Speak Up

Last week I was walking towards my building at work and noticed that the new stones put on the terrace were loose already after only a year. Then I looked up and saw rust stains coming down the roof of the building over my office. I thought “it’s such an ugly, plain building that’s falling apart from the outside”. Then I thought about my apartment building and how it’s so shiny and new on the outside but falling apart on the inside. Then I thought about how those buildings represented the human population. Those were a lot of thoughts in less than 2 minutes, before 8am and pre-coffee.
It’s true though, some of us are damaged on the outside, some damaged on the inside. Some are newly built but broken and some last for 40 years before becoming broken. There are cracks and leaks and loose floorboards. And sometimes we need some repainting or caulking and we’re good as new, and sometimes we need to be demolished and rebuilt from the ground up. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just the way we are. Mostly all of us can be fixed though. It sometimes takes time, but it can be done.
The problem is that we always feel like we’re the only ones who are broken. Like we’re the only ones who feel the things we feel. If that were true, then we wouldn’t be able to say “shit, this song is saying the exact thing I feel right now”. Because if we identify with song lyrics that means that someone thought of it and wrote it down which means that someone else was going through the same thing we’ve felt. I’ve been reading a lot of memoir-esque books of people who have illnesses or addictions which is why I’ve been thinking about this more than usual. I’ve also been watching a lot of Dexter and Californication, and if those 2 guys don’t epitomize being broken, then I don’t know who does.

I was thinking about this a lot in the last week---Being broken. And from talking with people and discussing the limitations of the human race, I’ve discovered that one thing that works in women’s favor is that we talk about things. We sometimes talk things to death, but we do it. We talk about situations, and how things made us feel and solutions. That’s something men don’t do to a certain extent. Yes, they talk to each other but they’re not sitting around drinking beer and watching the Yankees game and talking about their fears. We do. That’s one thing I discovered in the last couple of years. It’s good to talk about things because if you keep everything to yourself, it’s eventually going to drive you mad. We can only live with our thoughts, fears, concerns, and obsessions, for so long before needing an outlet. Before finding that person(s) who understand what we’re feeling. I’m that type of person—if I’m alone for too long with my thoughts and problems then I start obsessing about them and making myself crazy. It’s not good to live in your head all the time.
The only way you’re going to discover that other people feel the same, is to talk to them. It’s hard. Opening up and being vulnerable is difficult and scary (especially when you think that no one is going to understand) but it’s the only way you’re going to know and begin to repair. I’m still working on that, opening up and being really honest. Sometimes I feel like I say things but I’m not really saying anything because I’m holding back. I know it. I’m conscious of it but I can’t help it. It’s fear though. Fear of being honest to other people and ourselves. Because sometimes being honest with ourselves is the scariest thing because we don’t want to really admit or see who or what we are. We all have demons we wrestle with whether teenie tiny kick-dog demons or gigantic transformer sized demons. A demon’s a demon. There are several reasons why we’re damaged—maybe it’s one event or maybe it’s a lifetime of events. In the end, it is what it is. You have to deal with it at some point.