This World Is Too Rough and Abrasive for a Girl Like Me

I feel invisible. Women walk by me so deep in conversation without looking up not knowing that I’m starving for a connection.

I'm longing for someone to look up and at least acknowledge my existence.

What brings people joy this time of year brings me heartache.

Remembering the family I once had. Remembering sitting around the big oval table laughing.

All the memories slap me across the face every time November and December roll around.

Knowing my mom was my age when she became a grandmother is really hard to wrap my head around. Knowing she lay dying in a hospital bed of alcoholism when she was my age is really hard to wrap my head around.

Feeling people in my space is just too much right now, but I’m also dying for comfort, for release, for connection, for love.

And so I paste my mug all over social media hoping for a click or a like so that I can raise my endorphins but it’s only temporary. I have to do it all over again to try to find a semblance of peace.

I’m like Mary Oliver wandering through the woods looking for some solace from this anxiety.

Pushing everyone away because it feels like too much and then dying in my own loneliness.

Where my mom smoked and drank to find relief and dug herself an early grave, I’ll continue to take these walks in the woods.

Because, there but for the grace of God go I.