A Great Pretender

Have I wasted my dreams? Have I missed my chance? Have I squandered what was mine? Can I recover from this?

I can go on pretending– I’m good at that, and it’s no wonder that I am because performing is what I was built for. I can string myself any story I need to keep me pretending that it all doesn’t matter, to keep lying to myself that I’m fine without it. I can pretend I’m satisfied.

But I’m not.

I feel ungrateful and like a fraud and like I’ll lose it all if I go after what I know I’m meant for. When have I ever been scared of losing all I love before? Never. Nullam praeter me requiris familiam.

But here I sit, rotting. And it’s all my choice. Paralyzed by insecurity. Twenty-two years of denial because of one conversation. One conversation I can’t shake. Words that irrevocably changed my core and I’m powerless to change it back. Words that haunt and taunt me, no matter how I exorcise them. Words I wish she’d never said. Word I wish she could take back.

Even if  she were alive, though, she wouldn’t take them back.

Now words are all I have. The place that makes me feel most alive is now also the place of so much fear. I’ve let the fear live here so long I no longer know where it ends or where it hides. We’re joined now. Maybe closer than one woman and one man. I need to divorce it and become my own narrator again.

I don’t know if I have the strength. I don’t know if I have the support.

Nullam praeter me requiris familiam.

I wish I could go back and shield little thirteen-year-old me. Tell her to do it anyway. Tell her it would be okay. Tell her doing it would make her okay.

Time to start.

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