how long will you allow it?

I live in chaos until I don’t; I don’t know what I want until I ruin it.

I’m perpetually trapped in the eye of the storm.

i.

I used to deny the extent of which I needed love. I thought of it as weakness, as something so frivolously human that I couldn’t bring myself to be a part of. Yes, I loved and have been loved, but it came with so much hurt that the only option left seemed to be closing myself off; how could I knowingly throw myself into the fire when the outcome always seemed to be the same?

Hell is finding someone to love; everyone hurts, everyone leaves.

ii.

I feel like a bathroom sink left running, overflowing over the porcelain. I wish I could turn myself off; what a waste of water I’ve become.

iii.

I loved someone once who made me feel everything.

I spent years worrying that I had used up all my emotion on this one person, that I had felt everything I’d ever feel and everything else would just be lesser versions of that.

I find myself constantly proving myself wrong. I am capable of feeling incredible things, things I wish I could bottle up and keep on my shelf to look at whenever I need a reminder of what once was.

But with this incredible capacity for emotions come such insane lows that I can barely bring myself to speak them into existence. The disappointment I feel when I allow myself to trust is almost palpable; I can taste my pain in the air wherever I go, and it rips through me like a tornado when I finally catch myself being still.

The pain is strongest when I’ve allowed myself to hope.

I dated someone recently who loved watermelon cubes and the Vinyl Cafe. We only saw each other for about a month, and for the majority of our time together I rationed my hopes and held my breath, repeating one day at a time, one day at a time. And it was wonderful. I felt wanted, I felt interesting, I felt like I could be a good thing for someone else.

I allowed myself hope, while also waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And in this allowance, I made room for pain. I made so much room for pain.

iv.

How long will I allow myself to hope? How long will I allow myself to hurt?

I would answer if I could.

Is it my fault? Is it my fault that I make room for others and let them do what they please? Is it my fault for never knowing when I should leave, for never wanting to be the one who turns away first?

Here I am now, feeling the extent of where my allowance got me. Feeling the extent of what my kindness and never-ending hope for a small amount of happiness with someone got me.

I don’t want my world to be full of let-downs. I don’t want to live in fear of the other shoe dropping.

I want so desperately to allow myself joy, to allow myself hope. I so often feel crushed by the intense weight of my own desire for happiness, and I dream of a mindset where I am cynical and closed-off and hope is rare and based in rationality.

And yet, I can’t bring myself to live that way.

I can’t punish myself for wanting what everyone wants, in the end: to be loved and to love.

v.

Does anyone else feel like I do? Does anyone else ration their hopes so much it feels like they’re starving to death? Does anyone feel the weight of disappointment so strongly that they can barely breath? Does anyone else want so much from the world that it’s almost unbearable?

Let me allow myself some hope that everyone else feels like I do. Let me cling to my desperate desire for connection, that somewhere someone will want me for all I have, that I will be enough.

vi.

Maybe life is just perpetual motion. Maybe all I will be is thrown in and out of the eye of the storm, pausing for a breath in between the breakdowns.

And if all that I am lives inside the eye of the storm, I will throw myself out of it whenever I please. I can’t fear a hurricane if it’s one of my own doing. My storm is mine and mine alone to control, however painful it may be.

I think I'll allow myself this; what other choice do I have?