Boxes

In the back of my mind there are a bunch of boxes. Beat up and dusty they sit in the corner out of the path of any direct light. Most of them hold nothing but air, the memories they once held now scattered to the winds in a million particles of dust fine glass. Corroded by the years and lack of attention they faded into nothingness without even a whisper to herald their passing. Some are full to the brim with the shining past, bits of happiness and comfort snatched here and there and filed away to peruse at a later date. Flickering lights of conversation long neglected that still hold out hope that one day I will open them up and see what they hold. A few, hidden at the very bottom of the pile, are dark and forbid careless tampering. Locked tight to the world they contain those things I have seen and lived and survived that lurk at the edges of my mind and make up the glue that holds this otherwise fragile and gossamer child together at the seams.

Rarely do I venture there, and bring forth one of those boxes. Rarely do I linger in the past where they live, wallowing in the mud of who I was, and who they were, and the choices we both made. I hardly even see them anymore hidden in the dusty mire where they have lain for so long, long ago cast from conscious thought to take up residence in nightmares and terror. These are the moments I would rather forget but cannot, jagged pieces of glass in my mind that could rend and tear if I spent too much time wallowing in their presence. Yet I know, in my heart, that these same bits of my past with such power to devastate me also fuel my strength and that to lock them away forever cheapens the horror and terror I felt when I was trapped in the moment. The tiny scrapes and cuts they cause allow the poison that could easily consume me to bleed from my veins.

I have a great deal of affection for those darker places in my mind, those corners lost deep in shadow where fear and hatred and misery lurk in patient silence, waiting for the opportunity to pounce. Most people shy away from the very edges of their humanity, never seeking to know what lies buried beneath that heap of lies we learn to tell ourselves in an effort to hide all that weakness from the prying eyes of others. In the pool of my own sweat and tears mingled with the blood of my pride and the dust at my feet I can see forever reflected back at me. These moments make me feel not less, but more and stronger each time I pull myself from the ashes of the fire to stand reborn and stretch my wings to the glory of their new span. It is only when held up in contrast to these moments of misery that I can witness the real value of the light and comfort that floods my life on a day to day basis. It’s only by carefully unlocking those boxes and rifling through their contents that I can achieve greater understanding. What I’ve done is such a huge part of who I am.

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“That one” she whispered, and he reached for one hidden back in the shadows of the already dim room. “No not that one, the one beside it” her voice got quieter as his hands neared the source of her anticipation. Wrapping it carefully in his hands he cradled it out of its place in the dusty past and lowered it carefully to the floor between them. She could barely look at it, knowing what it held, and tears started to creep down her cheeks, leaving tracks in the dust that had settled there in her search to unearth this long hidden piece of her past. With trembling hands she lifted the chain from around her neck and the key that dangled on the end danced in the small light offered by the one small lamp as she dropped it into his outstretched palm.

Altered Reality

I sit and wonder impossible things. Impossible questions with impossible answers that are impossible to find. It’s no wonder I feel like I’m running in circles, panting and heaving with each labored step to get where? Nowhere except right back here where I started, staring at my own bitter reflection, that warped perception with no face that I embrace and hold dear. It shatters under the pressure of so many hands tugging it this way and that towards their own definitions. No care for the not so fragile doll, suddenly porcelain under their scrutiny, searching for flaws in the already crackled veneer of what they taught her to be. I don’t understand how it can be easier to live on their side of the mirror.

Clarity they say, and common sense, naught but hurled remnants of ages long past that drift to the bottom of the muddy waters that surround them, social conditioning that has no basis in reality. Not clear, clarifying, but crimson with the tears of bleeding hearts and opaque to muddle and blind, if only they could see. I can’t save them from passionate denial, when all I have to offer is words, and to open my mouth I risk the flood pouring forth, to sear them where they stand for their damning accusations of reality and misguided fantasy. Even now I fail to understand the world beyond the glass, its perceptions seems so warped it overwhelms me. I’m a catalyst with no voice beyond a whisper trapped between here and there. Nothing but these groups of letters that fall from my fingertips.

I seem to exist in a world they can’t even imagine, at the edges of their reality, their existence, where they glide endlessly through life on magic carpets fueled by the dishonest truth, kept company by a golem in my likeness, though I long ago fled the safe womb of that chrysalis. I fight my way through rabid jungle that seems so calm and serene from their lofty perch, where the wind barely graces the tops of the trees with its gentle kiss. The reality of who I am exists only in their dreams, where they can cast hideous denials back in the face of my defiant screams, and find succor in their heated delusions that I am like them at all.

I am not who they expect, not who they see when they deign to cast enlightened eyes my way. The reality flows just beneath that brittle veneer, one that could not hold under the gaze of a closer look, a blessing then that they choose not to, their cool apathy the glue that holds its cracked and worn fragments as my disguise. Deaf eyes and blinded ears. Where, I wonder, did they learn not to trust their senses. Common sense in the face of the truth that it is neither common nor sensible at all. The intensity of their lives makes my head swim and no matter how strong you are, treading water is always a losing battle. Any wonder that I choose to exist in my world rather than theirs; they make the same choice every day.

Emotional Dichotomy

I have, through the years, been described as both over emotional and cold hearted, the former due to my tendency to melt down when under pressure to explain and burst into tears, and the latter because of my apparent inability to empathize with others. The fact of the matter is that emotion doesn’t affect me in the same way as it affects most. I can’t ever recall being a little bit happy, or a little bit sad, or a little bit angry. Its not that I feel these things intensely all the time, but rather that I usually don’t feel them at all.

At times I’m sure I have a better grip on reality than most NT’s, unblinded by all those little emotions that seem to dictate their every move. They seem like children to me in so many ways, unable to cope with reality in the face of the way it makes them feel. I’m not saying this to be insulting, this is simply my perspective and although that can sometimes seem harsh and critical I am just as critical of my own capabilities and weaknesses.

Of course this means that I’m not as “happy” with my life as I have led people to believe, but if you tell people that then they assume you must be unhappy so I used the words they understood. Most of the time I am neither. Most of the time I am numb. Most of the time people also interpret that as unhappy. The snake is eating its own bloody tail trying to explain it.

I have no problem with being this way, I can’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would choose to feel that intensely all the time, it seems to get in the way of common sense so often. Even when emotion reaches a state that I feel it there is a core in me that screams that feeling this way is unrealistic, that I am assigning false value to things that have no meaning in the long run. When I am angry I know that it is serving no purpose, that calm thought could solve a problem that yelling will only exacerbate. When I am grieving for what I have lost I know that that changes nothing and it is best to move forward appreciating what I have. When I am sad I know that this too shall pass, and that acceptance helps me to move on. It’s intense but its brief and once I have moved past it I’m not concerned with it anymore and its time to get back to business. I guess that’s one benefit to living life in the moment.