I Am Terrified of Who I'm Becoming. Honesty & Other Musings

I simply can’t bear to get out of the car, to walk into that building, to live one more day in this state of . . . well, I can only describe it as chronic fear. I’m afraid of everything. Of being alive, of not really being alive. Of failing at being alive.

I was not willing to face what feelings existed in me, my vulnerability to the great influx of this life—its vastness of love and hurt and the infinities of other people.

Because what existence was more insignificant than this? Living in constant fear, hobbled by my own blood and my own human weakness? I could never be anything this way, fighting so hard to survive that I could never do anything.

To be honest would have meant dismantling the whole structure, all the assumptions and impressions about myself I’d worked so hard to create: I’m together, in control; I’m the person you want me to be. To tell the truth would have meant disclosing my full self, owning up to flaws and imperfections and depths of confusion I was too ashamed to reveal