My Truest Self

If you asked me to describe myself I would tell you I can’t. If you asked me the most influential moment in my life, I would tell you it was everything. I want to be myself all the time but the truth is I have no idea what that means.

From the first memory I have of when I was two to my current twenty-eighth year, I still cannot describe anything about who I truly am. All I can do is tell you in words all that I have seen and all that I understand. I suppose, in this way, it makes my whole story and the way I express it really me. Anything written is an example of who I am because words, no writing, is the only thing that has managed to let me express myself.

I want people to understand me and I want to find people who experience that same thoughts so I can connect to them. But life isn’t easy and it is difficult and sometimes the things we want and can do aren’t the same.

From the first day I can remember I’ve always felt alone. It didn’t matter if I was with another person, if I was supported, if the world looked my way, or if there was someone directly in front of me beckoning me to stay by their side.

Loneliness is a disease that spreads throughout the human body. Like a virus it starts off slow and then gradually gets worse. You can fight it, try to prevent it, and try to avoid it but eventually, in the end, only very few of us end up leaving our lives without being lonely.

The world seems so dark outside all the time no matter how sunny and the simple movements of breathing suddenly become heavy at the thought of moving. When does loneliness turn into despair? When does that despair start drowning you in an ocean of waves with no air?

The words of a dying man made me realize it doesn’t matter how full your life could possibly be, he still had regrets and misgivings. When did humans get to the point that they would forget those around them like they were never there?

The pain of watching someone whom you trusted with your life walk away from you in your time of need seeps so deep into one’s consciousness that it fundamentally effects who you are. The pain of repeatedly being turned away, thrown away, turned down for opportunities, being rejected for being what I was told to be instead of being how I wanted to be, and being treated like a piece of property changes how you view people in the world.

Burdens weigh down the shoulders like a rock tied to a lifeboat. Eventually you have to decide when to cut the rope before the boat sinks from the weight or the weight causes wear in the boat itself which can cause cracks and leaks before sinking. When does someone decide to jump out instead of going down with them? When does someone make the sacrifice to save everyone on board?

For a veteran like myself that answer is usually simple, you just do it. You form bonds because you are forced to trust the person next to you to keep you alive. If you are lucky, they become friends, you carry your battle buddy with you, and suddenly that burden is no longer just yours. I didn’t learn that lesson with them though, I learned it from a young boy the day before he died when I was young. I feel like the rest of the standardized world does not understand this and it is a fend-for-yourself kingdom.

When you experience what you believed to be a lifelong friend abandon you for being honest, being open, and trusting them with the truth; it ruins the way you can view the meaning of friendship. When someone who was a stranger says you’re their best friend in the world; suddenly you’re viewing of friendship changes. When a person who is supposed to be closest to you becomes the stranger and a stranger becomes that person closest to you; how are you supposed to view the meaning of forming relationships with people?

When you watch the very same people disappear; some there one day and gone the next, some dead in front of you with their bodies lifeless as you try to understand why it turned out that way, some you watch wither away every day until one day you hear of their funeral and some who pass by out of chance needing a way out of their despair; you finally realize that life no longer has the same meaning.

Where once I struggled everyday with my own existence, I seem to have finally let go. I no longer worry about leaving this world behind and have accepted it. I wake up every day and feel a different sort of purpose rather than to just survive and it keeps me going. I can finally accept life for what it is, short and difficult. I can look at my kids and husband and remember that I’m here for them and look forward to however long I am granted to watch them grow.

Being so close to death and nearly dying so many times has made me appreciate the value of a life. There is no same two and while money, items, and other things are replaceable; living things are not. So when I see someone or something that needs help, I help. When I go to a funeral I don’t despair, I talk about how they lived. When I see a life in need I cannot walk away, I’ve never been able to. Call me soft hearted or selfish for relieving my own guilt if I didn’t, but I have experienced miracles or unlucky luck and it has taught me that even a slightest change in someone’s life can affect them as a whole. So if I can help someone smile, why not?

Life is predictable and yet so unpredictable at the same time. Like a game of chess there are so many opening moves but once you get so far it is set in stone. Unless, you make an unexpected move. It comes with sacrifice but, hopefully, with perseverance you will flip the table. A chess master once taught me a game can be determined in the first three moves unless that last move is a move with determination.

I’ve always thought being myself meant being no one. I strived to be what was expected of me and no matter what I fell short. To be a black sheep amongst golden ones is a curse of its own. So how should I feel? How should I be true to myself when everything and everyone around me surrounds an image cultivated to their liking?

I want to make them all proud of me yet, I know, deep down it will never be enough. To change a person is to change who they are. In my experience I have witnessed that a person is always who they are truly meant to be, they just hide it in layers. They add some or they lose some.

Some people may describe my existence as dark, others nothing short of a miracle itself, some may say its self-centered and pitiful and I’ve even had someone once compare me to a large cloud of gloom that just follows people around.

I don’t really know if what they say is true but I do know that I understand the suffering other people experience. I almost lost my chance to have children, I have lost a child, I lost my best friend twice and I understand how it feels to be ill for the rest of my life. I understand how it feels to be assaulted in all ways and I know how it feels to experience a loss so great it destroys a part of you. In fact I’m still trying to determine if it was just a part of me that I lost. So what is the best part of myself?

