This is one of those truths I try to forget, but know I never should.

I used to wake up every day disappointed.  Disappointed in me, in my life, in the day's tasks and to-dos, in the people around me, in everything.

Disappointed that I'd made it through the night, and that I'd have to live one more day as me.

I don't remember many things at that point in my life.  I can tell you the facts, I can tell you the things that I know to be true because that is what others have proven to me.  I lived in an 3-bedroom apartment with 3 other girls.  We lived on the fourth floor.  I shared an ensuite bedroom.  I went to my classes, on a shuttle; and returned from my classes, on a shuttle.  I and two roommates had problems with the girl I shared a room with; she eventually moved out without telling us, and the new one that moved in was not much better.  We had a cookie jar named Big P, because he reminded us of a larger version of Porkshop, Doug Funny's dog.  I drove a Toyota Corolla, the same I drive today.  My calendar was of Orlando Bloom.

But I don't remember emotion during that period.  I don't remember feeling anything for anyone, wanting things and being excited.  I don't remember having good days with friends, or bad days because a professor was being shitty.  I don't remember connecting with anyone or anything.

Well...some of that is a lie.  I remember feeling betrayed, and hurt, and let down, and disappointed, and like I was broken.  I remember feeling like my heart had been shattered, and that it wouldn't ever get better; I remember feeling like I didn't want my heart to get better, because that meant I could go through this again.  I remember feeling so much pain, everywhere, so much that it felt like I couldn't even stand straight.  And I remember slowly turning my emotions out, letting them all go, forcing myself to become numb, impenetrable, impervious.

I remember wanting to die.

I never tried to die, or wished horrible accidents on myself.  I just remember thinking that if, for some reason, I didn't open my eyes the morning after I laid down in my bed...that'd be ok.  It'd be fine.  It would probably hurt those who miraculously still cared about me even though my heart was frozen, but not ever waking up was better than the alternative: one more day.

I remember walking all the way across campus to the Science Library just so I'd get away from anyone I knew (SciLib was direct opposite side of campus from the Langson, which is the library humanities/SocSci primarily used). I didn't want to see people who knew me or talk to anyone, because it would be one more person I had to lie to and fake that I was doing fine.  I remember sitting in the study floor, surrounded by all these strangers, and feeling the exact same way I felt around people who did love me: alone. Consumed.  Losing.

I remember feeling so shattered I left my apartment and drove home for the day.  It was a random day of the week, and I had classes the next day.  But I felt like I was suffocating in my apartment, in my life - so I ran.  The only place I knew was home.  I remember driving, and wondering what would happen if I hit the gas and let go of the wheel.  Leave it in the Higher Power's hands.  My family was concerned, because I hadn't told anyone I was coming home, and I wouldn't tell them why I was there.  I don't think I really knew or was aware of why I'd come home or really where I was; I just knew I'd run far enough to feel ok about waking up the next morning.  That drive back the next morning was one of the hardest in my life, and it didn't make it any better when I walked into my apartment and all my roommates were surprised to see me. They hadn't even realized I'd left.

I remember most the day I locked myself in my room and laid down on my floor, iPod pumping music in my ears.  Low enough to not cause damage, but loud enough to hurt enough to feel.  I remember feeling like I had to physically keep my sanity, that I was actually clawing and working hard against those barriers in my head to keep it together.  I wrote a poem that day, that I still don't like to read today; it was about how I felt like my mind was cracking, that I could feel everything slipping just out of reach and nothing could save me. I think I was on the floor for 5 or 6 hours that day.  No one noticed.

That was my entire second year of college, and most of my third.  Thinking back on those days is fuzzy still - it's hard to believe I really did exist then.  If my life at the time was considered as existing.  I floated through, acted just normal enough so no one would really know.  I closed in on myself, tightened everything that could offer a connection to anyone, really believed that I was on my own. Forever.

At the time I very honestly believed that my soul was splintered permanently, that the damage could never be repaired or reversed.  I was half a human without hope of getting back.  I never thought I'd recover from all the pain I had gone through, and truthfully, I didn't care to.  I couldn't face it, I didn't want the possibility that feeling like that could happen again.  Everything hurt, everything made me tired and hopeless and there wasn't anything worth it to fight for.


I didn't write this into the blogosphere in the search for pity or compliments or attention.  I wrote it because it is a part of my life, and as much as it pains me to look back on it...it's necessary.  It's a large portion of my life, tightly and deeply woven into the fabric of my life.

Today is better.  I did make it through that period of my life, whether I wanted to or not.  And I can look back on it and know that nothing is worth feeling that way again. That I am worthy of more, that there are things and people who are worth fighting for.  Those were the worst days of my life, and I hope they will always be the worst days of my life.  That I've made it through, come out stronger and higher and with the knowledge of something more.  Some days are tough, and I'll feel like those days aren't as far behind as they seem. Some days I start to wonder if I really am doing as well as I think I am, that maybe it's all just a horrid trick and tomorrow I'll find the rung I'm standing so tenuously on while trying to climb my way out of the darkness is actually breaking and ready to plunge me farther down.  That maybe it's all a lie, and I've just gotten better at running.

But then I remember that I feel like it is better.  That I feel farther from that feeling, that I feel stronger and loved and not as lost and despaired.  That I feel crappy, but I know that I can feel happy, too.

That I am feeling.