Sometimes I think I am just wired wrong, Jane.
But I didn’t use to be this way, not until a few years back.
There were times when I was just like all of them.
Something must have happened, Jane.
Something must have happened along the way, but I can’t really pin it down.
Maybe, I don’t want to pin it down.
What happened to me?
When did I change so much?
Why did I change so much?
You know how they say, ‘It’s never too late to change yourself?’ If only it was true!
So, this is who I am now. This is what I’ve become. I’ve tried to change, Jane. Oh, I’ve tried!
But, I’ve been wrapped up in some sort of defense mechanism, a survival instinct, that has ingrained its way into every particle of my being.
I’ve been programmed to suffer, and frankly, sometimes, I don’t mind at all, Jane.
It is like second nature to me.
It is when I feel most at home too.
Sometimes, I try to find solace in the 75 different kinds of things I do over the course of days, weeks, and months.
To distract myself from what goes on inside of me just to make it a little bit easier.
But eventually, my soul vomits a pile of guilt into my brain, where it gets churned over and over into more and more fucked-up thoughts.
And it just keeps on elevating, like the log phase of a bacterial growth curve.
The anxiety and frustration wrap their arms around me and squeeze me intensely until the panic and fright engulf every inch of my body and I am left alone resisting a freefall into the abyss.
Sounds charming, doesn’t it, Jane?
But I’m still here, though, with a resting heart beating 55 times per minute reminding me how my sober self loves to take care of it. Irony.
This life is full of little ironies.
You ask me, Jane, would I love to go back to my older self?
The one that was free of all the guilt, responsibilities, and the unwanted weight of expectations.
Just a simple and naive boy, innocent, still unaffected.
When happiness didn’t have an expiry time, and even when it did, it came back like a snoozed alarm. Every time.
Would I go back to that old self, if I could, Jane?
Would I?
I wouldn’t think twice about it, Jane.
Yes, I’ve come across things, people, and moments I admire, love, and adore along the way.
But, to think of the time when life was just a simple numerical problem compared to these complex equations of unsolvable fuckery I’m facing now, I wouldn’t mind swapping it in a heartbeat.
Is this life really unfair, Jane?
Or am I just wired wrong?
What would you know?
You are just an anomaly, Jane.
A glitch in the matrix.
You probably don’t even exist.
But even if you did, would it help?
I feel like one of these days, I am going to lose all of my leftover sanity, and the freefall into the abyss wouldn’t be so resistible.
The kind of writing that shows up uninvited, barefoot, at 3 a.m.
