Hollow

Whole. Hollow. Hollowed out like a dead tree in the middle of a lush forest. There is not enough food in the world to feed it. No amount of concrete or brick dust can fill it. Never enough drugs or booze to make me forget. No amount of jewels or shiny baubles can make it pretty again.
This gaping whole where my soul should be. Where my center of gravity should be.This whole can never be filled by gifts or words. It can never be filled by promises or lies. I am starving. Ravenous. I need to fill the hollowness and I am unable to. I am unable to be completely whole no matter what I do or say. My mental illness has slowly eaten away at me. Left like a moth bitten fabric blowing in the breeze. Some wholes are tiny and some are big enough to poke your fingers through. I tried to patch them but they just keep tearing at the seams. Like trying to cover your black eye with bad makeup. Still I wish that my scars were on the outside rather than inside my mind. That way it would be a visible representation of my mental illness. No one would wonder how I can look normal and perfectly fine and not be. I just want to scream "Don't you see my scars? Can't you see the wholes inside me? Can't you see the hollowness?"
It frustrates them because they do not understand and it frustrates me because I can not make them. My hollowness can only be filled by working on myself. By believing in myself and believing that I am important and worthy. Day after day.
I wish people could see my mental illness. My life would be so much easier if everyone would be able to see me as I really am. A scarred, empty vessel, hollow log, broken glass, burnt paper, grasping at smoke, ashes in the wind mental case. Instead I look normal and therefore if I just try a little bit harder I can do things like everyone else. I can be like everyone else. Because I look fine then I must be fine. Because I look healthy then I must be healthy. Looks can be deceiving  I am a good person. A great mom. A loyal friend, but I am not fine, healthy, or normal. I can accept that but can others? Always the fight between seeing is believing and believing in things that you can not see. It would be easier for me to be normal. It would be easier for me to be fine. It would be easier for me to be mentally healthy, but I am not. Nothing about me is easy and neither is my life. I can change my appearance, my hair styles, my clothing. I can change my routines, my sleeping habits, my expressions. What I can not change is the the fact I live every day tethered to my mental illness. I can not change into normal. It doesn't work that way. I am trying my hardest to be what I am supposed to be. I am trying to fill the hollowness inside of me. It takes time and patience. It takes tears, prayers, and practice. It takes what ever else I throw at it to plug the wound , to fill this sink whole that is seeping down into the earth. Because I want so desperately to be whole. I wont be normal. Not ever, but I can be a better me. I can be less hollow. I only hope that it is enough.
                                          Neurotic Nelly

Just be

 My mind is like a cavern with many rooms. Most of them are full of old junk, old memories, painful and stinging  The walls of each room are made of stone and plaster. Wood posts keep the thatched ceiling from falling in. Sitting in the dark listening to the quietness. It wraps me like a warm blanket and muffles out the world. I hear the dripping faucet and my heart beats in time with it. Learning to just be. Learning to shut out the world for a few minutes. Learning to just listen.
Learning to love yourself is like water dripping from a faucet. One drip at a time. One day at a time. One week at a time. One month at a time.
I have been sitting in this dark room for too long. I have started to get antsy and restless. I feel an itch and I need to scratch it. I have started picking at the edges of the wall paper to occupy my hands. I have torn off bits of myself a piece at a time. I am just trying to discover what is underneath. I am trying to learn what my purpose is. Trying to figure out what my worth is. We all go through this. We all hurt and want to staunch the pain. I don't want to just treat the pain I want to know the reason. I want to scream at the walls and force them to give me an answer. I want to peel off the wallpaper and see what holds up these walls? These walls inside my head. I want to break them down and touch the beams. I want to expose the dark secrets and recesses that keep me sick. I want to seek them out and make them pay. I want to learn to be still. I want to learn to be patient. I need to learn to just be.
 I have learned to accept many things. I have learned to love myself. I have learned to accept my mental illness. I have learned to always stand up and be counted. I am a fighter. I have yet to figure out how to stop remodeling in my brain. I always feel the need to take out the old supports and build new ones. Maybe that is healthy. Maybe that is what keeps me gong. Maybe tearing down the dark rooms in my mind heal me. I have no idea. I just know that right now I am in the mood to break something and savor the sound of it crashing to the floor. My rage notwithstanding, today I am going to build something pretty inside my head and tear down something ugly. I am going to tear down a room that is full of bad memories and pain and set them free. Stacked up like broken old suitcases thrown in there half-hazardly and forgotten or locked away so I could force myself to forget. I need to do some spring cleaning. I need to empty these rooms and clean them. I need to just be.

Fall

Fall is my favorite time of year. The earth calms. The air stills. The leaves turn into glorious shades of red, orange, yellow, and brown. The peach ones are my favorite. The air is warm but the breeze is slightly nippy. I feel one with the universe. I am calm. I get to wear sweaters. As someone who grew up in Texas I never knew the magnificence of sweaters. I also have an affinity for hats and scarves. I really want a Doctor Who scarf. It's three times as long as a normal scarf and it has ugly colors in it that should never go together and yet it is perfect. My nerdiness knows no bounds. I actually squealed when I saw the Doctor Who screw driver at toys r us. Squealed. Like a preteen girl at a One Direction concert. My oldest son was so embarrassed. Sigh. I mean really what does a grown woman need with a plastic toy Dr. Who screwdriver? Where was I? Oh yes, Fall.  Did I mention it lit up and made the sonic screwdriver noises?
Ok. Ok. Seriously back to Fall. Something about Fall makes me feel less out of touch. It makes me feel like I belong. I haven't the faintest idea why. Maybe because like the leaves I am changing. Maybe it's because the trees are shedding their old selves and preparing to grow anew. Maybe it is because the world looks so colorful and I am nothing if I am not colorful. I see hope in Fall. It smells different. It smells of wood burning fireplaces and hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows. It is cold noses and warm flushed cheeks. It is playing in huge piles of leaves and football at the park. It soothes the harsh burns of summer. It heals something inside me and it always has. I feel less lost. Less of an outcast. Less mentally defunct. There are no patterns for my OCD to obsess about. Everything is gloriously unorganized and it is beautiful. It is so beautiful that at times I forget the ugliness inside of me. The ugly mental illness that plagues me. It is abusive to me. It is a damaged, unhealthy,cold, unforgiving cancer that eats away at all that is good in me. It's words are vile. It's words are hurtful. It never let's me forget that I fail at being normal. But Fall's beauty erases all that. It steals my breath away. It quiets the ugliness. It quiets my mind. It heals me. And it helps that I really like hot cocoa with tiny marshmallows.
Neurotic Nelly