12am Ponderings in a Coffee Shop

“You are not yourself."

 

This was the second person who was telling me this in a span of 2 weeks. When something like this happens, you don’t just brush it off. It sticks. You carry it with you. Like a stone in your pocket. Heavy. Impossible to ignore.

What were they referring to? A flurry of unanswered messages? A lack of warmth and depth? Or maybe it is something quieter. Something harder to name. The way something that resembled happiness slipped out of the backdoor quietly. Without making a sound.

“Your joy has been sucked out,” she said, her voice coming through a phone clutched far too tightly.  “Talk to me.”

I tried, but the lump in my throat made itself known in the silence that followed.

“Some other time,” she offered.

“Some other time,” I agreed, gratefully postponing my own unraveling.

 

Later, with someone else, I said it out loud. Almost defiantly. “But I don’t want to give up. I want to fight. I want to prove I am worth my salt.”

 

He paused, then asked the question that undid me.

“But…Why?”

Why?

To prove something to myself? That fit neatly enough. I could live with that. It sounded strong. Intentional. Almost noble. But in my experience, proving something? It always comes with a price tag. And I wasn’t sure I could afford what it was costing me.

 
To prove something to someone else?
Now that.. felt uncomfortably accurate.

But they don’t know my circumstances… they haven’t walked a mile in my shoes. They don’t wake up to my thoughts or fall asleep under the weight of my worries. They aren’t carrying this version of me every single day.

And then there are all the voices.

Some belonging to the people who care about me. Who know my history, my patterns. The way I tend to stay too long.. and explain too much.

Nothing is worth your peace.

Or your health.

When respect thins and trust begins to crack, you walk.

Self-respect isn’t optional.

Then there are voices from people who don’t know me very long, but somehow know me NOW.

Their concern feels observational, laden with practicality. Careful, like they don’t want to cross a line.

Stay, at least until you find something better.

Taking a step back now? In these times? May not be the best idea.

And then.. there’s my own voice. Less confident. It borrows pieces from all the other voices and rearranges them into doubt.

I listen to all of them, trying to decide which one sounds closest to the truth.

I’ve mostly been quiet. The good listener. The steady presence some people have come to learn they can rely on. People read it as calm. As having things under control..

But this time I am quiet even when no one else is speaking. Not because I’m listening, but because I’m still grappling with how to form words around this yet.

I notice my hands trembling just a little bit as they type.
How they go cold as I enter certain rooms.
And I keep asking myself the same questions over and over.

 
How does this end?

Does this get better?

Does the shaking stop?

Is this the end of the story?

Or is this the part of the story where I’m meant to sit with the uncertainty long enough to learn what it is trying to desperately tell me?

 
I don’t have answers yet. Just the quiet.
And the growing sense that something has to change.

 

Whether I am ready for it or not.