Stronger But Less Equipped
This is not a typical blog post; this post is part of a series of pieces on creative writing. It may or may not be autobiographical in nature; that is irrelevant. It should be applied to the reader’s own life and worldview.
I miss a time in my life that I shouldn’t.
It’s as odd as it is conflicting, feeling this way. I know that this time I recall did not happen as I recall. I’m tempted to romanticize, to dramatize. It was much darker and more sinister than I recall it to be. It was a time when I struggled just to get through a day without breaking down and falling apart. I struggled to make sense of what I going through. I struggled to find peace and security. She was the only refuge I had, it seemed. And that’s likely why I maintained this relationship with her long after it should have died. I needed her at the time. Perhaps unfairly to both her and myself, I stayed because I felt like I couldn’t do it alone. And I didn’t have to, because I had her. I had a best friend I could do anything with. I had a “permanent” café buddy, dinner date, brunch mate, and whatever else came to mind. I didn’t want to give that up, despite the fact that the relationship was also tearing me apart. We each had our own problems. Mine caused me to develop an unhealthy co-dependency, something that wore both of us quickly. Her’s turned her into something of a bully, a person who could beat and manipulate the one person she knew couldn’t and wouldn’t leave. It was dark and painful and beautiful and bright and filled with laughs and tears. It’s a time from which I pull many happy memories and dark repressions.
Separate from this, though surely exacerbated by it, was a poor and crippling mental state from which I could not escape yet. More than anything, this is what marks this particular time of my life. Perhaps, paradoxically, that’s something I miss. During this time, the entire purpose of my day-to-day was to “get by” and “make it” to the next day. That’s all I had to do. Believe me, it was more difficult for me than I let on. But it’s all I had to do. Nowadays, I’m doing better. “Getting by” can no longer be the minimum, I must do more than that. And I think on some unconscious level, I resent that. I miss the time when “getting by” was all I had to do.
Now, I no longer have a single person (and to some extent, even a group of people) to lean and depend on the way I did back then. It’s solely on me, I tell myself. It feels like that, at least. I do everything by myself; my bills, my hobbies, my work, nearly everything is done separate from others. Even those that still make it a point to care about me and support me. I couldn’t mark my existence based on others, after all. But perhaps I shouldn’t act as alone as I sometimes feel. I am not where I was, and that is definitively a good thing. But there is a queer fondness for this time passed, a fondness that I cannot explain event as I sit here sipping and thinking, for the explicit reason of processing this thing that I’m feeling. I can’t settle and just call it nostalgia, though surely that is playing some part (as I consider myself to be a considerably nostalgic and intrinsic person). No, it must be something more than that. Surely, it is.
Until such a time where this is processed and confidently and competently addressed, I have no choice but to allow it to fade into the recesses of my mind. Thinking about it is doing nothing good for me, and as I struggle to make sense of it, I feel it slowly dragging me back. The difference now is I do not have the partnership or the mindset I did at that time. Rather, I am simultaneously in a stronger position and less equipped to deal with the struggle of my past in real time. It is perhaps the greatest gift and curse. I want it to not have happened, but it has, and I’m stronger and wiser for it. And while I’m stronger, I am less equipped. I’m less equipped because I haven’t needed said equipment since. I have greater resistance, but less to battle on my behalf.