Fading... away...

They say the best way to know someone else, is to put yourself in their shoes. Only, for the mere specs of humanity on this planet, putting one's self in someone else's shoes is complex. Sure, you can dream. You can pretend, you can visualize. --but, nothing comes close to the real thing. Being YOU. With all your flaws, imperfections, and beautiful kinks & quirks. Few in life, will ever know the true you. It may even be, that you yourself don't know this 'you'. I know I fit into this one.

It's funny, because as I grow older I seem to have less and less to say. There is a certain element to my old-self, that sparkled with innovation, creativity, and a raw talent that surprised me. I had so many THOUGHTS, so many passionate ideas and flavors at the tip of my tongue. Those were the days when I dissolved into paper like a fish would the sea. I loved the written word, and I felt that love spill from me in the most unexpected moments. I was beginning to realize the vast labyrinth of my mind, and it sent thrills of excitement through me.

And then it stopped.

It was slow at first, a gradual decline. Call it getting older, call it heartbreak and resignation, call it perfectionism or self-degradation. I don't know what it was, though I wish I did. Maybe then I could reverse this sudden quiet that seems to be descending all around me. My brain, my mind, my one passion in life for learning and creativity, is shutting off. I wish I could say I don't recognize myself anymore, but to be quite honest, I don't think about it. I don't think about much, other than these primal driven instincts which seem to have become all that is left of me. Food. Sleep. Protect myself, protect my heart. I don't want to hurt anymore. Never.
I feel like I'm closing myself off from life, from living. Most importantly, from feeling. It's been replaced by anger, irritation, and an overwhelming nothing. I'll be the first to admit it, I've become boring. I've become afraid of myself, and what the world can do to me.

I don't know how to fix this. I don't know, if my primal instincts, even want to. So for now, I suppose all that is left to do is try. Try to fix this mess, the universe seems to have created out of me.

Confessions of an INFJ

To say people are my forte, would be odd from an observer's point of view. I conduct myself with a cool dispassion, bordering on contempt. I am outwardly friendly, but ultimately unreachable in an infinite number of ways. The question is, why? I confess this, only because I'm curious if my behaviors on this are shared. The truth of the matter is, is that within minutes of meeting someone I can see straight through them. I know their fears, their angers, their griefs, and pains. This may sound strange to just about everyone, but it's almost like I have a twisted intuition that goes beyond mortal means and behaves in a spooky, deeply intimate manner with humanity. I know when someone is lying. I can feel it. 

During an English class at a community college back at home we were asked to pair up with someone we'd never met before and write down our impressions and assumptions of him/her. I paired up with a blond girl, wearing a pink Disney shirt. Within a matter of minutes, I creepily lay bare her whole identify on my sheet of paper. Things like what her favorite color was, what her favorite movie was, that she was closer to her Dad than she was to her mom, what her fears were, what she loved to do, how she saw herself, and what her dreams were for the future. When I passed her my notes, she was rightly horrified (I hadn't realized we would be handing these to our victims). Her first reaction was to ask me how I knew so much about her, and the second was complete shock. I don't know exactly how I knew so much about her, I just felt it. 

This isn't the first time this has happened either. Interestingly enough though, I can't sense positive emotions. While I can tell someone is faking something right off the bat, I can't tell if someone is interested in me, and even, if they love me. I suppose every weird quirk has its limitations, right?

Yes, I am an INFJ. Due to the stereotype of our 'personalities' you may already be familiar with what I am about to express, but hear me out.

I feel so much. I think so much, about everything. Sometimes its hard to distinguish between reality, and what goes on in my head. Because of this, I'm very, very careful about who I let know me. It is almost impossible for me to truly love someone, until I'm 99% sure I can trust them. -and as expected, this whole Lyndsey deeply loving someone else doesn't happen very often. 

I mirror people. Their behaviors, and their actions. In a world that takes relationships less than seriously, I have had to learn to fit in. The real me, is a bleeding, raw emotional weirdo. I'm not normal! Far from it. The people I let into my life, are the people I'd swim alligator infested lakes to fetch mere lemonade for. I forgive them easily, however, when those people hurt me, I pull the famous INFJ door slam. 

People are my forte. They are puzzles I piece together, riddles I solve. While simultaneously hating the majority, I love the few. I am a bleeding, raw mess but despite the limitations of this I experience life anew in every moment. 

