an abridged guide to rachel.

this is horribly and hastily written. you've been warned.

i grew up being horrendously embarrassed and ashamed of my emotions. this hasn't stopped me from being an emotional person, but rather, it has made it worse and magnified them. because now not only do i feel the emotion but i feel a whole layer of anxiety and mortification on top of it. so i've learned to cope by shutting off and not showing it. i don't wear them on my sleeve. they love to peek through though and betray me. i don't let people in easily because i feel like my emotions a burden to everyone, and i only let them in when they ask and genuinely want to pry it out of me. and really, i love this. i love it when i can let things out, because it's a relief. not because i get to let it out, but because someone actually wants to know and understand. this happens so infrequently though, that i just stuff things down further and further until i go a little cuckoo and can reset. but i'm afraid of being vulnerable because i get knocked down so easily.

however, i am a capable and talented person, who has nothing to express. i am empty. i can write, sing, dance, play music, draw, paint, direct, act etc. etc. etc. and i get stuck in the wanting to communicate how i feel and who i am, but i can't. i feel hollow when it comes to being creative. i can do all these things, not spectacularly, but i can do them. and so i don't do them, or at least not often. because what's the point? there's nothing i'm driven to express, i don't have some nagging muse sitting on my shoulder inspiring me to do this or that. so i don't. and i hate that. i've never been much of a doer. i'm so crippled by my own emotional inconstancy that i am unable to express hardly anything about myself on my terms. i'm so afraid of trying and failing that i don't do. i'm a great planner and a great thinker, but doing is not my strong suit. and i wish it were. because then i'd feel like i'd have something to show for my life. i take so little part in my own life that i hardly feel alive at times. i feel like a ghost or a shell of something that should be here, but i've forced myself out and i'm lost. i don't know where i am.

so i am a great admirer of writers and artists and musicians. and i envy most those whom i enjoy the most, thinking "i wish i could express myself like that". and i apply the parts that i identify with to myself. i'm like this. i'm like that. i fall in love with the books/art/songs that put to words the things i cannot express, the things that bridge the gap between my heart and my head. and that's really where the problem is. i've disconnected the two, somehow, and i've lost the manual about how to put it back together. i rely so much on my mind because feeling things is so damn scary and overwhelming.

i'm a wuss. admittedly. things hurt too much and the good is always fleeting. i'll pull out the cliché "i've been hurt too many times before", and who hasn't? but i can't handle rejection or failure anymore. so i run. there are so many things i've wanted and tried and put my heart into and hoped for and never came through. vocational things like roles or solos in theatre and whatnot. relational things like friendships and boyfriends. and it's these countless and constant failures that make it nearly impossible for me to make a change. it is this relentless feeling of never being good enough that is the portal to all the dark and twisty parts of myself. i'm too much this or not enough that. and i'm never just the right amount.

and right now, in the thick of all this self-realization, all i really really want is for you to understand me and love me anyway. i want you to want to know me, and i want you to make me be who i'm supposed to be. but it all hurts too damn much for me to say it out loud, or say it prettier, or say it clearer. somehow you put words to the things i can't say, and still you see the best parts of me.

enough emo crap. i'm going to bed.