The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”
--Stephen King
I was just thinking about a the friends that I've had that have died over the years and I realised that I actually had to make an effort to remember all of them. There weren't that many and I have a pretty good memory, so it is more than a bit strange. Or maybe I really am that indifferent. The first death really affected me and it took me awhile to get over. When my second friend died, I was sad but understood why he had killed himself. Some days I am a little jealous of him. All the ones that came after that, I didn't contemplate as much.
Almost exactly one week ago I told one of my close friends what was really going on with my life. I haven't heard from her since. I had an "imaginary" friend I used to be able to tell everything to; he's gone too. One of my other friends told me that even when she can tell that something is seriously wrong with me, she won't do anything unless I ask for help. I didn't understand her. It's still much better than having any of them die, but being totally ignored by my friends hurts more than I expected.
My natural first instinct was to be angry with them, but I couldn't really convince myself that it would be entirely fair for me to feel that way. I am exhausting. I know that. I know it because more often than not, I exhaust myself. I wanted to cry today, all day. I wanted to lie in bed and just cry all day because something happened this week that reminded me of another way I wasn't good enough to love. But then I remembered all the friends I still have purely because they don't know what my life is really like. I smiled instead. I wore a pretty dress, put on my flawless make-up and spend the last bit of money I have on a completely superficial dinner I didn't enjoy with people who don't really know me. My friends may not know me and tonight may have all been a lie, but at least no one worried about me. Nobody left me.
One of my old therapists once told me that when something terrible happened, it was just God testing the limits of your soul. I stopped seeing shortly after that. She was a pretty good psychologist, but there is something about the whole "everything happens for a reason" school of thought that chills me to my very core.
Last week I started thinking about what she said and some of it started to make sense; I mean I can understand how experiencing/realising your limits can feel like an almost spiritual experience. You can always take much more than you thought you could and that is amazing. When you consider the fact that most people here are raised to give god(s) credit for anything good that happens, it makes sense for her to say that.
The turmoil inside my head is something that may never go away. And it's something I may never feel comfortable sharing. But I think that this week has taught me all the ways in which my friends(and I) are limited and it has been an incredibly intense experience.
How bad can being on my own be? I've done it before and back then I couldn't just go live in another country.
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