Evading Yourself Doesn’t fix Yourself.
Yesterday someone approached me who I wouldn’t have thought would’ve. She came to me crying, looking deeply in my eyes in the hope of finding any sense of humanity, any help in reaching relief in a time with such little.
“My grandma is close to expiration. She has days, not weeks. I can’t see her, and I can’t reach her. I’m stuck here while she’s there.”
The usual speel ensured, “I’m sorry,” “My thoughts are with you and your family,” “I wish you had more time with her,” “You’ll be able to see her in the past life.” It was thinking about all of these things that reminded me about losing my Grandparents. Just like this young woman sitting in my car, I wasn’t there for the end either.
How could I specify that there wasn’t a need to worry. There wasn’t a need to embellish in supplemental happiness to discover the particular substance that will misplace the pain of losing a loved one — how hypocritical because that’s exactly how I handled it. It’s evident people look to me as an example without knowing my curtains have been sewn shut for years.
I gave her the advice. It wasn’t good advice, but the best I had. It was the lies I have been telling myself for years and the ways I’ve coped with lying to myself. See, I have evaded fixing the plentiful of issues for so many years. I have used excuses temporarily to get me through the days. Ranging from blaming it on depression, blaming it on the weather, saying it was the last break up, all these excuses stopped the bleeding and made the pain more bearable.
The biggest thing I’ve learned from having to confront myself at a moment’s notice is that lying to yourself only gets you so far. Eventually, to fully fix yourself, you need to approach the demons that haunt you. Taking them by the balls and realizing life is always out to get you, and there is no way to stop that. Owning up to the fact you cannot control everything, learning to respect the natural cycle of life.
Note, this is a redemption story, the redeemer? You. The only person that can control how you handle tragedies is yourself. So stop running away from dealing with yourself. Throw away the excuses and do something before you end up like the exact person you mourn. You have years, not millennia.
