A Constant State Of B&W

I was roughly 9-years-old when I realised that nothing truly mattered. I was walking across my school yard with the entire class and teacher, and I distinctly remember thinking "I could run up to that fence and slam my forehead against it until I am covered in blood and dizzy from it, nobody would even notice. It doesn't matter. This doesn't matter. It isn't real." I was having one of those sensations that usually occur after a sleepless night or too much cold medicine or, as I grew older, the sensation after too many tequila shots, when everything seems like it's happening through a cloudy sheet. You aren't there, it's like watching a 80's TV show without fully paying attention. Blurry and foggy. I went home that day and waited for the feeling to go away, but it only seemed to fade. Some days were worse than others, and I was confused as I thought the saying went the other way.

I aged, and waited for my life to get better. To truly feel the things that were there or happening. Alive, I waited to feel alive. I did high risk things, and nothing. I hurt myself but it always felt fictionalised. The pain wasn't even real. I squeezed. prodded, hit, and cut myself but it felt as though I was doing a practical joke on myself. I acted shy and brave and everything in between but nothing was truly sinking in. I would lay awake at night, my duvet feeling almost too heavy, going over everything that happened that day but only seeming to detach myself further from it. I wrote in my journals, but I could never differentiate between what had happened and the things I thought I had experienced. Everything seemed brighter when looking back, but when there, it felt dull. Faded. I could no longer tell when I was telling the truth or lying.

I got even older.

My favourite memories with loved ones have always been the ones where we're reminiscing about the past together. I'm never in the moment, and it's bothering me. When we're discussing these past times together, it almost helps add another layer to my own memory proving that it all wasn't just a dream. I can never remember how I felt, so I allow others to help me define my own emotions at that time. It's all an idea, and I'm no longer sure whether it's mine or someone else's. I'm fickle. and easily moulded. They tell me what that I am, and I believe. Good or bad.

I do these important things that truly impact my life, but it always feels as though nothing matters as it isn't real. I keep waiting to wake up in the past or future, not knowing how I got there. I'm loved but am still waiting for the feeling to get inserted. It's as though my life is entirely built of fragments and not any of them really matter, expect sometimes they Aline and everything has suddenly changed without me realising it. I try and get it in my head, but I always come up short. My heart gets broken or fulfilled, and I have the same outcome. Nothing makes sense.

It feels as though everyone else is experiencing life with a much brighter ink, and I am left behind in my hazy black and white, accepting that this is how it ought to be.

I had therapy, but I didn't want to be a bother. She liked me, asked me what was wrong, I said nothing. I tried therapy again, and she confirmed that nothing is wrong after I ticked a "I'm fine" box too many times on a basic paper. How would I tick anything else, when I was too embarrassed to say these non-logical thoughts to a woman who had on a wedding ring and spoke of her young daughters? She would laugh at me. And I would be left asking when it would matter?

I moved, changed my life, but nothing. I cry, laugh, sob, smile, and nothing sinks in.

When will it? I feel as though I will always be asking.. when will it?