All of the feelings and things

Maya Mayhem
Jul 20, 2017 · 5 min read

This morning I feel weird. I feel swollen and puffy and like electricity is running through my body.

I feel like I want to eat everything. I can’t sit still.

Granted I can never sit still. Always moving, keeping busy, and distracting myself from real feelings until they explode out my eyes and my mouth and my fists.

But today I am forcing myself to sit and sort through these feelings, to deal with a lot of unknown and old friends coming to a head.

One of my brothers is getting married on Sunday. My entire family and our partners are together in one house for nearly a week in Boston and then Connecticut.

This brings up so many FEELINGS.

Like why do I have the endless need to make this all about ME? I am not blind to the fact that I do this. Yesterday I interrupted a lovely moment between my brothers so I could exclaim about wedding seating arrangements. I was met with very annoyed stares (many thanks to my brothers for loving me even though I do this to them all the time). Sometimes it’s hard to stop this. I try to wait for the right time to say something but then I can’t wait because it feels so extremely urgent and important that there is not right time because its NOW and my brain says MAKE A SCENE RAISE YOUR VOICE ITS ALL ABOUT YOUUUU.

I blurt out a lot. I yell. I wave my hands around and stand in front of people.

My hands are shaking. I’m working through all my happy-sad feelings, trying not to cry thinking about my brother and how much I love him and his fiancé.

I’m doing my best to process being back in Boston. Five years ago I spent a little over a month here. I uprooted my life on a whim and decided to move across the country after trying to kill myself.

I remember sitting on my bed of that old pink house and staring at the pizza in front of me and feeling very hungover and also very drunk and high and then grabbing those pill bottles and swallowing them in one big gulp. And then just waited. And then panicked. And then called my brother (yep, the one getting married) for help because I didn’t like how I felt.

And the rest of that is one big blur and long story that maybe I will tell sometime soon but who even wants to hear a sad story like that?

It’s not something that is ever talked about. I don’t think anyone in my family has spoken about it since it happened. Pain makes people shut off and that’s OK. It’s hard for me to talk about it too.

Writing is difficult for me right now. There are so many things I want to say and yet I feel that familiar block in my stomach and up within my throat. My hands can’t move with my pen fast enough, my writing becomes one big squiggly line that I can’t even read.

I feel all of these intense things, remembering the sadness I once felt, the heavy blanket of self-hatred that wrapped so tightly around my heart. And now? I can’t even recall when it left. It was slow. Recent. I no longer want to die. I no longer hate who I am. I no longer feel angry all of the time. I’m actually happy. I actually LOVE myself.

I’ve been trying to relax while I’m here, trying to slow my anxiety around my family and accept the things that happen. So often my attempt to control every situation leaves me isolated and annoyed, missing out on time I could have spent enjoying something rather than manipulating it. I’m doing my best to see what happens if I just don’t react. Cut myself some slack. Let go. HAVE FUN.

I focus so much energy on changing and “getting better” that I don’t even realize or take the time to acknowledge how far I’ve come.
These parts of me, the dark parts, I love them. I would not be me without them. If I hadn’t done what I did, my life wouldn’t be this right now. I was desperate for a change, and I got it. And eventually with hard work it has developed into a life I am proud of.

But I’m not that person anymore. I’m not dependent or helpless or constantly impulsive. I’m no longer heartless. I’m not afraid of feelings.
Which is why I am okay with sitting here, in a pool of weirdness and being uncomfortable — because I know that through it, at the other side (on SUNDAY!) there is so much love and family and togetherness. I’m not afraid of the other things that come with that. I’m not afraid of living.

I feel happy and excited to be back in Boston. Mostly for the celebration that brought me here. I’m excited my family is all together — a sentence I never thought I’d say — I’m excited my boyfriend is here to listen as I allow my heart to gush and my memories to flood in.

So here I go. I’m diving into the awkwardness and anxiety and am just going to love it and I’ll probably say something embarrassing or maybe make an ass of myself or maybe some really great stuff will happen this week and maybe, just maybe, it’s not all about me or even a little bit about me and most likely about MY BROTHER and his beautiful fiancé and this entry just proves that I am very much self-centered.

Like I said, a lot of feelings today.

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