I have spent the majority of my grown-up life feeling spread too thin. When I close my eyes I picture my limbs turning to rubber, stretching beyond reality, until I snap. There is always someplace or some person or something that needs a part of me. I am not saying I am a prisoner, forced to maintain a myriad of tasks and cares. My choices have led me to this level of exhaustion. I take on too much, I have trouble saying no, and my anxieties make it hard to focus some days, and nights. I feel pulled apart and once night falls and a bed where I end up, the ache and weight of not being enough keeps me awake.

There is an illusion of strength I exude. I do not know where it came from, or what it even looks like, but I know I reflect it. Being perceived as strong is lonely, though. No one considers that the strong need an arm and an ear, and some damn help sometimes, too. Again, though, choices create this faked resilience. Somewhere in my younger years I equated love to being needed. It is hard to drop the security walls of taking care of everyone else in order to let someone in. It is hard to trust that if I am the one to need, I won’t be left out in the cold.

Doll Parts :: Hole