I suppose it's nice to say this sometimes. 

I love my weird, complicated, quirky self. 

Death of the Sun

Our thoughts bleed like rain,

madness ensues; from the death of the sun.

We are born in fire---crystallized in the memory of a broken world,

the valves of our hearts, pump sand through our veins.

Nothing matters.

There is no feeling.

Silence.

Stop this burning silence,

...

I'm scraped raw by the absence of you.

In your death,

I am nothing.

...

Or,

has it always

been this way?

A thousand words, and nothing to say

My hands have spent the last few minutes hovering over this keyboard; poised like a tidal wave, just before before it crashes back into the turning sea.
   There are things I want to say, yet I don't know how to say them. I'm unsure of where---or how, to begin.
   Me, with all the words in the English dictionary, and I can't string enough together to tell you what I'm feeling in this moment.

   Where do I start?...

   Maybe where everything begins.

   Change, uncertainty, but most of all: fear.

   It seems that my trials in life are mental, rather than physical. Everything I've dealt with to this point has tested me emotionally, rather than physically. I can vividly remember points during my adolescence, when I was overcome by a darkness I cannot begin to describe. If I had to choose a time when I felt the most broken, it would be this. My very being felt invaded. I carried a sickness in my heart that others couldn't see; yet that was more real to me than anything I've ever experienced. It pulsed in my throat as though it were an organ pumping vile acid through my lungs. At times, I would lay on my bed, and cry that If I could only dig it out I would feel better. It felt so physical to me, so real. There was something inside me, physically filling my chest so that it made it hard to breathe. It made it impossible to feel anything other than the murky darkness that became my constant companion.
   I felt fear then. Real, human, fear. Fear, that this sickness would never leave me---and that I would spend the rest of my life under the disbelieving gaze of those around me, while my soul pleaded for silence.
   However, I was saved. I suffered so much during that time, yet the moment I surfaced from that nightmare stands out to me the clearest. I can remember the day I no longer felt a crushing weight against my chest. I cried and cried---not out of sadness, but out of absolute joy. I felt free. I was free. Something had removed the darkness from me, and for the first time in months, I could feel the world around me.

I don't know what you would call this. Depression, insanity, hormones---it doesn't really matter to me. All I know is that I would rather cut my own legs off than do it again. I met with a force in that time that I never wish to meet again.
   I did grow from this though, despite how painful the lesson was. I grew a lot in empathy, and in understanding. My blog was even born because of it! So, good things do come from hard things. However, these past few months have my philosophy on that. I think for the second time in my life, I'm about to meet something bigger than I feel I can handle.

College is just around the corner, and with that rides the host of my childhood fears. I can remember being fourteen years old, and freaking out over thoughts about leaving for college. 
   I feel like I shouldn't be reacting this way, I feel like the normal eighteen year old girl takes a cake walk to college without any second glances. By that definition however, I'm certainly not the average eighteen year old girl. I have never been so absolutely terrified of anything as much as I am of leaving.
   On one hand, I feel a glimmer of excitement. I'm getting older, I can feel it now more so than ever. Something inside of me is bored with my life, and myself. I crave excitement, I want change. I want to have an actual selection of friends I can choose from, and feel like I actually belong somewhere socially. I want to have fun---in a different way from the kind I've had on my own. I want to go to parties, join friends as they nerd out over the new star-wars movies. I want to stay up late talking with my roommate, I want to have someone I can connect with as much as I connect with my sisters. A best friend, a boyfriend, I don't care. I just want someone in my life that will bring color to the drab walls of my comfort zone.
   On the other hand, is my fear. It would be presumptuous of me to say I love my family more than anyone does. ---but I'm gonna say it. I really love my family more than anyone does. A part of me believes that If I leave, I will lose the relationship I treasure with my parents, brother, and sisters. I think of coming back after having a horrible experience at college, and realizing that things are no longer the same at home. That I don't fit in like I used to.
   The thought breaks me.
   Somewhere subconsciously, my doubts and anxieties are taking their toll. I've been having panic attacks frequently as of late, and my left eyelid goes into spasms daily. (Which, according to my eye doctor, is a sign of abnormal amounts of stress on the body.) I've woken up three times in the past month, just sobbing. Sometimes I feel so stressed that I feel nauseous, and shaky. I can't do this, is the thought that persistently haunts me. What if I really can't do this? What does that make me?

