Sometimes I lose myself, but never in a good way. I always find myself holding on to other people’s thoughts about me. It’s fascinating how other people have the power to define things about you without even knowing you, no matter how close they may be. I always catch myself thinking about the negative comments, whether it was the tone I used once, the clothes I wore on a certain night, or the way I reacted to a comment. How can I lose myself in words that will never reflect who I truly am? These same people who have this effect on me are the same ones who make me feel like I owe them some kind of explanation. In the end, my life is about me, but not entirely.
I will never understand how the people who are important to me can be the ones who suffocate me the most. Sometimes I’ve found myself wishing I could live in Modern Family, where, despite being such a large family, they are always together and never fake with one another. What happens inside the place I’m supposed to call home? I can’t stand the feeling that once I leave this environment, I will never want to come back, and apparently that makes me an ungrateful person. I grew up hearing that family is something sacred that should never, under any circumstances, be disrespected, but I no longer share that belief. Today, my biggest insecurities and uncertainties were born in a place that was supposed to be responsible for welcoming me and accepting me as I am, but in the end, who am I really? Am I just a puppet who has to follow their rules and standards, or do I actually have a life of my own to live? I hope to find out soon.
I have never considered myself an ungrateful person, but sometimes the comments echo in my head. Many times, I can’t see beyond the horizon or what comes after it, even though I have always considered myself an optimistic person. When you grow up in an environment where everything you do is wrong, where everything you do is questioned and invalidated, something inside you changes. I don’t know when things will start feeling normal again, but today all I want is to run away without looking back. I feel more suffocated every day by the people who were supposed to be my air. I know I should always be enough for myself, but when it comes to family, aren’t we supposed to feel loved?
I can’t feel like I owe them anything, and that keeps me alive. When you live in an environment where everything around you comes down to control, it feels like something is missing inside you, and when you become the only child of divorced parents, everyone around you feels responsible for protecting you from the world. After all, is that love or control? All I see around me are people who have always tried to manipulate me into becoming who they wanted to be. In the end, I lose myself in me once again, lost not only in thoughts and questions, but also in pain and empty spaces I don’t know how to fill. I’ve come to believe that home cannot be found in other people, but if that person is me, can it be found there? Can I find the answers when I don’t even know the extent of the questions?
I was always taught that questioning things was not right. If you question something, it means you don’t trust enough. That shaped me as a person. I lost the ability to question the people around me and simply learned to follow their orders. How can I always shape myself around other people? I was always taught that “it’s better to have peace than to be right,” but how much of your peace does that cost you? Is becoming a completely different person from the one I know worth my peace? Should I question the orders imposed on me?
Are the people who raised me responsible for the emptiness I carry, or do I become responsible for who I am today from the moment I believed every word they told me? In the end, the doubt always remains: am I the author of the questions I carry, or merely a traveling bookseller responsible for carrying them around? One day, I hope I can become who I always wanted to be. I don’t know if it will be in this life or the next, but I still hope I can save myself before I completely drown.
To no One,
Cora Vesper.