes of my humdrum life.
But after all is said and done,
I was looked in the eyes, in the depths of the night,
and told —
“my dear girl,
you may have described a good day —
but I know,
that your soul is sick.”
I’ll admit,
I don’t know who I am some days.
I get confused,
between what I am really feeling —
and what I’ve told myself to feel.
They tell me to breathe —
to find work that keeps me busy;
to turn up the music and silence my doubts;
to not be alone with the white noise in my head and physically get out of these four walls.
These do work in some ways —
but has my core truly been solved?
I don’t know.
Has it?
I was told tonight —
“have you forgotten how to make one of the most important people happy?
that person is you.”
your soul is sick, she said —
but really,
aren’t we all?
They told me to breathe,
But it’s time
that I tell this to me instead —
in my own pace and in my own peace.
