What have you done?
I was perfectly alright in my little bubble. In this bubble, I could pretend like I was fine. I could tell myself that just by reorienting how I felt, each day, every day, I could be happy. I could pretend like everything was fine and it would be.
This worked. For a long, long time, it worked. I didn’t have to see the gaps, the black holes anymore. I could see just the bigger picture in sharp focus and say, “Hmm, that’s a good life I’ve got going.”
And then, you came along. Suddenly, I couldn’t help but see the gaps again.
For a long time, I had harboured this feeling that all my efforts at happiness were like doggy-paddling in deep water- at some point, I would get tired and give up into the all-consuming darkness of a realm where I cannot breathe anymore. Maybe, in there, I would finally be at peace.
What did you do, though?
You cracked jokes that made no sense, and perfect sense, at the same time. You cared about me at a time when I didn’t know I needed to be cared about. I was fine being the sentinel that guards everything in my life- I had made it my life’s mission to guard that happiness jealously, and yet, in one fell swoop, you made me feel so tired of the constant trying.
You pranced into my life when I didn’t ask you to, and even when I begged you to leave, you stayed. Every time you laughed your crooked laugh, I realized that mine own wasn’t genuine enough. Every time you began to speak in that slow, perfect lilt, I waited with bated breath for you to complete the story. But you didn’t.
I asked you to walk away, but you didn’t.
Today, I see that you have a life beyond me. You have an existence where other people huddle and listen to the same stories I listened to. You are just as eager to be with them, too. Somehow, their story gets a beginning and an end, while mine doesn’t.
Strangely enough, this doesn’t break my heart. Instead, it puts the spotlight on my selfishness. And you do it, yet again.
Every move you make only serves to turn the spotlight on me. I can’t help but see myself for who I really am.
I can’t help but feel like the monster I know I have always been. I want your attention all to myself, so I would probably manipulate you into wanting the same thing. Indeed, less than a decade ago, this is precisely what I did with so many people, I’ve lost track. I wanted the spotlight then, and so I had it. Today, as it turns on me when I need to be in the shadows, I feel so vulnerable.
Now that I know this to be true, I cannot manipulate you anymore, because I don’t want to be a monster anymore and because you’d see right through it anyway. Maybe, just maybe, that’s why we keep doing this strange dance. The moment I draw close, I can see you flitting away. When you get too close, I vanish. Because we both know that if we get too close to each other, we have nothing but daggers and bloodshed to offer each other.
What have you really done, except just be yourself? Somehow, in doing so, you have forced me to be myself- truly, irrevocably and frighteningly sentient.
