Hiding

Something my mother said brought me another step closer to understanding why I fell apart then. Why I'm falling apart now. I'm most certain that wasn't her intent. She told me to stop being a turtle. That's the literal translation. Stop being a head-ducking turtle. The idiom, however, translates better as "Quit being a coward. Don't be a lily-livered fraidy cat. Face your problems."

It all sounds so simple. So straightforward. So easy.

It explains so much. Yeah, I'm a coward. I never thought there'd be a day when I willingly admitted to it, except I did. It's always so hard to convey what I'm afraid of, and what I'm feeling, and words never speak as loud as actions. Or rather, saying out loud that I'm afraid of rejection and I feel despair and then not doing anything about it... it's hard to get across the complexity of everything.

So it's easier to hide. In books, in TV shows, in fanfiction... even in news. Anywhere but here. Anywhere that I can be someone who isn't me. Anywhere that I can be someone who has a purpose.

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I'm coming back to this post 10 hours later. Not that it really matters. Life, I mean. Purpose or not, what's there to do but live it? And so what if I'm tired? I'll take a break. It doesn't matter that I have a great job, or any of that. If it's wearing me out, then maybe it's not right for me. I've tried so hard to make it work, but if it doesn't fit, then no amount of denial is going to change the outcome.

Maybe I'll make it. Maybe I won't. Maybe this step is a piece of some larger destiny that will stoke my hero complex. Or maybe... maybe it's just life.