I don't think I've ever experienced the kind of loneliness I have in this last month, almost two months now and there is no ceasing to the aching in my chest, in the center of my being, and it has opened my eyes to something even more painful.
I have become acutely aware of how extremely performative we humans are. We put on the face that we show to the public and we go out and continue the day to day drudgery as if we actually wish to. For me the last few months has been an academy award winning performance, I've been walking around in character as if my person is the actual cover of the book I'm Okay, You're Okay. In truth I am not okay, there's nothing, no joy, no happiness, nothing I look forward to doing I'm just getting through my day every day, wash, rinse, repeat and I find myself looking at other people asking, if I'm witnessing their performance and they're feeling the same way.
I mean, life is hell right now for so many people and some of us make it our job to see if we can lift others up, try to bring them a little happiness, if only for a moment, try to provide an escape from the outside world and all the terrors. To the healers out there, to those reaching out to community and trying to build something who's taking care of you? Who has given you a safe place? Most of us are hand to mouth right now, one paycheck away from living under a bridge.
John had to find work outside our business to shore up our finances, so that split up the team and both of us have just been through so much turmoil in the last several months that this change, all of this massive change, has made us weary, neither one of us wants to leave the sanctity of our house, not one more day. We walk one foot in front of the other and act like we want to be here, living through this horrible timeline...
So what do you do when you can't? When you just can't do one more day, one more interaction, one more defeat, one more bill. What do you do? Sometimes the sound of my own breathing is so loud that it echoes and I can't stand the sound of it. Yet here, I am trying to abide in some sort of peace, dominoes all falling all around me, the world on fire, putting one foot in front of the other.
I sat here alone today in an empty store for hours, terrified that I'll let someone down that might need help If I'm not here, but at the same time terrified that I'm not gonna be able to pay the bills that keep me here. This economy, is crushing all of us, and we're just sitting here, taking it on the chin while they rob us blind, while they takeaway essential services which we pay for, that help the disabled, our seniors, and our children, leaving them to die, while starving our soldiers and cutting their VA benefits and we just sit here holding whatever little thing of value that we have left, grasping it like a drunken sailor on a sinking ship. The raft we're clinging to has holes in it and rather than swimming, we sit there sinking, because it's the last raft we have. It's all that's left that is ours. When the truth is, in this country at least, you never truly own anything, because if you stop paying the taxes on things you paid taxes for when you purchased it, they come and take it.
Why? Why aren't we more angry? Why aren't we a mob filling every crevice in which they hide and horde our stolen money? What happened to the land of the brave, or was it all just a myth?
Honestly, I'm bereft of myself.
Tay