So, I Sat Down to Write

I sat down to write - something I haven't done in quite some time - and this is all I came up with:

The times I feel like I have the most to say are the times when I feel the most hopeless and the least motivated.  I was thinking a lot this past week that what if there were some magical cure for all of my mental health issues?  Like, what if I could push a button, or drink some magical elixir and I would be guaranteed to be mentally healthy forever, no side effects, no drawbacks, not bad mojo.  Just, boom, cured.

If such a thing existed and it were offered to me, I don't know if I would take it.  I feel like I've been struggling with my own identity lately.  Who am I?  What do I believe in?  Is there a darkness in my soul that is poisoning my mind, or is it a disease of the mind?  I know I'm not my illness, but sometimes I don't think I do know that.  If I suddenly were to not be mentally ill, would I still be me?  Would I still have my snark and my sense of humor?  Would I still have a giant endless pit of empathy?  Would I still be able to be introspective and take pleasure in alone time and reading? Would I still be an actor? Would I still be me without these illnesses in my brain that have influenced and (at times) possessed my actions and the way I developed and reacted?

Does thinking that I don't really want to be cured make me a bad person?  Did I do something to deserve these horrible feelings and thoughts?  Is true evil real?  Is true good real?  What if I never amount to anything other than struggling my way through life?  What if my life doesn't really matter?  What if this is all there is?  What if there is more, but I'm missing it?  What if some people are just not "meant" to be happy for longer than tiny moments?  What if I'm one of those people?

I think all these feelings have bubbled over right now, because I just put my little sister on a plane home, and I miss her already.

My 14-year-old sister came to visit me for the weekend and we had a really great time.  Me being so much older than her, and her living 1,000 miles away makes it tough to spend quality time together.  So this weekend was really great.  But, all the time she was here, she kept saying things and acting like my life was amazing and full of glamour and like I was the coolest person ever.  I'm happy that she looks up to me and thinks highly of me, but I don't feel like I deserve any of that.

My life isn't the garbage pile that I often joke that it is, but most of the time I feel like a giant fuck-up.  A part of me doesn't want her to look up to me because my life feels kinda shitty more often than not.  She has so much ahead of her; she starts high school this week, she has college to look forward to, and all the experiences that go along with those life events (both good and not-so-good.)

Little Sis still has all this hope and optimism and enthusiasm for life that I wish I had.  And now I start to question whether I ever had it.  Am I a bad sister?  A bad daughter? A bad partner? A bad aunt?  A bad friend?  What if I am?  What if I truly am not a good person?  What if the badness in my brain makes me not a nice person?  What if I do "go crazy" and do something bad to someone else?  Am I allowed to be happy?  

What if I'm not? 


This is what happens when I sit down to write.