people are better in the abstract

There is a certain amount of recklessness that comes with despair.

I show myself to people, I give them little glimpses, I show them little fragments of myself that I assume to be true pieces of me, who I am inside.

It takes so much out of me to be able to do that; to show myself to someone and allow myself to be judged, or worst, abandoned.

On paper, it seems like it should be easier to hold people at arms length, to choose not to show them the little pieces of who you are, because then you can't get attached and then they won't leave you.

If only life was that simple.

We gravitate towards different people, we merge, we collide... We can try to stop ourselves from letting people in, we can build our walls thick and high, we can turn ourselves into an insurmountable mass. But all we gain is loneliness and self destruction.

You turn inwards and when all your walls cave in on you, it's you that is left in the centre of it. You're the burnt out grenade canister, the wreckage is around you. So why not have other people there to help you sift through it all.

I've learned the hard way that people are just temporary. Some people come into our lives for a very short amount of time, and then they're gone again. It's as simple as that. We can't grasp onto people for dear life, people will come and people will go.

It's a really hard lesson to learn, I've lost my most favourite of all human beings, they've gone and I'm still grieving for those each and everyday. It dictates every connection I make, every piece of myself I show to others.

Recovery is teaching me to show myself to more people and be more open, I'm trying to harness all of what I've learned and am still learning but sometimes I get it wrong. I'm going to slip up and I'm going to make mistakes, I'm allowed to do that and I absolutely hate that I feel like I have to justify myself.

I don't even know what this post is, I just needed to write something and this is it, I hate it and will probably delete it, but for now, whilst I sob in a coffee shop, take this post.

This was the end of this entry, until:

Tonight, a combination of things happened and so many things just fell into place.

I have had an awful day, I've cried, I've screamed, I've cried some more... But then I didn't. Things felt better, things felt more manageable, things felt within reach.

I learnt some stuff about myself. I met up with a friend and at one point she had an anxiety attack, and I felt like Rogue from X-Men (she can gain the super powers of anybody she touches, for non nerd folk) and I just seemed to absorb all of her anxiety. It filled every single part of me, and it consumed me in a way I can only describe as a tidal wave, because after it had flooded every single part of me, as quickly as it appeared, it was gone.

I had a similar experience an hour later, where I met someone who is such a beautiful and happy spirit, and her happiness just consumed me.

What I said earlier about people colliding... We stumble upon people and sometime's their impact is profoundly important to us, maybe it's a sliding doors situation, if we hadn't had that one tiny interaction with them, everything might be different. It's so weird to think about.