Back to square one.  I want to give up.  I want to completely walk away from everything.  It hurts…….So bad , and there appears to be no end in sight.  How do you deal with pain day in and day out?  I feel so unwanted.  Do I add value to anyone’s life?  Does anyone want me around?  I feel like the answer is a definitive no.  Always on the outside looking in.  Trying to belong.  Like the little girl on the playground wanting someone to ask her to join in or to be their friend.  You would think life gets easier as adults.  You see all this social media about inclusivity, body positivity, love each other, be there for each other, but who is there for us really?  Happiness is a state of mind.  It is a place we can go and visit our happy memories.  A lot of times, my happy memories make me sad.  They make me wish for a different outcome.  It’s a catch-22.  Wanting a different life, but knowing that if I have a different life I wouldn’t have Carter.  I want to wake up, happy and excited to face the day.  I want to know that there is someone who loves me.  I know I talk a lot about love, but it’s because I do not feel loved.  I hate that feeling. It is dark, black, cave-like, so dark that you have to run your hands across the cave walls to keep your bearings.  You’re constantly searching for that glimmer of light, only to never see it.  Yet you keep searching.  Falling on your knees and crying out for help, yet never receiving it.  Then you stand back up, find the wall, and continue to make your way through the cave.  It’s slimy, and wet, and terrifying, but is it more terrifying than waking up everyday and feeling the same thing?  Do you give up?  Do you keep going?  You walk through that cave day in and day out, alone, with no one to guide you.  Maybe that is your punishment for the sins of your life.  Maybe that dark cave is what you deserve for the things you’ve done in your life.  But shouldn’t being a good person override all of the bad?  And what is considered bad?  We have all fallen short of the glory of God, we will all continue to fall short of the glory of God.  I think being a good person is important.  Life is full of bad people.  People who do things that you can’t even fathom and you wonder why they have no remorse.  Why they can do those things, then you think, am I the same as them?  My life is one big mess.  It probably doesn’t look like it from the outside, but on the inside, it is just one big ball of yarn slowing unraveling.  If the slightest string is unraveled, the whole thing, me, will fall apart.  I can’t remember the last time I completely fell apart.  I’ve cried, I’ve been sad, but I haven’t let myself fall apart.  I’m afraid if I do let myself fall apart, I will never be able to put myself back together again.  I feel invisible.  Like no one really knows I am here.  Like a ghost that people just walk through.  Haunting my own life with my own memories.  Life is funny that way.  We walk around in our own heads and our own space, constantly overthinking every thought, decision, sentence, everything that someone else says.  If someone say’s I’m pretty, do they really mean it?  Or are they just being nice?  Then you go back into your dark, lonely cave.  The only place you feel welcome.  The light feels too bright, to fake, but the cave, it feels like home.  A dark, lonely home, but home nonetheless.  It’s sad that the cave feels like home.  It’s sad that the darkness feels comfortable and the light feel uncomfortable…. Foreign even, as though your eyes will never adjust to it’s brightness.  In the dark, you can see, maybe that’s because it’s what you know.  When your life has been lived in the dark for a majority of the time, your eyes become accustomed to it.  You still have to use the slimy wall to make your way through the dark, but you aren’t scared.  In fact, this is where your feel your bravest, your strongest.  Everyone wants to know how you do it.  How do you keep going?  How do you exist in the dark?  My question is teach me how to exist in the light.  It seems so much happier in the light.  Teach me how to do that.  Teach me to live without barriers, how to love openly with no fear, to realize that love is deserved by all.  Everyone deserves to feel loved, however that looks for them.  Everyone except me, that is.  I’m not sure I deserve anything.  When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, right?  What a stupid metaphor.  Is the glass half full or half empty?  Why does it matter?  It is however it makes you feel.  People act like you can change your feelings on a dime.  It’s a lot harder than that.  

