Blindness

The dust from the carpet fills my nostrils as I gasp a breath, a brief respite from the hopelessness that I am feeling. I don’t know how I got here, lying on the floor, creating a soggy puddle on the carpet beneath my cheek. But here I am, begging God to take this away from me. Whatever it is. Wishing to understand myself. I cry out to God in hurt, anger, fear, and despair but I get no response, no word of comfort, no understanding. I continue to lie on the floor, unable to do anything but cry. Unable to push myself up or move on. I am consumed.

            I have discovered, though I don’t really remember the moment of discovery, that I am, what many would call, a complex, high-maintenance person. If I feel something, I want, I need that feeling to be seen. As an actress, this is a quality desired. As a person…it makes for a very emotionally fraught life. If I am happy everyone can see it. If I am sad, people can tell something is not quite right, though sometimes I just play it off as tiredness. That is a common excuse, not at all original. If I am angry with someone, I will either ignore them or become distant, stand offish, cynical, sarcastic…mean. In general I am not a mean person, but I do get frustrated and I want people to understand just by observing, without me having to tell them. Having to tell them destroys the point. Unfortunately, people aren’t quite as observant as I expect they should be.

            The fall of my junior year at Northwestern, I struggled needing people to observe. I was hurting, so confused by my emotional ups and downs. I could be found crying several times a day, not little tear-shedding cries, but body wracking sobs, which dragged me down to the floor of my tiny little dorm room, where I lay without the energy or motivation to pick myself up again. And what made it worse…I didn’t know why. I wanted people to know. I wanted people to understand. I wanted comfort. I didn’t want to have to say anything because that seemed very attention seeking and I was afraid that people would look at me and…think I was completely off my rocker. And maybe I was. I wanted people to understand, but how could they when I didn’t myself. I wanted people to see my pain. Not everyone. A few specific people…each for reasons of their own.

            A knock sounded on my door. I said, as I always say, “Come in.” I say this because people are welcome in my room. The girls on my floor know that they can come and vent to me and that I will listen and do my best to encourage them. My roommate and I have what we call a crying chair, which is really just a cushy arm chair, where I have done my fair share of crying over this past year, while relating to her some frustration or struggle I was currently facing. We also have a praying bed, my bed which we use as a couch during the day, where we would pray for the many friends who were struggling with each other...the enmity between so many different groups of our friends. And there we were. The ones that everyone else came to and we were in the middle. We would pray for the restoration of friendships.

            The door opened and in came the person I least wanted to see in the whole world. He considered me the best friend he had and I just wanted to be left out.

Written: 4-02-10