One month left before I leave. One month left. One. The thought fills me with equal parts of dread and numbness. How am I going to survive this? Unlike before, my family wont even be an option for support. I will be alone, just like I was so long ago---stuck like a prisoner, inside my head.

So there. I've said it. Everything I'm feeling now.
I've spoken the words of my heart, and now have nothing left but hollow questions.
I'm so scared.
So, so scared.
I don't want to be alone again.

Questions...

I don't remember how old I was when I decided I wanted to be a writer. All I know, is that since then the desire to create has consumed me. However, perfectionism has become my downfall. Its fed off the doubts I've willingly handed it, and tainted the only thing I've ever purely loved doing.

I'm eighteen now, and after so long, this is the first time I've ever considered doing something other than writing.  There are options which seem more realistic, and would make me more money for me than the meager life of  a writer. The question is though, could I put to rest the one thing about myself I've always been sure of? That I could write, and that if everything else failed, I would always have my writing. I've compared my talent with so many others, that in some ways I've pulled apart the threads to the canvas I was just beginning to design. There were choices that I made; choices of comfort over trying something hard.
Last night was the first time I felt regret for being who I am. How can I go back to a life of normality, when I've tasted such raw magic? ---But, how can I continue on, when with every step my desire to make things perfect destroys just a bit more of the dwindling pool of creativity I have left.
There are questions. So many questions. What will I do with my life? Is my writing salvageable?  How am I going to pay for college? Should I major in my second love, science? Why are people so hard to work with? Science is so hard, can I really do it?
Yet it all comes back to just one simple thought: I love writing, with a passion nothing else can touch. I want to spend the rest of my life trying to improve it, I don't care how I have to do it.

Shadows cast by the sun

I want to touch the stars---to reach high into the air, and grasp the unattainable; even if it's just for a moment. I want to feel the warmth of their pulsing bodies, as they melt into silver streams down my arms.
  It will envelope my features in a mask. A mask made from the undefined, from the hollows between eternities. I must shatter the heavens,
only then can I find her.

   Magic, in its purest form. A child's laughter; the breeze ruffling the pages of an old tome; the scent of memories, of times spent reveling in the warmth of a new world.
   Because there is a world here; within my mind, there is a world made of starlight.
   A place of rolling hills, with flowers blossoming in so many vibrant colors the mind cannot possibly conceive their spectrum. The rain is warm, and appears as freshly broken glitter falling from the sky. The butterflies, have scales made of diamond.  They leave trails of colored smoke, which lightly disperse into the breeze.
   This world is a part of me,
and yet I have not traversed its lands for so long.

   She holds the key.
   In her mind,
   in her heart.

   But fear has taken hold of me.

   It has corrupted the pathways leading me home. It has trapped me here, within these four walls.
   I cannot see, I cannot breathe. My world, is becoming nothing more than a lovely dream.
   I'm losing a part of me.
   I am losing her.

   No.

   I am desperate to hold on. More than ever now.
   I keep these memories locked away in crystal spheres, hidden beneath my pillow.
   But every night, another one shatters.

   I love her---me, the one who traverses that world.

   But she's fading,
   The broken girl is fading; and with her, everything I love.

   How cruel life is. We cannot have one, without the other.
   I cannot dream, without the fingers of death circling my heart.
   I cannot live,
   without these memories I treasure,
   haunting me.

   I don't want to lose her.

A peculiar touch of darkness

   There are people who are different. 

   People who don't drift easily in the sea of humanity; people who still strive for beauty and virtue, while shrouded in a raiment of ashen silk.

   There are shades of black, yet white can only ever come in one form. It is endless; eternal. Unlike its counterpart there is no depth to be found in its spectrum. The terror of its power is without a veil.

   Black is to comfort. It is to clothe, to shield.

   White is the herald of destruction. 

   Yet in the folds of darkness; there is also a more sinister intention. It clothes itself in lies, deceit, and filth. It makes a mockery what is beautiful, and seeps into others though the shadows it proffers before it.

   There is darkness; and there is this.

   And I'm afraid, this world has become lost in it.

   There are people who are different. 

   And we are fading.