Sometimes, life is unpredictable, unfair, unrealistic, painful, joyous, disappointing, the list goes on and on. One thing that never changes, is that life does, indeed, go on. I am almost 45 years old and I feel like I’ve lived 3 or more lifetimes already. As I get older, I wonder if I’m happy. There have been happy moments in my life, sure, but it hasn’t been consistent. I feel as if my happiness depends on other people a lot of times. A text from a man that I love, someone that makes me feel special and worthy. Is there a reason we depend on others for our happiness? Does life get easier or do we just learn how to deal with it better? I am so strong. I know that I am, after everything I’ve been through, I am still standing; sometimes crouched over, but still standing on my own 2 feet. I am financially independent, I am a good daughter, sister, mother, and friend. When I love you, I do so with my whole heart, which is strange because I feel like I have no heart left. It’s been shattered so many times, but each time, it seems to mend itself. Like a patchwork quilt; It puts itself back together again. It loves a lot easier than I expect it would. Love is a funny thing. What exactly is love? I think love is an action. It is a verb. It is something that you do every single day. It is fun, playful, serious, hurtful, worth it. I always wonder if I’m going to find love again. I keep trying to tell myself that even if I don’t, I’ll be ok with it. Fake it till you make it, right? Anyway, back to life. Life is beautiful. The colors, the smells, the noises….. Would you want to live any life other than your own? Sometimes I think I would, and then I remember that everyone has problems. Everyone feels lonely at some point. Maybe not as often as I do, which is all the time, but everyone experiences it at some point. There have been many, many metaphors about life. And that’s ironic because life itself is a metaphor. Time is fleeting, which means life is fleeting. There is never enough time, yet sometimes there is too much time. Too much time to think, grieve, dream. Never enough time to accomplish your dream. I’ve been trying to figure out what my “dream” is. Honestly, I don’t think I have one. I want to be happy, healthy. I want to have a family, but wait, I have a family, I have a son and the two of us make up a family. Maybe not what most people would call a “normal” family, but we are, the two of us. Loving each other with a bond like no other. Making sure that this family unit stays together is my number one priority. All my needs/wants come secondary to his needs/wants. He is special. He changed my life. He made me the best possible version of myself. He motivates me to keep going. To stay here in this life, to keep living even though most days I don’t want to. On those days, I remember himand I remember that he deserves so much better than me giving up on myself. He deserves to have me here, with him. Not grieving me as a teenager and carrying that into adulthood. Wondering what he did wrong, why he wasn’t enough. These are the things I think of when I get to the dark place. When I get to the place where getting out of bed everyday is a struggle, where the thought of stepping foot outside of the house and facing the public becomes too much. Putting on the mask is what I’m good at. One of my greatest talents, I think. Pretending to be someone I really am not. Pretending to be happy and joyful. Kindness comes easy for me. I want so badly for people to be kind and considerate to me, so I pour that into other people. I give them what I want. I’ve done that in relationships, too. I tell people things that I want them to tell me. I miss you, I love you, I can’t live without you, you are my everything, you have my heart, you get the idea. And yet, I don’t get that. I get a response to some of it, but never the response that I am expecting. I trust too easily, yet I don’t trust at all. What an oxymoron, but it’s true. I have so many walls around my heart, but am so desperate for attention and love that I will believe the words that people say, even though they are just words. Do we ever overcome the way we think of ourselves? After all these years, will I ever feel good in my own skin and see what other’s see? I hope I do. I want to be confident. I’m already independent, and strong and can take care of myself, but I want to love me. I don’t know how to love me. I love everyone else sooooo much, but I have absolutely no love for myself. I hate the way I look, yet I have no desire to put in the work to change that. I’ve been small before and I still hated the way I looked, so it really doesn’t have anything to do with the “weight” it’s just me in general. I have depression, that plays a huge role in how I feel about myself. I waited too long to be treated, I think. Life is funny.. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad, sometimes it’s dark, sometimes it is full of light. I guess that we determine what we consider good and full of light. Overcome the darkness, and if I knew how to do that I would definitely share it with you because I’m still working on it.