It is a Tuesday evening, and this is probably going to be another of your hundred drafts lying in your notes app, dejected. You have just come from crying up a storm, till snort ran down your lip. You finally understand what purgatory is, as you are currently living it. Your life is a myriad of uncertainties, and only you seem to see and feel that. You are alone, of that you are aware. No, you are not discrediting the support of your friends across your phone’s amoled screen.
In these hours, you let the weight of your day bury you beneath the darkness and tears. You have tried very hard to be normal today, good job! In this essay, someone will think this is all complaint without action. And the part of you that seeks validation wrote this with the hope that it would lessen the judgment.
You understand the importance of community, you have retweeted tweets promoting mental health, and the importance of reaching out. You have tried being honest about the fact that you feel like you are sinking. Maybe you don’t emphasize the weight of your emotions; probably because you sometimes “haha” at the end of your confession. After a while, your understanding of community has fallen off as you take on another philosophy; the concept of individuality. So you have taken to saying, “I’ve been great,” instead of, “I’m miserable”. You astound yourself by your ability to laugh with people and jest around, yet you are crumbling inside.
You are crumbling inside, and the walls are closing in, and you have the sense that soon you will have no room to breathe. You have watched a thousand videos on how to patch up those cracks showing in your heart, sometimes your face. Your YouTube is a cacophony of different philosophies trying to mend different wounds. “How to deal with existentialism,” “How to move on from a heartbreak,” “Ten different careers to take on today,” “how to live a fulfilling life.” “Who are you really? The puzzle of personality,” “Why self-hatred is a form of narcissism,” “Are you an anxiously attached person? This is how to be securely attached,” “The philosophy of Albert Camus,” “the Philosophy of Marcus Aurelias.” With all these opinion pieces, you have actively deceived yourself that you can become a new person, and again, you have failed.
You have been reduced to an aimless scroller of your phone; your head is trying to kill you and you are trying to placate it. You have tried smiling to trick your mind that you’re happy, it ends up looking like a slash across your lips. You have tried dancing but your stiff bones are more testament of your flaws and failings. You have tried introducing a new playlist of your happy songs but your soul is not as limber as those beats. Someone will tell you to find inner happiness, their nose turned upwards, clever fingers typing a paragraph online.
What do you think I’m trying to do? Do I need to go on a hike or on a roadtrip or buy some ice cream and dance in the street for my inner happiness to catch up? I have tried half of those things and the other half I cannot for lack of means. My absolute poverty adds on to my misery. Not because I haven’t tried to do something about it. Isn’t that what millionaires say? That we, the Povvo sit and wait for it to fall into our laps? I don’t even want to be rich. All I ask is steps that show my life is taking on a positive trajectory. All I end up with is a step back. I smile after every failure and remember to stay kind to myself, “it’s okay, you’ll be okay.” However, after ten failures, even I don’t believe my own lies.
Maybe this falls back onto that sweet boy whose dreadlocks you loved that broke and shattered your heart over ten times. Not having enough, he would come back; and he would break it again. Maybe it hurts more because he doesn’t suffer. You have rationalised that whatever is happening to you is some sort of punishment, a reminder that you did something wrong and the universe is making you atone for it. These laws of the universe don’t seem to apply to him. You don’t believe they do, even if he can’t stop pestering you, saying he is in agony and needs someone to rant to. What about you? What about your agony? You have maintained your silence because TikTok placed him on a pedestal and called you stupid for loving him first, and letting him hurt you second. To be a high value woman, they said to pretend he didn’t cause a crater in your heart and mind. This has added to your flaws; your inability to pretend. But you try, you try so hard that all the hurt and everything you wish to shout at him is bubbling up inside you with the rest of your misery, a boiling pot of some radioactive substance that will surely kill you. Your wound festers and the answer to its healing is an elixir not yet revealed to you.
This essay will still earn criticism. “You are looking out there. The answer is within you,” they’ll say. And you won’t dare close your ears because maybe in all that onslaught is an answer. You fear to call this state depression, because we are in an era where serious psychological terms are attached to frivolous emotions, so you call it a rut. Yes, I’m in a rut. Smile. Do a little jiggle. I’ll wake up fine tomorrow. Bigger smile.
Featured image is by 2ys on Pinterest as @2ysz
Darkness and light 