I feel disjointed today. Breaking down but not sure where the pieces are going to land. Offering up the part of me that will best get through the next hour or minute and then putting them back. As if my skeleton is carrying a bag of personality traits and, too tired and confused to use them to create a whole person, will just rummage around to the corners of the bag whenever anything comes up and put on a piece that will react best to the situation.
“Excitement” put on my eyes when meeting about a new project idea at work and taken off when it’s no longer my time to speak, even though no part of me wants more work or can muster care about this job anymore. “Sweetness” in my voice when a colleague asks for my time and advice, even though I’m not sure I have any wisdom to give. “Sympathetic frustration” in my stance when a loved one expresses their pain, even though we all know that much of their pain comes from their own complaints.
Each gets put on and comes off as soon as its not needed anymore. As soon as I have gotten through. People often say they feel like a shell of themselves, but I am not a shell. I am the core. My heart is loving, beating, and circulating, my stomach is digesting, assimilating experiences, and leading the way, my breath keeps coming and going, as it has since I was born. My core is here, the shell is not.
The shell or perhaps the skin I’ve been wearing has been shed. Perhaps I am not a skeleton but a skin-less being, made up only of the raw parts. The essential organs, the essence of soul, the glimmer of love. Too ugly to be perceived like this, but my new skin hasn’t grown yet, and no one knows what it will look like. Seeking privacy, safety, and distance from my life as it is, in my bag is actually my old skin. My body refuses to reduce itself anymore, so I must reuse part of it for now. Hoping and praying for the new skin to hold the sparkle, the severity, the sincerity that the old didn’t know it desired.
