Showing The Difference

Pure relief that when I walked into my house that no one was around, because my face was utterly ravaged.
Devastation. That is the only way I can even begin to describe the way I’m feeling.

I think my sleep deprivation plays into my emotional scales a bit, but mostly I’m just being crushed beneath clarity and desperation.
From behind the shield of numbness and denial I emerge. Late, as I usually am.
But then those who know me well already know that about me.

Even the cat is laying on the floor instead of the bed; he senses that I need my space to collect myself.

I went to my best friend’s apartment and we had the deepest, most honest discussion we have had in years (possibly ever).
I started the serious discussion off with, "Now, this is going to sound crazy, stupid, and ridiculous but…"
And I poured out everything.

"You’re different," she said. "I can just tell that there’s something different about you, that you’re hiding something."
We talked about my smiling mask for awhile and several times I had a lump in my throat the size of a goddamn meteor. I refused to break though, "because," I said, "it doesn’t solve anything."

Because I am different. Something shifted in me, a change that took months. The last eight, to be exact.
And I know this because I can feel it intuitively. I just know.

I am the picture of true humility. I thought I knew what it was but…truthfully I don’t think true humility is possible until we’ve had everything stripped from us.
And everything has been stripped from me.
I don’t have pride anymore because it is of no use to me.

I am hurting.
There is a giant chasm in me….a hole in which all my beliefs, emotions, thoughts, and values have been ripped out.
Don’t confuse this with hopeless depression, because it’s not.
It’s probably the feeling where the phrase "painful truth" emerged from.

There’s only a few things that matter, and you’re goddamn right that I know what they are.

And no, before anyone blurts anything out like an overeager piss-pot, I don’t entirely trust my feelings right now.
Or my thoughts. Or my desires.
But I will BUILD trust with myself…and I believe that comes with the foundation of "trusting your gut".
And until my feelings become clearer with time? I refuse to act on them.
I will just sit with them.

But holy fuck, I was able to keep it together throughout that conversation, but once I passed the Mayville exit on the freeway, I turned into a sobbing wreck.
I didn’t think it possible to cry out one’s very soul, but guess what? It is.
If I hadn’t been in a car, I think I would have thrown myself on my knees and begged God to give me the strength to live my life.
But I was, so instead I sent up wave after wave of pleas mentally.

I can say this with utter honesty: I don’t think I have ever broken that hard in my entire LIFE.

I am down to the nuts and bolts of myself, holding myself together with a shred of hope and a little bit of faith.
That’s it. That’s all I have right now.

I took a shower when I got home and tried to think solely about how wonderful that heat and pressure felt on my abused muscles.
And my cracking heart.
I suddenly got so tired that I wanted to lay down on the ground, but I knew that if I did it’d be a long time before I got back up.
So I didn’t.
Instead I wandered in here and sat down to write this entry.

I don’t really know what to say anymore. Not tonight.
Everything is too raw and real.

Suddenly the prospect of "real" has so much more meaning to me than ever before.

Goodnight.
Amanda.