Why is it that when I finally get my head together, that’s when I reach out to people.
I’m okay. Are you okay?
I’ve been looking at pictures of mandalas. They’re beautiful, detailed, and so delicate. I love their complexities and hate the moment when hands sweep the sands into one gray pile at the center. Yet, I have to admit that their beauty also lies in their vulnerability. Truly, despite my reluctance, I know it.
In response to watching them evolve and watching them die, I try to think of my purpose in my short life. I think my purpose is to tell the truth as I see it, even when I don’t look put together doing it. These past days, I’ve found that I’m not brave. I want to be brave.
It’s hard to put my real face on. Any of you who know me may not actually know me. Do you know what I mean?
I’m beginning to wonder if everyone does that or if it’s just me.
What do you mean it’s just me? I wanted to hear you say that everyone did that. I didn’t want it to be just me.
A friend of mine once told me that Facebook wasn’t real, that it was a curated version of our lives. That got me thinking: what part of my life is really exposed to people and what meaning can I bring if I only show a mask to them?
I’m like an onion. On the outside, I’m dried up, desiccated, bland. I seem so ordinary. When you peel that layer off, I’m still a little dried out, but I’m more interesting. I curse. I don’t smile all the time the way I’m supposed to. Sometimes, when I forget that my mouth is moving, I say something truly rude and I can make Mike laugh. He sees inner layers, but does he see all of me? Would he still love me if he saw my depth? By the time you get to my innermost layer, really inside, I’m sweet and too spicy and I might bring tears to your eyes. Sometimes I bring tears to my own eyes when I look for meaning and actually find it. Sometimes, I’m an ass. Sometimes, I’m lost in the abyss.
Maybe I’m not like an onion. Most of the layers inside an onion are all alike and they go all transparent in heat with butter. I can hardly ever go transparent, even to my best friends. I tried that a few weeks ago with the subject of my family’s status as high-risk to the Coronavirus. At the end of our conversation, I felt like a raw nerve and still felt like my family was disposable. I don’t want us to be disposable.
My friends and I were discussing the use of masks. They were resistant. I got mad that I meant so little to them, but I never quite showed my true self. I argued somewhat dispassionately. I argued in the realm of the hypothetical.
This connected straight to one of my inner beliefs: Never try to change someone’s mind, even a good friend’s. There are limits to friendship. I felt their limits and I left them alone. Maybe I’m not brave, really, but I still believe this in my soul, that I can’t change a mind that’s made up.
Since then, I’ve been walking around hurt and angry and thinking about the meaning of a true friendship. Two people outside my house have checked up on me. Two. One of them was my nephew. I think maybe my sister sent him after I wrote a broken letter and sent it to her. I can be more honest with my sister these days, but not completely. I still hide from her on the bad days. I don’t call when I feel I’m at my worst.
I’ll be honest. I’m a little better, more centered these days, but I’m still a mess sometimes. My family is still alive. We’ve managed to stay mostly at home with minimal contact with people who won’t wear masks. The cities have quieted down and hopefully, our country is getting down to the business of making change for the sake of Black lives. I believed in the protests, but I was afraid of the chaos. I’m a little more settled than I was during those weeks.
Yet, I don’t sleep more than four hours at a time. I wake to every noise. I might eventually get enough sleep, but it takes a lot of work to do it. I’m tired. I am deeply tired.
I’m less balanced, or maybe I’m just more worried about falling since I took that spill on Memorial Day. I’m still healing from that fall but at this point, I’m like the little kid with a boo boo who shows her heart-shaped scab to anyone who’ll put antibacterial ointment and new Band-Aid on it. I don’t heal as well as I used to. I feel the ache of that cut. I still feel the ache of the fall deeply.
And I just feel strange. Do you feel strange too? Does any of this feel normal to anyone yet? Do you question your mental health in all these continuing crises?
I do.
Nothing is permanent. I am not permanent. Even Mike and Nick aren’t permanent. It’s odd but it’s true to my core that I have an easier time thinking about dying that living through losing either of them.
I’m not doing a good job of letting go. I’m not doing a good job of living with their impermanence.
Yet every day, I’m reminded that their impermanence could come sooner rather than later. I’m too angry to sweep the sand of my beautiful mandala into the wind. I’m furious that I might have to let go. I don’t want anyone to see how easily I could turn, even in life, into a gray pile at my center.
There. That’s my secret. That’s how easily the beauty of my soul can be blown away.
Thank you for listening, jules