It's hard to be tough all the time. I've always been a soft person, "emotional", prone to feeling deep. Over the past number of years, I've had to build up a thick exterior as I've learned that softness is easily manipulated and it's easy for people to break through that veneer. This thick exterior has come with its own set of pros and cons.
The advantages include feeling tough, others perceiving you as tough (therefore, not a whole lot of people messing around with you), standing up for yourself and firmly establishing your boundaries, as well as feeling more secure of yourself than before and not putting up with other people's bullshit (and not putting up with your own either).
But when there are disadvantages, there are big disadvantages... one is that, over the past year or so, I've become more and more emotionally shut down. Emotionally dead. I feel like I'm suffocating all the time, like I don't care about things. The state of the world. How I treat others. I have no feeling in my heart.
I have built my walls up so high and thick, I haven't been this guarded and protected since I was much younger and I needed to have them like that in order to survive. They're impenetrable. My anger is an army, on guard at all times. I haven't been able to let my guard down in a long time. I am constantly in a shielded position, in constant vigilance. Happiness is a dream we don't deserve.
What am I shielding? My pain. My heartache. My heart. My emotions. My inner child. My soul. Who I am. I'll be weak again if I express my emotions, even though I always maintained that expressing your emotions made you strong. Cognitive dissonance. Because I still feel that way...I'll express my emotions to myself, but I don't want to show them to others. I feel like I no longer can.
My friend Michael once told me never to let the world harden me, to always stay soft, but strong. I can't do that. It didn't work. I stifle my emotions, I smother them, I choke them. If I do let myself feel them, I do it quietly, alone. I let them have a short amount of time, and then I have to get back up and keep on.
But more often than not, I find that I just don't feel anything. It's just the grind of day-to-day living.
There is only one goal: make it out alive.
Surpass love, connection, good times. There is only one goal: make it out alive.
Surpass slowing down, reaching out, seeking pleasure.
There is only one goal.
Make it out alive.
Betrayal and mistrust make for fine companions on this perilous path I've set myself on. They're the spark, they are what keep this guarded operation moving. The more I'm harmed by others, the deeper this castle moves into the forest. Away from prying eyes. Away from all eyes.
It's funny because I actually feel my softness on the inside. It's there. And it hurts to carry it. Sometimes I wish I could just kill it or else let it envelope me, but both options are bad. Is there a middle path? Because I can't seem to find it.
