A Heavy Heart

My heart is so heavy these last few weeks.  So much to deal with and so much sorrow and anger.  I am feeling lost in my soul and sometimes feel as though life is too exhausting to endure.  But I cannot show weakness, or anger, or sorrow, or regret, or anything that might be construed as negative.  For if I do, everything around me shatters and falls.

I get up each day and force a smile on my face, pretend the world is not so heavy and painful to carry. Despite her allegations that I do not, I do understand the feeling my daughter describes of being in a dark, deep well.  I've been living there for a while now.  If you say anything to anyone, the advice is, go see a therapist, get some help.  But I have tried that and I cannot do it.  I cannot release it.  And so I do what I have done a good chunk of my life.  I put that smile on and pretend.  I repeat to myself over and over, like a mantra, I am happy.  Life is good.

And so I travel through life with a pot of boiling water about to spill and scald my hands.  It is a precarious walk I must adhere to every waking hour.  And in sleep, I pray for quiet, a dreamland of silence and nothingness.  Just so I can have some peace.

Have you ever let your daydreams take you away so you could feel good and excited about the possibilities in life?  I used to use those, take them like candy, to alleviate the sadness.  But even that does not work for me anymore.  And every little thing is just a crushing down of my light, leaving me deeper and deeper in the darkness.

I have chosen to end a friendship that was clearly bad for me for a long time.  I cannot believe the relief I feel in the release of obligation.  It has made things so much easier.  The hardest part was that I had ended it on my side some time ago but had not told her.  And when I did, I was so emotionally weak from the dark chamber that I cried when I told her.  Of course, she thought it was at the loss of the friendship that brought the tears,  And I let her think it to not hurt her.  But it was just the release of the crushing weight it had laid on my shoulders for far too long.  I should have told her before I got sick.  But I was afraid to hurt her feelings.  Whether someone is a friend, a co-worker, a boss, a neighbor, an acquaintance, it is never easy to hurt someone.  It is never something you want to do.  But it has given me a much-needed space to breathe in.  It was the best thing I could have done for myself.  Even writing this now, speaking to myself in the one solace I find in life - writing - reminds me of that lifting of weight.  How sad that a friendship can become such a burden to carry.  But they can when you do not choose carefully and do not allow yourself to see a person for who they really are.  The funny thing is, a co-worker warned me, and I still bull-headedly moved forward.  Lesson learned.  Let her - or them - think it has all been whatever they think it is.  Because all it really is for me is better.