I have been fighting for 30 of my 40 years to be here. I'm tired. I'm sad all the time. Nobody sees it. Even the one person closest to me can't see it. And I haven't been keeping it under wraps. I've told them. Not that I don't want to be here, but that I'm miserable. I just want to stop feeling like this.
I have had a shit string of bad luck for the last couple years. It's forced me to make some very difficult choices and now I'm living in a place I don't want to, in a house with a broken sink and a broken air control system, away from the people I love the most, making almost no money, barely surviving, barely doing anything for myself.
I've tried being positive. I've tried getting different jobs. It's been tough. It's been going on for the last two years. I already hated myself, and now I hate my life as well. I don't know how much longer I can "hang in there" for.
I forget to eat
until my hands shake
and my stomach aches,
and the day has already folded itself
into some corner of the room.
I forget my birthday
until someone says it back to me,
gentle and surprised,
as if I’d misplaced my own name
in a coat I stopped wearing.
I forget important dates,
appointments, promises to myself,
the small machinery of being alive.
I forget my own phone number
when asked for it out loud,
standing there useless,
with a pocket full of proof
that I exist.
But I remember your coffee order.
I remember your birthday
with a little bell in my chest
that never learned to go quiet.
I remember the way you pouted,
not really mad,
just soft around the edges
and pretending not to be.
I remember what made you laugh
when you didn’t want to.
I remember the songs you skipped,
the ones you let play,
the silence after your voice changed.
I forget the things
that were meant to keep me here.
Bills.
Dates.
Meals.
Myself.
But not you.
Maybe that’s the part
I don’t know how to forgive.
That my mind is a house
with every light burned out,
except the room
where I kept you.
I am over harping on that one person. If I clicked with her, I can click with someone else. How the hell do I get out there? App? Discord? Reddit? I don't know how to do this. I never knew how to date normally, I just kinda lucked my way into my marriage. I didn't date in high school, no interest. Then someone hit on me on Myspace (repeatedly, unbeknownst to me) and we ended up together for 14 years. Then I met someone a year after the divorce was finalized who it took me a year before I realized I liked her and a year before I asked her out. So I don't have a good grasp on this.
I'm here with her. We're having a holiday, and having fun, but I am not feeling great. She's a blast, and we're having fun, but I still hate my life and everything going on. I'm dreading going home. I'm dreading being on my own. I hate myself. I hate my life. I hate that I have people who like me and I don't understand why they do.