Enough, already

I'm done with whining for this month. We now return you to the regularly scheduled Paradise in which I live. A reality in which SI is finally being recognized by the media in something other than a semi-hysterical rant. Used to be that this was the sign of troubled loner adolescents. The sort that became the Guidance Office Darlings. When I was back in PA I visited my old high school, and learned that you really can't go home ever again. I walked back into the Guidance office and was stunned because it had changed. New faces. New people. The same old furniture and decorations. I felt unreal in that moment. If I was still practicing I would have raced into the bathroom that instant and driven a paperclip under my fingernail until I saw blood. But I'm not practicing.

I'm a grownup these days. Even though I'm a Borderline [borderline personality disorder] I'm a functioning one. One with a real relationship. A marriage that is as healthy as any other. A beautiful child whom I love with all my heart. I'm still fighting all those unhealthy things and patterns... jumping to conclusions, seeing myself in movies and books, and playing out imaginary scenarios in my head. I still play things out in my head. Often. I just have learned to be real careful about letting them out into the open. That line between dreams and reality, it's written in hospital records, the scars on my arms and legs, and in the sobering moments of my Black depressions.

I'm going to keep being a grownup. I'm going to suck it up. Wait out this deployment with a smile on my face and a quiet spirit. Keep the reality buried deep. It won't poison my loved ones anymore. I've got to hold the pain, I've got to hoard it like treasure because it reminds me that I'm me. I don't even know why I need to hold the pain always. I just know that I'm still not ready to let it go.