Frozen

Growing up is hard. People growing up with mental illness makes it even more complicated. Self worth issues are always there lurking in the shadows. We are constantly convinced that we are somehow unworthy of love. While other children are playing with paper dolls and plastic army soldiers we are busy building walls with wooden play blocks. Walls to protect us from the projected thoughts of others. Walls that keep out the hurt. As we grow into adults the wooden blocks are replaced by stone ones. Wooden blocks can be broken and tumble down. Stone is much harder to break. Each time our walls have been breached, we inspect it and build it stronger. No one is allowed in. To allow them in is to folly. We will be judged. We will be hurt. We will suffer. We have gotten so good at crafting walls around ourselves that we have made the simple walls of our childhood into indestructible fortresses. There is not a catapult or cannon that can breach these walls.We have even placed ugly gargoyles at the posts just to ward you off. We could be construction workers and architects and do no better. These walls are unbreakable and fortified. They are solid. We live our lives in seclusion. There are people around us but we have barricaded ourselves away in our hearts. We tend not to share our deepest darkest feelings or thoughts. We are the dirty, bearded, disheveled hermits of our own soul.  We are afraid.
And yet, we so dearly want to be free. We so desperately want to feel. We want to be surrounded by others and truly fit in. We yearn to be accepted. To step out of the shadows. To breathe the fresh air and feel whole. To interact with others outside the walls we have constructed.  I feel that feeling the pain of letting others in has to be better than not feeling anything at all. I have torn down my own walls for fear of my own insanity. I felt like I was going stark raving mad by my own seclusion. I can't live like that anymore. I am tired of being shut away like I am guilty of something so horrible, so wretched that I should be locked away in the highest tower. Resigned to have paper airplanes and glass baubles as my only company. My only form of entertainment. Locked in my own hell. Frozen because stone is so cold to the touch. Passing my time watching my own frozen breath fall from my lips.Trapped in the winters of my mind. Alone.
I want to run bare footed through the wheat fields glistening in the sun. I want to feel the warmth and drink it down.Savor the taste of something other than the cold. Swallow the warm water and let it sooth my parched lips. I want to be anything other than numb.  I want to be angry. I want to be happy and silly. To  laugh so deep it hurts my stomach. I want to swim in the waters and dry off in the sand. I want to work my fingers to the bone. I want to be lazy and gluttonous on all that life can offer. I want to taste. I want to touch. I want to make friends. I want to live a real life, because life is not made of paper and glass.