I have a hard time letting go.
The one thing a hard childhood did not teach me was to identify obstacles the only solution to which is to let go of control; to fall into the devil’s snare and wait to get through. I struggle and fight myself into fatigue. As a culture, we are not taught the delicate art of letting go. The valor of keeping at it and the shame of having given up too soon, take away the glory of the medium-rare, cooked to perfection ‘I let go when it was time.’
And so, I sat talking every adversary into reason, giving my energy and words to everyone who mocked my suffering. I even appointed myself the bad cop ‘go to the thinking corner’ to babyr’s development because god forbid life lands a blow in her gut like it did mine. In an attempt to protect the little p who was lost, lonely and scared, I took up the role of knight in shining armor for the whole of humanity. I turned into jokes the heavy experiences:
“If I had a rupee for every time someone told me:
- To stop being cranky about your mental health, who doesn’t have problems?
- If we throw our problems in a heap and you say others you’d pick your own back up
- You are weak
- What is crying going to solve
- How much longer will it take to be cured
- But it was so long back
I would manage to collect money to pay for all the therapy I require to tell myself that my struggles are valid even if they are looked down upon.” I pretended health when offended and hurt, carried make-believe smiles to sometimes fake your broken definition of “strength” and sometimes to not have you be disappointed in me. But now, here, I surrender. Lay em down, sword and sheath.
I shall not be the person who slowly coaxed an orthodox person’s eyes open, use ‘ethos, logos, pathos’ I will not preach to people to make their anger non-threatening. I refuse to be the bad cop to the babyr’s looking at the internet unattended. Because all of the wars are not mine to fight. I will owe no one the emotional labor of educating them, unless asked to nicely, respectfully, with consideration of my energy. And then too I will first put my mask on first. I shall protect my energy, be kind to myself, teach myself better, and do what I have to do to stay alive.
You will have to figure out a new way to love me.