silver lining

This is a story like any other that you’ve ever read or written or lived. This is the story of a loop that no one has ever been able to escape. It at least feels like that at this point. You wake up and you keep your eyes closed for a minute to plan what it will be like today. You rewind the yesterdays and make sure to replace the storms with the beautiful orange hued sky at 7 pm, you picture the dreary rain as the beautiful white fluff balls that are pouring out of the sky on a Christmas morning. And then you step out of your bed and realize quickly reality has other plans. You are stuck in a war with yourself and the battles seem to be getting worse.

I have fought with this monster all my life, you know the one that makes you feel like you are inadequate, that you are just a waste of people’s time, that you deserve all the times you have quickly cried in the shower and all the times you stared at the ceiling through the night without a blink. I have learned to live with it and I have learned to make sure no one makes note of it. It was embarrassing for me to admit that I am broken, especially because I have no reason to feel that way. I feel ungrateful towards the ones that have loved me tirelessly, tried to make me feel special, been there to make sure this overpowering feeling of dark leaves me alone. The brain is a dark space and with all due respect, the people that love me don’t need to see that. I am content with being the person that is always smiling and funny and witty and just looks like she doesn’t give a damn. I know seeing me happy makes a lot of people happy.

I tried to pull that with him. I put on a show every day to convince him that the person he sleeps next to every night and whose face he wakes up seeing every morning is the bad bitch he fell in love with back in college. I smile, I crack jokes, I greet him with a good morning kiss, and we make breakfast together every Saturday and Sunday morning. We baby sit a pot of coffee and talk in our jammies until it is all gone. We talk about Jamie from work that has done everything in her power to make my life hell and Jason who is trying hard to look better than he is. We talk about our parents and what his mom is bickering about this week. We plot ways to defer from “when are you guys getting married” that comes like an alarm every morning from both of our families. We laugh, kiss, hug, sing songs and anyone looking from outside would think that we are the happiest two in the world. I would like to assume he is, or shall I say, I’d like to assume I have made sure he is. Honestly, out of the few things in my life that make sense right now, his smile has to a big one. It is contagious, it is exhilarating, and it makes me feel for a nanosecond that this will all be okay. For a minute, it makes me feel like I am not putting on a show, that I am truly happy.

Only if that was the case though. I have been sitting in this bone-dry bathtub, fully clothed for about an hour now. He has already left for work and I should’ve been at work about an hour ago. I guess it doesn’t matter anymore. I keep replaying the conversation I overheard last night at a party at his coworkers’. Well dressed, well groomed women were having a conversation about how he deserved better. I knew that well, but it still stung. I thought to myself, these bitches don’t know me, they don’t know any better but somewhere, my brain convinced me that even if they did know the true self I was, I don’t think their opinions would change that much. I also overheard his conversation with his friends where he was talking about how incredible I was and how he was ready to get married and start a family. He had plans, great plans. He had the ring and he had his life; our life all planned out. It was great but then my brain decided to ask me if I thought I deserved all this. It made me think if I could put on a show for the rest of my life and pretend, I was okay because I was not, and I didn’t know if I ever was going to be. That smile kept on playing over and over in my head, the one that swept me off my feet in sociology 101, freshman year college. I also understood that I might not be able to keep that going because I was tainted, tarnished, broken and worse of them all I didn’t know why and how to fix it.

This hour that I have been sitting here, I have had episodes of mania, depression, anxiety, full fledged sob and everything in between. I remember reading about this. I know I need help but maybe I am too big of a coward to admit it.

I have written a letter today.

Sweetheart,

I have loved you from the moment I laid my eyes on you. I have loved you more every time you have spoken. I have loved myself because of the way I see you looking at me and I owe you my entire life. I love all the moments we have shared, and I hope to remember them for eternity. I did something terrible today and I hope you could forgive me. I may not be around when you come back from work. You will resent me, and you will cry and you will feel awful but my love, I want you to know that it was not you, it was me. I haven’t been myself in a long time and it is not fair to drag you down with me. I am leaving, simply because I am tired of trying so hard just to live. Please remember that I will always love you and whatever great memories I have of this life comes from you.

Love you always,

Charlotte

It has been 40 minutes since I took those pills. My chest is tight, and my vision is slowly starting to fog. The fear has kicked in. I guess that is a conventional feeling for anyone who is trying to sleep for good. I vaguely remember my phone going off and it was him. I vaguely remember answering it and then that was it.

In my head, that was the end. I had justified it by convincing myself that it was a great escape for him and that he deserved better and I was keeping him from it. I woke up feeling weird and queasy. My body felt like I had been trampled by a train and my head felt like a bag of air, like it wasn’t even there. I haven’t been able to open my eyes, but I hear someone whispering my name, I feel someone squeezing my hand and I feel a drop hit my cheek. I open my eyes slowly and I will never forget that smile, the one I fell in love with, despite his eyes being swollen and red, his face broken out, his lips chapped, that smile still had the power to pause my life. I don’t know if I was relieved that I made it or mad that I failed. But at that moment, it didn’t matter, all it mattered was in years, that was genuinely the one time I was content, and I wasn’t pretending, and I wasn’t being someone I wasn’t. The smile he broke out despite being broken by what I did gave me enough courage to ask for help.

This whole week feels like a long day that just does not want to end. For the first time in years, I am fine with that. This very long day has made me reach rock bottom and soar the highest. This day has given me enough power to stop pretending and enough love to try harder to be myself. I am in his arms; he has gripped me so hard as if I would fly off if he loosens. He randomly kisses my forehead and whispers “I love you” and I smile and this time, for real.