Vulnerable

Yesterday, I admitted to a friend I was struggling. He messaged me back during the night, “I have faith in you.”

It’s been a difficult month for me. It’s been a difficult few months for him, so his words of faith really do actually mean something. He claims he’s a sociopath, but honestly, I don’t believe that. I could be wrong, but things he has told me about himself since we met in 2019 say he cares. In his own way. He takes the time out to be there for me when I need it. Sociopaths don’t do that unless they have something to gain. He lives on another continent. His days start when mine end. He has nothing to gain in displaying care for me other than to feel it.

Maybe that’s enough gain for him.

It is for me.

I’ve been working, applying, and trying everything to get a job. I have a month and a half left here at this one. I can’t not be jobless. I’m already treading the thin line as it is. The things I create don’t make me money. The stories I have written don’t make me money. Nothing I do outside of working for someone else for their profit brings me the money I need. And even that is drying up due to age, my wage needs, whatever. Things feel like they are rapidly disintegrating.

I find I often feel discarded.

I find I often feel I lack any value at all, especially to myself.

I find I often have to remind myself that I am a single woman, on a single income, who is paying for her house by herself and all its bills while battling health issues and defeat. I am doing what people who have another to help are doing. But I’m alone and I’ve been managing.

It is currently the only thread of strength I have.

I have to sit and consciously think, “Look at me! I’m doing what most people can’t do with someone else, completely alone! I’m strong! I’m powerful in my tenacity! I can do anything!”

But what I find I most often want to do is just stop and let it all just no longer be my problem. I want to run away to some place where there are no bills, no struggles, no feelings of rejections, and no loneliness. A place where the world can’t reach me. When i picture that place, I feel…peace. I feel like I can breathe. I feel…whole.

But then I have to remember that place doesn’t exist in the real world. In the real world, every day, I exist costs money. Every day I exist pounds in one more day I struggled alone. I succeeded, but at what cost? What price?

as I write this piece, I’m just allowing my heart to open, to feel this feeling. But I have to close my heart back up, put on what little is left of my personal armor, and try.

I’m tired of trying.

But I will.

Because someone out there has faith in me. Even if I fail.

I can’t let them down.