Looks Like You’ll Be the Only One Reading This
I am writing this with no possible certainty of what is going to come out. I am not a writer, and I am most definitely not a reader, but I am someone with a lot of thoughts and emotions. If I keep all these thoughts in me, they might start spewing out of my ears and onto the innocent people in my closest proximity. Most days I am too busy to think, and for someone like myself, I think that is a great thing. If I let myself go, I will think myself into a corner, and my inner voice will either try to convince me how clever I am or how useless of a husk I can be. I just wish I could be nicer to myself. I think I am overall a considerate person. In the workplace and at home, I try to think of what others are feeling more than myself, but truth be told, I am not sure I really even like myself. Not in the melodramatic “woe is me” kind of way, but just the “why am I so annoying” kind of way. If I get weird thoughts or the strange movie starts to play in my head as I daydream, I cringe, shake my head, and move on. The movie that plays always seems to change, replaying embarrassing conversations, terrible things I have thought or done, or reliving my time being sick. It is constantly churning. I wonder if anyone else is like this.
We all feel that we want to be special. I know I have to be, because I feel that no one else is this miserable. I have everything I can ever want and need, but somehow it is just not enough. Most days the walking husk that I embody just schleps around from task to task. I can try and say “my brain has too many tabs open” or some other modern cliché, but I think I am just weak. I can see the good in others; I see their talents and their faults so easily. I cannot see anything redeemable in myself. It is an extremely strange and lonely feeling.
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Cue the violins, but how does one stop feeling lonely in a room full of people? I say that I miss talking to people, but I do not. Nothing scratches the itch. Nothing makes this brain freeze of malaise go away. I just forget that I feel a certain way and convince myself into a good mood. I cannot be the only one. I count my blessings for sure, but I just wish to be good at something. I wish to be seen. I wish to be heard. But when I really sit down and think, I have no idea what that even means.
I have accurately self-diagnosed myself with a case of emotional tinnitus. This constant feeling that you are thinking and doing everything wrong, but you only notice it when the RPMs of that day are low enough that you only hear your own hums. As someone who actually has tinnitus, I actually find it comforting. I try and match the pitch as I hum or whistle; I do not mind it at all. I forget the time of great and true silence now that I have my little rings constantly. I assume there will be a day in which I want peace and quiet, but right now I am just battling for peace.
I detest when I think I am smart. Sometimes I get high off my own genius; it repulses me. I have this vivid image in my head whenever I look at the mirror: my face just droops off. Not in a Bell’s palsy type of way, but just melting, detaching from my bones and sliding off my face. It doesn’t scare me; I wish for it to happen. In the vision of the mirror I see myself wiping away the endless puddles of what was once my face with great fervor. Panicking to get to the bottom of what is behind this mask, but it is never uncovered. Once I find what it is, I will let everyone know.
I have this saying that just rattles around in my head, with these images that go along with it: “And the devil was you all along.” I picture it to be the final chapter of some drama, the camera pans in to the old man standing across from the beaten soldier, the man uncovers his face and it is the same face of the soldier — he was trying to defeat himself all along. I have no idea what that means for me, but it always pops up. This constant scene of myself versus myself, this is my only haunting thought, the only time I will belittle myself to pity, but why do I have these conversations with myself? As I write this I just feel that there is something below the surface that is just screaming, clawing, and crawling its way out of me. I just do not know which side will win or what is trying to come out.
