Imagine you're flipping through a magazine and each time you come to the page that holds your likeness, you tear it out. Without even looking. Over and over again. And it's not even that you want to be like the people on the other pages, but that you want to be blank. You want to be the ideal of every single person who looks your way.
Tonight I'm all charged up thinking about how I've lived. That I fought hard for invulnerability because I didn't know anything else. That I pretended to be anyone else but me. That I ended up so alienated from myself.
If you're reading this then you're human and you feel everything I do whether you know it or not. You feel disappointed. You feel angry. You bleed. You feel like saying fuck it. You feel ashamed. You beat yourself up. You're scared. Sometimes you even think you hate.
And you persevere. And you go on. You smile. You land in compassion's lap time and time again. You love. But you are anything but perfect. You are everything but a blank slate.
Thanks, Chris. I heart you.
ReplyDeleteyour writing makes it so easy to relate when you uncover another layer of what it means to be alive - and it shows me that being compassionate also gives me a chance to smile about my fears, anxieties, and my wounds - you remind me that we are never alone, but that our hearts share the same desires, regardless of how we shy away from or admit to our needs
ReplyDeleteI love your last line so much: "You are everything but a blank slate".
ReplyDeleteYES!