I think the idea of graduating is affecting me a lot more than I realize. I have been in school for 19 years...the security of those four walls and the desks lined in rows and the smell of chalk is all I know. There is safety in university. A comfort in knowing I am allowed to be in debt and I am allowed to be uncertain. Comfort in knowing that I don't have to be getting married or pregnant. Right now I don't have to know where I want to buy my first house, I don't have to know anything about mortgages or property taxes, I don't have to worry about what school to send my kid, I don't have to worry about my parents getting older. These things have been reserved for future Lisa. Reserved for the right time and the right place. But will I be ready to face everything that comes after I graduate?
The truth is I want so much more out of this life. I want more than the husband and kids and dog and white picket fence. I want more than the 9 to 5, watch-the-clock desk job. And while I want to get married and I want to have kids and a dog and, yeah, maybe even a fence, I want more than routine. Life is about moments, and I want every moment of mine to be something I can look back on and be proud of. Have I set myself up to get more out of this life? Have I kept my options open? Do I have the strength to take what I want?
The worst thing I can imagine is ending up like my father; so deeply discontent and looking for any escape he can find. Infidelity. Alcohol. White hot, blinding rage. Sleep. The worst thing I can imagine for my life is forgetting how fragile it is, and wasting it on anger or regret or bitterness.
But what do I want out of life? What am I doing? Who do I want to be?
I am so terrified and so anxious and so affected by my past that sometimes I wonder if I have the strength to keep going. To claw my way out from the clutches of the beast inside my heart.
I wrote this last year in a journal I had to do for school.
"Growing up was sort of difficult for me. My Dad left my Mom and started a new family before I had even been born and as a result I felt the weight of stress and burden and suppressed resentment for much of my childhood (if only in my head). Being so small and fragile made me an easy target for bullies and I never really had any friends. Instead when I was younger I spent most of my free time alone; preforming scientific experiments on plants, drawing maps to non-existent buried treasure, interviewing my cat. Everyday when the bell rang for recess my heart would jump into my throat and I was showered with an unrelenting anxiety that made it hard to breathe. I experienced early on the amazing thoughtlessness and often downright cruelty of people, and as a result I became guarded. Even as I got older I took it upon myself to become as detached and self-reliant as I could. People were disappointing, and I had already suffered through so much of it that I figured it would be easier just to be alone. Instead I found peace in writing, dance, music, and any other hobby that would distract me from the outside world."
And I find it interesting to read this. Because on the one hand I AM detached. I am detached and I am disillusioned. If I needed anybody to substantiate me as an individual I would have given up on this life a long time ago. I have made myself happy (or I have scraped by, at least) for 23 years while people came in and out of my life. I have gotten by relying on nobody but myself. I have overcome self-inflicted injury, years of eating disorders, drugs, alcohol, sexual abuse. I have worked hard to build myself up despite the cruelty of others. I may have so much more work to do, but here I am. Still standing. So I'm detached and self-reliant...but I care. Does that make sense? No, I'm sure that it doesn't. But I do, I care. I care so damn much about people and what they think and what they feel and do. I care what people think of me. I am detached and self-reliant and yet I am so eager to please, and eager to find that one person that makes me feel good about myself. Male or female, friend, lover. Doesn't matter. I want to find that one person that loves me just the way I am. Now. Not who I am going to be when I figure myself out. I want to find that one person that stays with me because they think that I am great. I want someone to kiss my forehead and love all of my flaws and tell me "it's okay, Lisa, you are doing a great job. You can relax for a little bit because I will make you feel good about yourself until you are strong enough again".
Believe me, I wish confidence and self-assurance came easy. And I wish I could forget my father and the fact that he left us and started a new family. I want to forget the men I considered father figures growing up that I became attached to and then were no longer around. I want to forget bullies and friends who decided I wasn't worth their time. I want to forget the guys who I fell in love with and broke my heart. I want to forget all of it so I can maybe stop blaming myself and thinking about all the reasons why I may have driven every single one of them away.
I am trying so, so hard. But I have done it all on my own and I just need somebody to be here and just fucking BE here.
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