Repeat Play

I am not sure if I have anything new to say. I know that I am still hurting. I know that I’ve buried the hurt, through the motions of everyday survival. It’s a distraction. I run on fumes but i can’t stop running because to stop is to feel and to feel is to open the pandora’s box of the hurt. People have hurt me in ways, ignored me in ways, dehumanized me in ways, that have breached my trust irreparably and I am learning that forgiveness is not always deserved, is not always necessary, is not always warranted.

Can I love myself, believe in my own self-worth, if I acquiesce without protest, my silence a tacit agreement — that my suffering is insignificant, inconsequential?

We only want to celebrate persistence, resilience, strength, those who overcome challenges — can we have compassion for those who need to surrender? Can we ask them to stop fighting? Do you have capacity to understand the level of defeat we face? The imprisonment of our circumstances? of the oppression? of the ableism? of our incapacitated bodies? of our fragile minds? You say you support caring for our mental health but have you confronted your own internal judgments that we are weak, that we are lazy, that we are not doing enough – that you could do better? Your belief that willpower can conquer all? Can you see surrender as a logical result to relentless pain?

Will my pain feel to distant for you try to understand? Will your pain feel too prominent to acknowledge the validity of the pain of others? Do you believe —us the second-class humans beings, our pain is part of the natural order and manageable because it is a pain you would never experience? That you’ve been a good girl or boy and didn’t invite the struggles the others done by their unfortunate circumstances? But your life is hard within the realm of what should be hard for people like yourself?

My friend says that indigenous cultures view time as circular — she said circles go around but they still progress. Perhaps that is the repeat play. I try to avoid learning lessons, not all of life’s challenges teach us anything. Sometimes we just have to acknowledge life on repeat play. That it still impacts us, that it is still how it happens, that we are still human beings no matter if we are trapped by our trauma or still holding on to hurt. We are also humans. We are still humans.