Days – Recouping
by Zoeyjane
I’m pretty eager to put this baby to bed. It’s been screaming at me all month day and it bit me while I nursed its hurts and wounds. I give you ‘all that remain, except the last one’…
Have you ever thought about giving up on life? If so, when and why?
More times than I can count. More dates than I’ve recorded. For basically all of second through seventh grades. And the year after Zoë’s birth. And the eight months before it.
Sometimes, it was about sleep. Just wanting rest. For my soul, my brain, my heart, my eyes, my everything. I wanted everything to slow to a near-halt, long enough that I would get bored of it… death seemed the closest to that I could find.
Sometimes, it was about pain. My own and what I saw (or thought I saw) myself cause others. The stereotype of the wounded little girl, thinking everyone would be much better off without her exists for a reason.
Sometimes, it was about cowardice. Failure. Not wanting to see failure in everything I looked at, produced or touched.
Sometimes, it wasn’t about suicide at all, but just wanting to disappear and check out. Technically, disassociate. Change the station to static and listen for directions from an auto-pilot. Stare at walls until they breathe. Sit in a closet, chin on knees. Sleep until you don’t know if you’re dreaming of being awake or actually awake.
That’s actually what it was all about, ultimately.
What’s the best thing going for you right now?
That I don’t want anything to do with number 26. That I’m afraid to die. That I care to be alive, and some days, I even have the emotional strength to want the best of being alive.
Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s morbid for your best thing to be that you don’t want to kill yourself. But here’s the schtick: most of my life has been made up of synthetic highs, organic lows, and absences – which some assume are the opposite of lows.
But they are not.
Not being unhappy is not the same as being happy; not wanting to kill yourself isn’t the same as wanting to live.
The difference between the two phrases is what makes this best new, shocking and oh so fucking welcome, finally.
What if you were pregnant, what would you do?
Try not to almost-die this time. Seriously. That’s as big of a plan as I’m going with until I was pretty sure that I wasn’t going to bleed to death from a miscarriage.
Something you hope to change about yourself. And why.
I’d like to, for longer than a couple of months, be able to write posts, articles, memoirs, essays, whatevers that make people happy. That inspire. That I don’t read back later and see the blood and tears jumping out at me. I’d like to be an organic writer, who sticks to the cliché of writing what she knows – who writes about loving things and people, and joy and peace and karma and fucking delicious chocolate cheesecake and why it should be a meal unto itself.
I’d like to accept me. And get over myself. I like that I’m self-reflective and reflecting and aware, but sometimes, I wouldn’t mind a certain lack of intelligence or vision. Sometimes, I’d like to be one of those “I am who I am” people who throw out the words, nod and mean it. What would it be like to be comfortable in your own brain, skin and heart? Or even two out of three?
Okay, I’m not going to be greedy. I’ll just take one.
Which is probably why next week, I’ll go back to the gym, and off dairy and wheat again. The absence of the first and the addition of the second(s) is dumbing down and muddying me. In 29 days, I’ll be turning 30. In five, it will be the day when I should have a cake and a chip, if I went to meetings. In the past three months, I’ve undone all the good I did in the first eight, almost everything.
Acceptance. Unconditional love. Health and strength. Spontaneous adventure and daily joy. For myself. They’re not going to just materialize, just as my legs won’t keep themselves smooth and silky and hair-free. I better get going.
