Becoming, Lucy

I had a dream that my sister turned into a gorilla and rubbed her chest hairs proudly.

My dreams have been WILD lately. I wake up from them absolutely baffled and I keep waking up in the middle of the night completely confused. I don’t remember all of them, just bits and pieces and the confusion I’m left with when I wake.

I’m not sure why I am telling you about my weird dreams.

I keep thinking about dating.

But I’m not a fling person. I’m not a situationship person. I’m not a friends with benefits person. When I’m in, I’m in for the long run. And I don’t think I’m ready to meet someone who could give me that yet.

That’s a partial lie.

I don’t believe anyone will want to give me that.

Who is going to want a twenty-six year-old single mum? I feel like a baby still.

Who is going to want someone who has no idea what they’re doing with their life?

I have dreams but I’m here doing fuck all about any of them.

I’m still here trying to heal.

I want to be weird again. But I want to be weird with someone.

I want to have someone. Everyone has someone.

My therapist would probably say I have friends – my best friend and at least three other friends.

But they all have someone else. I mean my best friend has two other best friends (she’s a traitorous bitch (no offence to her other best friends)).

I don’t know. I just know I have no one.

I think I’m supposed to be alone now. I don’t know why but I can feel it inside me. That I’m supposed to be alone until I’m thirty-two. That I have six years ahead of me doing this solo, doing life alone.

Maybe that’s restrictive. Maybe that’s protecting myself. Maybe that’s me trying to protect myself from making connections. Maybe that’s me saying I have six years of healing to do first from the first twenty-six years of my life.

I have so much love to give… I’m not prepared to give myself to someone again. I want to make sure the foundations of me are set before I lose myself to someone again.

It all just sounds like bullshit. Almost as though I’m trying to convince myself of it as well as you.

Ignoring all the other stuff shoved into boxes.

I want to be noticed but not perceived. I don’t want to be made to feel not enough again. I don’t want to be too much for someone.

These thoughts they consume me. They suffocate me. They’re not just in my brain but written into my blood, my bones, into every particle that makes me, me. I can feel them wrap around me like a blanket… Covered in steel spikes. Puncturing my ribs, my chest – my eyes too, until I’m blinded by my own sickness.

There’s no escape.

And I don’t fight. I don’t panic. I just let them press down. I don’t even cry.

I keep telling myself that that is healing. That sitting with my thoughts is healing. That not shoving them into boxes is healing. But I’m not convinced. In fact, I know it isn’t. But I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how I’m supposed to look healing.

And I don’t want to hear someone say “everyone’s healing looks different” – kindly fuck off.

Give me an instruction manual or something. Give me a finish line. Tell me when the sickness will have extracted itself from my body.

Scratch that.

Tell me how to remove the sickness from myself and I’ll do it. I am the surgeon of myself – just tell me where to place the scalpel so I can bleed.

Should I cry more? Should I be angrier? Should I smile more until I believe the smile is real and not practiced?

Just someone fucking hand me the instructions and I’ll get it done.

But will I?

I’m convinced I like it here in the safety of my sickness. I’m convinced I won’t like myself if I remove the sickness hurting me, suffocating me.

I think maybe I’m holding that spike-covered blanket down. That it isn’t that heavy. That I’m okay with living with puncture wounds because without them… I have no concept of who I am.

But then why do I want it to stop?

Nothing makes sense. Nothing is clear.

The sickness blinds me.