Shadows

 

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."

--Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Seems like the darkness controlling the corners of my mind grows quicker and more deadly every time it decides to bless me with its presence. I can feel it's dramatic--albeit unwelcome--entrance every time I shut my eyes. I can't give in, I can't give in, I can't give in, I tell myself, like I can really decide that.

The shadows, like those devastating windstorms during the Dust Bowl period, ravage my soul, eating it from the inside out, until I can't feel anything. All I am is numb; not hearing, seeing, or feeling anything. Just a motionless rag doll tossed aside when declared useless.

Sitting in the semi-darkness of the living room, this is my most vulnerable time, when I am most susceptible to the destruction my demon's shadows cause. Whenever I think about my younger self, so oblivious and innocent and immune to sadness and illness and self-deprecation, it takes all of my willpower not to just fall back and let the darkness consume me.

Because once you know the general way the world works, you can't ever go back. You can't ever forget about that unlucky walk-in on those horny teenagers 'doing' it in the janitor's closet. You can't forget when your best friend cut herself and begged you not to tell a soul. And you certainly can't forget when all you have at the end of the day is an aching, endless loneliness that is sickness; it refuses to go away yet is always there, though benign sometimes.

I come home, hands clutching my hair like I want to rip it all out and toss it down the trash. To rid myself of all the imperfections, even if it means damaging what little left of my soul I have left. Because 97.9% of human beings value beauty over brains and bravery and kindness. They think being supermodel skinny, shiny, perpetually good-looking hair and equally flawless skin is the key to happiness. It's not.

And this is hubris, the fatal flaw of many people: we believe we can achieve anything, not just gorgeous looks. It's sort of the way I get sometimes when I've been off my medication and am going through that "Wheeee!" hyper/manic stage. It doesn't come as often as my depressive one does, although I like being cynical and sad and moody a lot more than manic and uncontrollable.

But during both periods I get that same feeling: I'm not driving the car that is metaphorically my life, my body, my nerve systems and mind. It's my evil twin, the one who likes to come in and throw stuff against the walls and take a hammer to my collection of mementos, the only connections I still carry with me as a way of being able to recall my past.

Because it seems, at least lately, that going back into my past would be the best thing I could ever ask for. When life was simple and I didn't have to make decisions that could make or break my character and who I was--and am--as a person. The past is so perfect, because you know everything you did wrong and now you have a chance to go back and fix it.

To go back and apologize to that girl who was being bullied by a douchebag and who you never bothered to save by stepping in and telling the boy to get the hell away. Or perhaps not picking up that piece of trash at the entrance to your town park. Little things like that.

They seem nondescript, but I bet if you could go back in your life and change every stupid little mistake you'd ever made, you not only would be a better person, you'd also be a happier person.

That said, it seems I've failed to get a time machine and fly back to my "tween" years. Nope. I'm stuck in 2013, the worst year of my life by far.

Oh, well. No one ever said life was fair. But it should be, and that's the ultimate truth.