Less Than Zero
There is something so terribly humbling and devastatingly crushing about admitting you have a problem you can’t solve all on your own.
As far back as I can remember, I was the caretaker. This was the role I was expected to fill and the identity I took on for a great many years. There was no sacrifice in it, it was my life and my family and I never questioned it. I never had to conceptualize, or define it, but I adopted it, and it created me. And I found that being a part of someone else, being their life and their whole world, created a heightened sense of self. Perhaps it was my way of differentiating my own identity from the one I spent so much time caring for. I gave everything that I could. And I wanted the whole world. I had it all figured out then. Every minute of my time was accounted for between family and work, school and life, business and play. There were a million things going on, and I had my hand in all of them.
And then, suddenly, cruelly, and wholly without warning, I was no longer needed. I was simply on my own.
And I found myself completely without direction and hopelessly lost. I don’t know that I’ve learned how to process the grief, as I always pushed it to a place inside where it didn’t affect me. I don’t know that I’ve spent enough time thinking about what I want from life, what makes me truly happy. I don’t know that I know anything anymore, least of all myself.
When you watch someone die, it instills in you a very strong sense of time, and a fear of everything passing you by before you have a chance to enjoy it, or make it yours. Time is always running out and tomorrow is not a guarantee you count on. So what do you do when you find that the person you’ve always been isn’t suited for the life that lies before you? What do you do when you find that you don’t even know the only person you’ve ever been able to count on? And how do you come to terms with the paralyzing panic that crushes you every time you wake to one more day of nothing special?
I’m so tired of trying to figure out what I want to do and who I want to be and why I’m not doing more when I all want to do is sleep this sickness away. I’m so tired of beating myself up for being weak and needing help and being too proud to do anything about it when I can’t breathe, I can’t speak, I can’t think, I can’t sleep, and all that runs through my head is “Girl…you better figure this out before time runs out on you for good…”
