People tell me that I’m strong, but I really don’t feel strong. I feel like a pile of leaves, cowering from the next gust of wind. I feel like a sandcastle, bracing for the tide. And it’s not like you might think, that I fear that the tide will destroy me. It’s that I long for it. I am fighting my own yearning to completely fall apart; to disintegrate into individual grains of sand and allow myself to scatter.
I long to become somebody else’s problem, to become a child for whom all decisions are made, whose choices are someone else’s choices. And yet I also know that I abhor the thought of dependency so much, I begin to wonder if what actually keeps me standing is the force of opposite desires pressing in on me.
I don’t know. I’m not a physicist. Who knows how magnets work?
I have a memory of a woman once telling me she had no idea how I managed. She knew she couldn’t possibly handle all the things I had to. I can’t remember how I responded, but I know I didn’t say the quiet part out loud. That carrying my burdens was never a choice I was offered. I just do what anyone would do, what she would do if she woke up one day to find the Burdensome Crap Fairy had visited. Add it to her burdensome backpack.. Keep her head down. Avoid sitting too long. Bitch and moan. Whine and whinge. Curse the ether. And keep moving.
Please don’t tell me I’m strong. It just reminds me of how tired I am, how tempting it is to lay these burdens down. To crumble into grains of sand and let the sea wash me away.
Random Knowledge Syndrome 