"I don't think that being a strong person is about ignoring your emotions and fighting your feelings. Putting on a brave face doesn't mean you're a brave person. That's why everybody in my life knows everything that I'm going through. I can't hide anything from them. People need to realise that being open isn't the same as being weak."

- Taylor Swift

Monday, August 06, 2012

Alone.

Now Playing: Decode by Paramore (Do you see what we've done? We've gone and made such fools of ourselves...)

They never told me you have to do so much growing up alone. In solitude. That people can do things to you, but the consequences...you're on your own for that.

I said before that more and more often words fail me, that I can't tell so many people so many things, and even when I trust them enough sometimes words utterly fail me. I cannot...I cannot describe how I feel, the exquisite rush of being young, being alive; the pain and pleasure almost in equal measure. I wish I could explain to one person, just one person...but I don't have that person. I don't know if I have someone who could understand me, perfectly.

I used to think that things didn't effect people, that other people weren't like me - that other people couldn't be reduced to tears or sent soaring in the clouds by a word, or a person, or a kiss. The feeling of being surrounded by people who wouldn't, or couldn't care...it killed me. Everything rushed through me, new and fresh and intense, an everyone else seemed to function with total apathy. But then I realized...people do feel this way, people do do things, just for the hell of it, just for the rush...but we just have to hide it, pretend otherwise. Why? Why?

This is just all so new. It's weird, after so long sitting on the sidelines, wishing for right now...and now right now's here and it's the strangest feeling, euphoria and dread all mixed up and confused. This is the year, the year that I brought upon myself a year too early, where everything happens, all at once - academic and personal, anything that can happen just happens, with no warning and no instructions and no turning back. It's the year of snap judgements and split-second decisions, a time when once you say 'yes' or 'no' the ram has touched the wall and there's no going back. It's exhilarating but it's also very...disorienting. 

The only way to live is to regret nothing. Growing up would be so much harder if I wasted any time feeling guilty, or dirty, or cheap, or kicking myself for things that cannot be undone. I live on impulse - I do things without thinking, I do things for the rush, for the feeling, for the experience, for the hell of it - I do things because I don't want to miss out, I want to have those kind of memories that make your fingertips tingle with me, always. It's dangerous and reckless and vulnerable, but I know exactly what it takes to feel alive. But nobody warned me...nobody warned me I'd be so alone for all of this, that I'd have no one to talk to, and the people I did talk to can't empathise the way they used to. Surely...surely other people have been in my situation. Surely somebody, in some time and place, must have turned sixteen and watched wide-eyed and excited as doors that were sealed shut suddenly thrust open, somebody must have suddenly been thrown head first into - well, into growing up, changing colour. So why do I feel so alone in this?

1 comment:

Adelaide Dupont said...

Just wanted to share Deborah Ruf's paper on Social and Emotional Needs, especially the last paragraph.

(and hoping you're not feeling over-busy!)

http://www.deborahruf.com/resources/resources_social_emotional_needs.php>Social and emotional needs

(Granted it doesn't say much about being a gifted adult, though you can draw the lines and the dots).

I found it from Derrin in Western Australia. She works for Thinking Ahead.

Thinking Ahead

And if you were told you did much of your growing among others, it would be the more misleading. It's deep and significant.