What Would It Be Like To Lose Control

My sister recommended this book to me.

It’s called Bloom, by Elizabeth Scott; a counterpart to Sloppy Firsts [see earlier posts]. I shouldn’t be surprised, really. Something’s always connected us in a way that we might be connected were we really sisters by blood- so much so that shouldn’t come as a shock that we managed to stumble upon the same kind of book that we both really needed to read at the same time.

I knew the second I read the back cover that once I picked it up I wouldn’t put it down. I didn’t. I flipped open the page at 11 and now it’s 1 a.m. and I did not stop for a second. Except for that one spot where I turned the book over, looked up at my ceiling the color of orange sherbet, and said, “something big is going to happen on the next page and I’m not sure I want to know what it is.”
Regardless, I kept reading.

Unlike Sloppy Firsts, it did not bring on a set of realizations. Maybe because my life is less of a mess, in terms of how much I’m fooling myself with every passing day. Maybe because I’m trying harder to stay true to myself and still get somewhere.
But all the same it’s not enough. It might never be enough.
Because we’re human.

Humans, oh, we waste so much time trying to be something we aren’t. And every one of those wasted seconds is a second you could’ve spent being free. Being you. The world is a very large place, even if high school isn’t. There is a space on this earth for everyone, for every kind of person from every kind of background. You. Me. Him. Her.
But no matter how many times we hear it- “believe in yourself. be yourself.” I don’t know if any of us actually listen.

I have to be honest- I don’t.
I’m calculating. Manipulative. Most of my actions are the result of careful thought, a pick-one-option-out-of-ten-possible-ones that has gone on for so long it is involuntary and no one ever notices, most notably myself. I can tell myself a lie as easily as I can fabricate a story about why I don’t have my homework. But the difference is, the story about my homework dies the second my lips stop moving, whereas the lies I tell myself always manage to catch up to me.
Even when I try so hard to let go, to just be for a minute, it doesn’t seem to work. I’m still trying for something. It’s as if it’s too late for me. I want and I wish and I yearn but I can’t seem to let go anymore. And everytime my exterior starts to fall a little bit someone picks it up, someone notices and calls out my attitude, asks about my day, wonders if I got enough sleep or am being intentionally bitchy or was somehow offended- does anyone ever consider that maybe I’m just a little bit tired?

My mind works so constantly that sometimes my head hurts. I’ll be standing in the line to return books at the library and my brain will be going at hundreds of thousands of miles an hour and I can’t have ONE MOMENT of peace where all the thoughts will stop going and just shut up! I grit my teeth and beg myself to stop fucking thinking for even the barest of seconds, to give me some sort of relief, but I can’t. It never stops. Life never stops. The game never stops. It’s exhausting and I want to hit the brakes but I can’t find them. I want to let go, but my hands are glued onto the rope and even when I tug with all my strength it’s still not enough.

But I live to hope that perhaps, someday, it will be.

Maybe someday I’ll graduate surrounded by the right friends, not the wrong ones- the ones that everyone’s watching to see if you have. Maybe someday I’ll be able to close my eyes and shut down. Maybe someday I’ll be able to sleep without tossing and turning and dreaming of a day where my life will be better than it is. Maybe someday I’ll look into the eyes of my children and everything will make sense to me.
Maybe someday I’ll sing because I just realized music is the one haven I have where I don’t have to think. I only have to feel. Maybe someday we’ll realize perhaps it’s not that our parents don’t listen; only that we aren’t screaming loud enough. Maybe someday we’ll tell our parents what we really want even though we know they love us and thus can’t bear to disappoint them- because if they truly, honestly love us they will never stop us from forging our dreams to get better lives. What use is a better life when you feel empty when you wake up every morning? Why be right when you’d rather be wrong? Why is wrong defined as wrong when it feels so much more right than right?

No one ever said it was easy to let go- it’s not. But take it one step at a time. Sooner or later, I hope, there will come a time in your life when you’ll have reached your limit.
Sooner or later I hope we’ll all start living for ourselves.