Here I am smiling on the outside and all the while crying out in pure desperation on the inside.
When did my smile become so forced? When did I start crying only on the inside? When did I start ignoring myself and just keep pressing forward with that smile always perfectly intact? When did I lose myself and become just an empty shell of a person with no real soul? When did I stop loving me? When did I die on the inside?
When is really irrelevant at this point what I really need to get to the bottom of are the whys. Why did my smile become so forced? Why did I only cry on the inside? Why did I cry at all? Why did I stop listening to myself? Why did I stop having an opinion, especially with regard to my own life? Why did I allow myself to whither away inside until there was no spirit or energy left? Why did I stop loving me? Why, Why, Why? So many fucking whys!?
I can think of so many reasons why that I don’t know where to start actually. I literally become so overwhelmed with all these memories that I can barely breathe. I can see them all, good and bad memories alike, as if I am someone else watching a movie on the big screen like you see in move theaters, only I AM me and I am watching MY life thus far play out before me year by year as far back as kindergarten even. As I watch each fleeting moment of my life flash before me I experience so many different emotions and have so many thoughts running through my head I just want to turn it off and run away from it all.
However, to turn it off would be futile and will only further complicate my quandary. My sole purpose here is to learn to be honest with myself. Learn to allow myself to feel things. Learn to trust myself to deal with them properly and once and for all lay them to rest. Learn to love myself again. Learn to LIVE again.
I recently read a quote that stated, “If you want the future to be different from the past, study the past.” Baruch Spinoza is the philosopher credited with speaking this simple truth.
This quote got me to thinking....
Yes I want my future to be different and yes damnit my past (recent and distant) has been riddled with a lot of heartache, so much heartache in fact that I find it hard to focus on any the positives which are also plenty to be commemorated. It also got me to thinking the common denominator throughout all the misadventures in my life has been me! Aha truth number one arises from the muck!
Being honest with myself means I must begin to hold myself accountable for my wrongdoings and mistakes and what role I myself played in causing some of the pain I have been through. Not only holding myself accountable but dissecting each and every one of these recollections, learning from them, and forgiving myself and anyone else who played a role, and once and for all laying the issues surrounding each humiliating cataclysm to rest never to dwell on them again.
Hmmm this is going to take a lot of discipline on my part, no doubt about that for sure. You see, I have spent my whole life doing the exact opposite .... In fact step one for me with this whole honesty thing is to once and for all admit what could very well be the root of the issue at hand here......
I have always as far back as my earliest recollection replaced bad memories with fake ones that are happier and more perfect, at least according to my definition of perfect at the time. Keeping true to the tradition, of my own demise as it now seems, to this day each and every time the veracity of some woe has managed to slip through I have simply rationalized it all over again to suit some newer more amicable version of the truth and continued denying the validity of the experience and thus suppressing any unwanted emotions associated with it.
In short, I have created such a repertoire of happily ever afters and become the master of feigning and duped myself into believing my own fairy tales. Thus ending up here, at this very moment in my life, trying to figure out how to put all the real pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is my life back together again and be whole once more.
Now having admitted to my vice (step one to recovery right lol) for coping or not coping I should say, I must devise a plan to break the habit and start my future off in the right direction.
Plan A - for each and every life experience that has and continues to rise up from the secret abyss of my past I will ask the following questions:
- When and Where did this take place?
- Other than myself who was involved?
- What are the details as I remember them?
- What was my role in this situation?
- What was the other person or persons role in this situation?
- Is this person(s) still part of my everyday life?
- What is the other persons recollection of the situation?
- Knowing both sides of the story what do I feel I would do differently if I could go
back in time to the very moment this took place? - What do I need to say to the others involved?
- What do I need to hear from the others involved?
- Can I forgive the others involved? If not what will it take to be able to forgive them?
- Can I now forgive myself?
- What will I do differently in the future to avoid this ever happening again?
Man that is a lot of questions but I think for me it will work simply because of my analytical nature and following a format / discipline will help me focus on the goal and face my emotions head on as I will be in control.
Plan B
There is no plan B because it will just give me the ability to skip over this exercise like I always have in the past. SO PLAN B IS SEE PLAN A AND START OVER.
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