Yesterday at work I uttered, “I just can’t seem to be able to get back to who or where I was.” If someone had asked me what I meant, I’m not sure I could have answered. Before what? Before I was married, a mom, diagnosed with a chronic illness, a teacher in a pandemic? I don’t know. But I do know that I am different.
I find myself a bit more rougher around the edges these days. The jagged pieces of me are getting stuck on the mundane and they are snagging and scratching those I love just a little bit more. My thoughts are more scattered than usual, and my worries seem to be setting off intrusive alarms more often than not. I get lost in my thoughts or muddled spaces where thoughts should be. I cry, but I am not sure why. Maybe it’s the lack of control while living in a world so disjointed. Maybe it’s because I see flickers of memories- a smile across a room, words to a song, giggles, beginnings. Maybe it’s the constant pain or the realization that it will never go away. Maybe it’s because of all of those things and none of those things.
Disdain has become effortless and my tolerance for ignorance and ineptitude has evaporated like my youth. Every decision that needs making or problem that requires solving chips away at my already unstable mind. There are days that I do all the things but I don’t have any recollection of doing them or feeling the corresponding emotions.
I know the me I was and the me I want to be are somewhere. The continuous search for her is exhausting.
bean láidir 