How do I numb thee? Let me count the ways…it could be smoking cigarettes to “mellow out” instead of addressing an issue, or person, who irritates me. Maybe it’s eating to much, and too wrong, to fill an emptiness of heart instead of healing it. Maybe it’s drinking one too many so I can pretend that what’s wrong doesn’t really bother me~just for one night. It can be spending too much, being addicted to excitement and unable to commit to reality, or becoming a workaholic because that’s where you really matter, and know your shit, right?

Everything we do, that is not experiencing the moment we’re in, is hiding from it, or running from it, or ignoring it completely. It’s a waste of time, of life.

So if I live my life too loud, too “in your face”, too aggressive~I’m not living my life, I’m at war with it, and everyone in it. I’m confrontational, arrogant, intimidating, and riding rough-shod over the emotions of others who don’t have my mad skills of manipulation. Half the people I meet may think I’m a big slice of awesome to look up to and the others can’t stand me and think me a witch (or a derivative of ). What I’m being is unreal and unkind~I’m defending my safe space.

On the other hand, if I live my life untouchable, invincible, and unable to be harmed or hurt by others~I’m not living my life~I’m suffocating it. I’m cold, unemotional, uncaring, and uninterested. I just want to be left alone because I’ve taught myself to really not give two shits about what’s happening around me. What I’m being is a ghost, a shadow.

Now being a trained professional in both these methods of living, I can tell you that at first there appears to be excellent selling points to both. Option A means I don’t take any shit from anyone ever. And very rarely will anyone push past my first line of defense~I make sure it’s not worth it.

Option B means that no matter what is happening around me~I am unshakable, I cannot be reached or harmed, the opinions or feelings of others matter not at all. I have rendered myself invincible~I’ve created my safe space. This of the two is the worst option, once you are here it is hard to WANT to get out of it.

The downside to creating a Fortress of Solitude is that when I turn the volume down on the bad things in my life that I don’t want to (or can’t seem to) fix, I also turn the volume down on my ability for joy, and love, and hope, and happiness. There’s only one volume button, and it controls it all. So it’s feel it all~ or not at all.

So, stepping away from this numbing is a very intricate and difficult thing. If I open myself up, and bad things happen, and someone is critical, or demeaning, or condescending, or cruel~there is a moment where I freeze. I have to breathe for a minute and the first step is to throw water on my inner witch. I cannot act or speak in anger. Then there’s the fine line to tread without going over into “screw that, I don’t care about you anyway”, so that it’s not hurting me anymore. Breathe.

Breathe, and realize we are all struggling, and that if someone doesn’t have the courage to jump off the merry-go-round of bullshit attitude and treatment, then who will stop the madness? How will we ever be whole and real and worn out from loving and being loved like the Velveteen Rabbit?

“When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt. You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” ~The Skin Horse