I have had probably the worst week that I can remember having in quite some time. I had a terrible stomach flu at Disneyland a few months ago. This week was sort of on par with that.
The upside of the stomach flu was that it ended and no permanent damage was done.
Isn't that the trouble with words? You can apologize over and over and over again, but the words just don't get undone. Usually I am the one botching up the words, trying to take them back, but this time I'm the one who got hurt. Words don't really mean anything until they get read, or heard. The reader is the one who assigns the meaning. Things that I write can be read however the reader wants to read them. I may be writing with only thoughts of reconciliation in my mind, and if my reader wants to see anger there, they will. It's a mystical thing, and a dangerous one too I suppose.
Funny because I am usually such a proponent of the written word. Here I am wanting to be a writer. I love that when you write you have a chance to edit before you send the words out into the world. I love that you can take the time to distance yourself from emotion, to choose the exact word you meant. But when the written word is used to fight, somehow I guess things go wrong. Meanings get skewed.
The terrible thing about fighting with the written word is that there is an awful trail of words that gets left behind. A written record of every word you wrote in anger, every insult sent your way. It becomes so tempting to hold up that record and scream, look, see, I was just responding to line three of paragraph four. But the truth is, even when a fight is verbal, there are things that get lodged in your mind. Words you cannot ever forget. Words that build fortresses of hurt in your brain. At least when there is a record you can look back later and make sure you didn't make it up.
Or maybe that's worse because its so much harder to forget.
In any case, I have been hurt by words this week. Apologies have been accepted and yet in my head I hear these words. They tell me I am not loved, that I am imperfect, that I am faulty. They tell me that my hardest is not enough. That no matter how hard I try, I cannot measure up to the efforts of others. That my problems, my challenges are easy, that I exaggerate their difficulty, that the people I love are sick of my complaints. They tell me that the things I feared are in fact true. And that my dearest friends believe them.
And what I need to hear are some words that are entirely different. Good words. Loving words. Words to battle those powerful, dangerous words currently in my brain. Silence can hurt as much as words sometimes. More so in some cases because sometimes silence seems to confirm that those terrible words are true. I need to hear the right words from the right people and I cannot.
I feel so shattered that I cannot begin to describe it. I will of course go on, I'm not that shattered. No suicidal thoughts or anything. No one died, except maybe some part of my heart. And I will try to write more funny stories about me failing at weight loss. I will try to put this behind me and write much less self indulgent posts. But something breaks when you doubt things that you once believed were fundamental. Something breaks when you start to really wonder if the people you love, love you back. When a seed of doubt is planted, it grows out of control very quickly. It can only be stopped with more words I suppose.
I wish that I could clear my name, and address my hurts and speak my piece. I wish I could get it all off my chest to the people who need to hear it. But those words would be perceived as petty words or fighting words. And since I am so tired of fighting, this blog post is my only defense and my only outlet.
And so, after a week that left me emotionally battered and possibly heartbroken, and a little hopeless, I am doing what any normal sane person would do...I am watching streaming episodes of the BBC's Merlin online. Oh Merlin, I wish I could be in Camelot battling evil magic. It would be so much less complicated than these battles of words. At least in Camelot you know who the bad guy is.
That's all I can write. I'm out of words.
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