Dear Dad,
I would apologise for this being almost a week late, but honestly I’m kind of done with being sorry for things that I can’t really do anything about, and unless I can switch my brain for a slightly more functional one then I’m not going to apologise. Life is kind of kicking my arse right now, so making it through each day and into the next one is an achievement at the minute. At the moment whenever people ask me how I am the answer is easy, “I’m still here.” That’s all I can give anyone.
Good days I’ve actually done productive shit, like showered, or done my washing up, or brushed my hair. The fact that I can barely do those tasks makes me feel like an absolute failure sometimes, but hey, that’s depression right? It saps any ability to even keep the day to day stuff together. Or maybe I’m not depressed, just dyspraxic. But given how frequently I’ve lost time recently, zoned out completely only to shake myself back to a vague consciousness, how I’ve wanted to just fade into oblivion. Just for a little while. Maybe a month or two.
Last weekend was hard, and I mean really hard. I’m not going to lie, I spent most of it drunk, because you know, I’m a mature and sensible grownup who can handle her feelings in an appropriate manner. It didn’t help that it was the beer festival, and then father’s day and my birthday on the same day. It’s like the universe just wanted to fuck with me that weekend. A handful of us went down to where your ashes were scattered and boy was it hard.
I thought I was doing okay until I heard a sniffle from Fabian, and then I broke down. I hugged him and we cried, horrible ugly sobbing tears. Sometimes I forget that this stuff affects him just as much as me, maybe even more so him being the younger of the two of us after all. He just seems so well adjusted, so able to deal with it all. Especially when contrasted with my human disaster kind of nature. For some reason his pain is worse than my own.
Though I think that’s just me, I feel everyone else’s pain so intently, and I always want to make it better and I struggle when I can’t do that. I think I need to learn how not to take on other people’s pain as my own burden, especially when it harms me, or maybe that’s just one of those things that makes me who I am. Sometimes it’s a good thing, being so empathetic, but sometimes when I have my own shitty feelings and then absorb other people’s as well it becomes overwhelming, and sometimes I have that need to just escape it all.
Let me be absolutely clear here, I don’t want to die. Because death? Well that’s pretty damn permanent, and that permeance, that finality, that conclusion, absolutely bloody terrifies me. But sometimes? I’d just like to check out of life for maybe just a little while. I think what’s worse right now is knowing that there’s a new chapter waiting for me at the end of this summer, I have that to look forward to, it’s a bright new future. But this waiting, it’s horrific. I feel like I’m stuck in limbo, unable to move in any direction until I can reach this golden utopia just beyond my reach.
Okay, it’s probably not a utopia, it’s university (again), full of exams, assignments, hard work, and probably a ridiculous amount of needless stress. I’ve done it all before I know, but this time I’m doing something so completely different that I’m both exhilarated and terrified. I feel like I have something to prove, and I’m terrified I’m going to waste this second chance that if I’m being honest I only have because you’re not here. I’m worried that I’m going to fail, that I’m going to prove the university shouldn’t have taken a chance on a dyspraxic with shitty A-Levels. That I’m going to end up so much worse off than before.
Hopefully I’ll be able to keep myself motivated to work hard, even if it’s by being competitive.
Sophie x
A Place of Mine 