My Life on the Edge
What it Feels Like to Constantly be Hanging in There
“What happened to your light?”
“Huh”
“The light in your eyes, where did it go?”
*blank stare*
I was 16 when I had that conversation in the middle of a Sunday service. I still don’t know the answer.
For as long as I can remember, I’ve felt like I’m hanging on the edge of a cliff; unable to pull myself up and unable to drop. Literally hanging in there. I’ve felt like I need to do one thing and once it’s done I’d be better but I don’t know what that one thing is.
Most days there’s a crushing feeling; I feel hopeless, worthless like I’m ready to end it. There are days where I’m incapacitated. I can’t eat, I can’t be productive, all I want to do is lie there and wallow in my sadness. There are days when I can push it to the back of my mind and focus on whatever task I have to do. I try to stay busy, but this doesn’t always work.
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There are days when I feel like I’m finally falling, any moment now I’ll hit the ground and this will all be over. The ground never comes. I wake up one morning and I’m hanging on the precipice again.
On some days I feel nothing. It’s like being numb but not exactly. I’m still hanging but I’m a buff gym head so it’s nothing to me. I’m used to hanging, it feels normal. Sometimes there’s a buffer for my feet, so my arms can take a break. I’m not struggling anymore. I like this place; it doesn’t mask as happiness, it’s comfortable. I can pretend I’m not on the edge of a cliff and just do my thing.
Then there are days when the cliff isn’t there anymore. I’m standing on solid ground. This is the closest I feel to happiness. I can laugh genuinely, I don’t have to siphon happiness from mundane things like pink fluffy slippers and yellow G Wagons. I don’t have to flash my rehearsed smile. There’s almost a spring in my step. It never lasts. The fog clears and I see the cliff is still there and I’m still hanging off it.
I’m exhausted. I want it to end but I don’t want it to. I don’t know any other life asides this. The constant feeling of despair is draining but it’s home, I don’t know how to live anywhere else, I don’t want to live anywhere else. I want to be better but what does better entail? How do I get to it? Where’s my guarantee that it won’t just be another mirage? Who do I hold accountable if it is?