I would have to say, it’s the part that still breathes. The part that wakes up in the morning and tries to reach for something desperately even if only it’s a slim chance to succeed. The part that wants to create and leave behind something for someone else one day. The best part will be for someone else out there who can see it and know that at least one other person knew how they felt and they, themselves, may not feel so lonely. I wrote this thinking of exactly that:

Into this darkness so dark and deep,

I sink and fall slowly.

Grasping at the little balls of light,

Until they grow bigger with each breath I take.

I keep thinking that if I wish,

My wish will slowly come true.

I keep thinking that if I extend my hand,

Maybe someone will grab it too.

In the end it doesn’t happen,

But I still wait hoping.

Maybe someday,

Someone will notice and take action.

To change something so fundamental,

To make someone turn their head.

To see something that will leave them breathless.

This tightness in my chest,

This pain I feel every day that amasses.

I don’t want it to spread.

I want to shoulder their pain.

I want to be the one with all the burdens.

I want to watch over them like god from heaven.

To suffer for all eternity,

I think my soul has been condemned.

If it hasn’t, then is it possible that whoever watches over me,

Gifted me with something?

To feel what they feel,

To emphasize their emotions,

To know their colors and see them in their daily motions.

What should I do?

What should I say?

What could possibly change?

Is this how it feels to be a bird and afraid?

So free, flying in the wind amongst the mass sky?

Yet, eventually, it has to come down or it will fall;

It’s do or die.

This is a double edge sword,

So wonderful yet so incredibly vile.

I feel numb for myself,

I feel nothing inside yet I’m overflowing like a tidal wave.

Death comes and you wonder if it is time,

Yet it never came for me and here I am alive.

Everyday my body slowly decays,

Wasting away but I continue on.

I have so much feeling and yet none of it is mine.

I look into this vastness of our existence and I see with my own eyes

The beauty of the leaves as they shake in the wind,

The softness of the water as it ripples amongst fish.

The warmth of the sun as it shines in-between the clouds,

Shimmering down letting those below know hope.

But I also feel the heat,

I feel it burn as it engulfs whatever is in its way,

Incinerating all to ashes, spreading wildfires and erupting into the sky.

I’ve felt the cold depth of the water as it buries everything,

Deep down into the depths of its oceans.

The waves that crash into objects like a crushing motion.

The heaviness of the earth as it covers all in its path or sinks everything into its mass holes,

The suffocation from preservation,

The scolding stiffness of the magma mold.

How is this possible?

How is this real?

To know that in the end it’s just what I feel.

No one has a reason,

No one has the inclination,

But if one reached out and noticed,

I would teach them everything I had and leave this world motionless.

To pass on the gift you possess,

Any master, parent, teacher, or gifted would agree;

It is the greatest honor amongst us.

To know that whatever we leave,

Will continue on as they breathe.

Like a seed being planted, it will continue to grow.

And once it becomes a tree, it will bear fruit.

This fruit will then fall and be eaten by another,

Which will then be passed on to the following member.

Until finally it dies and goes back to the earth.

Where it will cultivate another seed,

And that seed will once again grow.

So how do I answer them?

So how do I bring peace amongst the millions and trillions?

Who know this pain and suffering?

Who are the owners of all I feel inside,

Who will continue to live on after I leave,

Who will look back and see,

Everything left behind under that giant tree.

Should I leave it in the gesture of kindness?

Should I leave it in the lessons of hardship?

Should I leave it in the ability to make choices?

Or should I just write up a bunch of omens?

Should I share the future or the past?

Should I leave something tangible?

What should I do to make them notice?

Life is endless,

And yet here I am wishing someone would notice.

I will hold out hope that one day,

A hand will reach out and grasp.

All that I had left behind.

I hope they will each find their way,

That each will continue to share,

All their pain,

All their burdens,

All their wishes and all that is hurting or healing.

I will continue to watch over them even in death,

Because I want someone to notice.

Loneliness is just a word,

It is just a figment of our imagination.

If you really try to reach out you will take into consideration,

That everything is linking and can be moved.

Everything around you supports you,

You’re never alone.

To transform into something else or someone else at will,

To change yourself but keep your soul.

To move on and move forward,

But keep everything you love and never truly lose it.

Turn your head and notice,

These little things that no one else can.

Help them and chose clemency,

Forgiveness and sadness go hand in hand.

I want to help but even I struggle,

With the challenges that have been left behind.

To crawl to my feet after falling,

To stand after all else fails,

To know no matter how many times I keep trying,

It will forever be outside of my grasp.

But in the chance that it is, just once,

Why not try to grasp at it?

Like all those tiny little lights,

Floating on by in my mass darkness.

I reach out and try to touch them,

But they dissolve as my skin bounces off of them.

To feel and yet not to feel,

What is this emotion?

Can someone tell me?

Can someone reach out and take hold of my hand?

Let me know,

That this is just a moment.

A moment that will pass but eventually bring a smile.

So my truest self, is the only one I show when writing. No matter who I may represent, no matter what I describe, no matter how someone reads it…

I am whoever you see.