drabbles

on a stream of consciousness

my life rattles along like a freight train on metal tracks, and occasionally—there is the thrill of being a good person.

i think i'll spend my entire life running from my past. when i was in middle school i spent my years running from every mistake. when i was in high school i spent my years running from who i used to be—i still am, i think.

there is a happiness that comes with playing the role of a good friend. a good classmate. a good person. i try, i really do, to be the best person i can be. but i just can't tell if it's truly me or a skin i wear for my own enjoyment, my own happiness. i wonder if i am kind so i can feel better about myself. so i can feel happy at doing the right things.

people tell me i am a good person. and i don't want to agree, because it's not true. i help people because it's "right". because it makes me happy. because i don't want people to dislike me. isn't that an ulterior motive?

but if i disagree, people's first instincts are to say i'm wrong and double down on the praise. i end up feeling like i was digging for compliments, like the arrogant and affirmation-seeking person i used to be. so i keep quiet and thank them and keep my head down. it's not even that i don't want praise, because god knows it makes me happy and like myself just a little more, but i don't know.

i can't define my own worth without external help because for the first thirteen years of my life it was disgustingly overestimated by my superiority complex (juxtaposed against my inferiority complex) and for the next three i've been too scared to let myself measure my worth for fear i'll become the person i was. i'm still running. my worth is a butterfly with a broken wing, struggling to survive with the threat of being easily torn apart by the slightest wind. i define myself by what others think, because it seems they always see some part of me i don't.

i don't know how to say the right things. i don't know how to not just sound like i'm parroting the same empty reassurances and encouragements over and over. "you can do it", "hang in there", meaningless glass orbs transparent in their redundancy and which can shatter in an instant.

or i try to comfort people and affirm them, but i'm honest. and the truth is that i am better than people at some things. it doesn't feel like it, but it's true. i hate it, sometimes. i say people are good at things, and they retort with "but you're better" and i am rendered speechless. i can't downplay my own skills because it will diminish their own even more. i try to comfort and at the same time my very existence causes people anxiety and a sense of inferiority.

i hate myself for being better than others because it makes them feel inadequate.

sometimes i try to complain, try to reach out—and i am told that i have nothing to cry about. that i'm just stressing and overthinking for no reason, because i'm smart and talented and good at everything. because i'm better. that i shouldn't complain because i have no right to.

i'm not allowed to be disappointed at my score because it's still better than others'. i'm not allowed to be stressed because there are people who are struggling under even more burdens and responsibilities. i'm not allowed to be overwhelmed because i'm diligent and responsible and i always finish work on time.

it's suffocating. and the guilt always, always comes in. when i cry over responsibilities, which are apparently ridiculously few, and the people from whom i ask for comfort have even more responsibilities they're struggling with. what right or reason do i have to be crying when people have it worse than me, right?