emotional

Mania. I imagine it presents itself differently in everyone.

For me it’s the complete disorganisation of thought that I so desperately hate. I revert to completing the tasks that I know how to do as an expert without thinking, so that I don’t have to try to create the order I crave and need because I feel woefully unable to do so. On days like this I’m completely out of control and I cannot stand it.

Today is manic. I can’t sit still. My fingers ache. My entire body feels like it’s on fire and I keep agonising about all the things I need to do that just cannot find motivation to do. Everything is so heavy.

I managed to drag myself to work and back, without really thinking about it at all. I got out of bed, showered and got dressed. Auto-pilot.

I painted my face with horrendously expensive makeup to cover up the sins of a life well travelled, to hide the reality of my tired and ageing jowls. I brushed the tangles out of my hair, laced my shoes and hefted my backpack on, racing down the stairs into the brisk morning air.

I watched as my body carried itself to the train and departed the station like I’ve done every working day for the last six months. Today I’m a passenger on this journey. I have no control of what is happening here.

I walked from the platform to the lunch bar I frequent every morning, greeted the barista warmly as I do every day and sat amongst the freight trucks willing the sun to warm the chill that I haven’t been able to shift for what has seemed months on end.

People made jokes. I laughed. I told some of my own. I put headphones on and drowned out the sound of other people going about the same day as I, with Jeff Buckley’s ‘Je N’en Connais Pas La Fin‘ on repeat to quell the sensation of lightning splintering from every nerve ending. Again and again.

On days like this, I feel like I’m drowning. But today I carried myself home.

Home enveloped me in it’s arms and let me cry about everything and nothing. About the words that I can’t express, the truths that I can’t share, the horrors that will never escape my lips but remained trapped like prisoners – not for safe keeping, but for safety.

Home walked with me down the filthy city streets and got ice cream.

Home stroked and wiped the tears from my face and told me that the world wasn’t all bad.

I’m glad I made it home today.

My brain is full today. My heart aches today. I’m carrying the weight and burden of the hurt currently being experienced by so many people that I love truly and I need to place it somewhere.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been inspired to write anything; I mean, I don’t even know if inspired is the right term, because it’s not a sparkling desire to share anything with anyone in particular.

Right now it’s just a fervent need to get out the things that are floating around in my head late on a Saturday afternoon, to put them in some logical order and give them meaning.

At present, they’re just independent words in multi-coloured san serif fonts bouncing around the chasm that is me.

Someone I’ve known for a long time told me last night that by his estimation, I was 99% neutral good, and the remaining 1% of my character that is chaotic evil was nullified by this. This in itself to me is kinda strange conceptually, but it’s caused me to do some pretty intense thinking since.

But. It’s the 1% that keeps me up at night. It’s the 1% that stops me from believing I’m a good person. It’s the 1% that has me staring into space, agonising about everything.

I realise in writing that, I’m exposing myself as an incredibly and highly-emotional person. I used to think that this was a character flaw, but I realise now that this is what makes me human and is a distinctive part of my ego or self. It’s why I initiate conversation with people when I feel their energy shift. I recognise darkness in others as its so familiar and know that in these times, all we need is the suggestion of a shaft of light to echo through the black. These conversations are usually cumbersome words, spilling over each other and falling into the atmosphere, spoken in stilted phrasing and with nervous hesitation.

So you know – I see you’re broken. We recognise each other. I understand that you are pulling back the curtain, to let me understand how your machinations work. I understand you are vulnerable. I see you. I hear you.

Willingly, I carry your grief like ghosts. I haul them around with me, like they’re chained at my wrists and at my ankles. They follow me from room to room, house to house, haunting every single space I occupy.

These ghosts are the 1%.

They’re hurt, shame, disgust, apathy, remorse.

They’re agony, grief, guilt and resentment.

They’re hate, self-loathing, disregard and torture.

They follow me like shadows settling at dusk.