rackers co

If I could describe how I feel in a metaphor, it would be that I’m gliding along a corridor filled with mirrors; moving forward at a pace that I can’t control. I genuinely can’t tell if I’m moving forward, but it’s assumed because that is how we speak of time. Sometimes I’m moving so fast that I can’t recognise who it is that reflects along the corridor, it’s all a blur. Sometimes it’s so slow and I can only see a stranger back, but even she doesn’t look like the person I thought she was. And then there are the times that I have a familiar face, the one I know to be mine, and I can stop and sit with myself in the mirror and find comfort with the person looking back at me.

Some days I don’t know who I am or what I’m doing but I’ve perfected the art of pretending; the motions comes so naturally that there is another being inside of me that takes control of pouring the coffee, turning on the computer, even creating the art. Some days I will draw something and the next day I will be impressed with it, because it didn’t feel like me who created it, and I surprise myself with my own talent.

I allow myself to swim in new ideas and immerse myself in the chaos of being inspired because I know the inspiration fairy doesn’t always flap her wings near me. I work myself to the bone but sometimes burn out right before it’s ready. So it, too, would move to the pile of almosts. The voice would creep back in, only quietly at first, and slowly it would get louder. It would push until it was loud enough that I couldn’t ignore it. Anytime I would even attempt picking something up from the pile of almosts, it felt as if I was physically blocked from doing so. I could only stare at it, often longingly, and somehow could never get started on it again.

I am in a limbo. It comes in waves; the times I feel completely content and as if I’m doing exactly what I should be doing – and the times it feels wrong, everything feels off and I can’t for the life of me, remind myself why I do what I do.

It’s someone else entirely who takes over my body when it has the desire to run away. It’s never about dying, and it’s barely about not wanting to exist anymore; it’s not even about wanting to create a new existence. It’s that this other being takes over and I want to push it away, and it so often feels as if the easiest answer would be non-existence. I am merely existing inside while this mask takes over.