I Would Rather Be In Bed

I am not a girl given over to soft edges and quiet voices.

It’s troublesome, really. I do not ever specifically remember my mother raising me to be such an independent loud spoken, opinionated, demanding woman. If anything, I’d probably owe some of the congratulations to my father. He spent many hours of his time ensuring that I would never need to depend on a man for anything. Aside from perhaps himself.

I have always had a problem with authority, looking back at my school records it clearly shows a patter of behavior reflective of that. I don’t follow rules that don’t make sense or those that interfere with end goals I have set for myself. Even at work now I often find myself having to weigh exactly how much I want to make my opinion known versus how much it may impact my position there.

I don’t cry often. I have a very hard time relating to other peoples sadness. My mother believes I was born with a chip on my shoulder and lead in my heart. I believe she may actually be correct on that one.

The problem is, when I get angry, which as you can imagine is a fairly easy thing to accomplish given my glowingly amazing personality, it’s extraordinarily terrible. I’ve been getting slightly better at managing the degree to which I cause mass destruction, but still, the damage is done. In my righteous, rightfully so or not, anger I can shut down every other emotion I have and feed just that fiery dragon brewing inside me.

And oh, the chaos it leaves in it’s wake.

I forget to be soft. I forget that sometimes I need to breathe and be quiet and let someone else be heard. In being the strong person I’ve become I’ve forgotten how to give way, how to be soft. I’ve forgotten how to let anyone in. It’s exhausting, really.

I don’t want to hard and sharp edged forever. I don’t want to be known as the girl with the resting bitch face. I want to quiet the constant vigilance in my mind and just trust that maybe I can just let go this time. I want those quiet moments, laid out on the beach, a book in my hand, without a worry in the world, and him beside me.

That’s the dream.

Reality, I feel like I’m constantly fighting some battle against some invisible foe I don’t even have a name for. What am I fighting against? Some loss of independence? Some battle against my heart? I’ve survived both. Lose again, I’ll survive both again. It has to be less exhausting than this never ending anxiety.

Just let me be soft. Just let me love. Just let me have some peace.

Just let me not this mess up, just this once. Just this.