Too Old To Feel This Young in A Ways Away

Some people say that you should just grow up, move on and get over it. The times that I’ve tried, something triggers me and I end up right back where I started again. Some people believe that trauma is always something much bigger, darker and horrifying.. but anything that has traumatized someone is big in it’s own way, dark in it’s own way, horrifying in it’s own way. When you don’t want to remember it, but you do– try to forget it, but you can’t. You dream about it, think about it, see other examples of it, anywhere you turn.

I’m in my 30’s and more often than not, I am still treated like a teenager, no matter what I do, how I express myself or present myself to be. Being an adult is not easy, though being a child wasn’t easy, either. In retrospect.. it was easy enough because there were not finances to manage, no bills to pay, no car to fuel and drive, no real work to do, save for crayons, wooden blocks, algebra, art history and government..

I age every year just like everyone else on this planet and yet, something always takes me back to puberty and gut-wrenching depression. How can I date like this? How can I think to make friends like this? I’m just barely learning to be friends with myself and yet, whenever I look into the mirror, I don’t see… me. Maybe at the end of the day, this might be seen as some ridiculous, non-rhythmic, poetic jargon, but right now and in this moment, I am thinking about the entry I wrote the other day, about the fact that I cannot bring myself to cry to release what’s buried and locked away.. and about the fact that I’m in love with a singer who doesn’t know that I exist.

Sixteen never felt as ridiculous as it does right now, in my 30s. Even as string instruments push through my headphones and fill me with inspiration of dreams that have been missed and given up on because I just didn’t know where to start, who to turn to or where to go.. I feel that deep, dark and empty pit that is somehow, still heavy.