I had deleted his number months ago, but in that moment I prayed I had it magically stored in my phone.
I was sitting in my car, hands shaking, tears welling in my eyes. The music in the background as my daughter napped peacefully, did nothing but make things worse.
I knew he was the wrong person to text, but in that moment I needed the only person who had ever seen pieces of me that I was disgusted by. Ashamed of. He was the only one who had seen my darkest moments. He would know what to say, and it would come in a way that would rip my heart to shreds but be the honesty that a friend would feel too bad to say. His number was still in my phone somehow. So I texted him.
"I'm a fucking fraud, and everyone thinks i'm so strong and brave- but I'm not. I can't take it.'
The time ticked by painfully slow as I waited for some sort of response. He ignored most of my texts, but he always responded in my desperate times, and I knew he would now.
I braced myself for an onslaught of words confirming my exact fears.
"I know you put on a front. I've always known when I got behind it, for small amounts of time."
"Don't tell anyone. I'm ashamed."
I waited for comfort. I waited for a bunch of flowery words to distract me from what I believed to be my truth. I waited for the deflecting jokes he always did when we got too deep. But instead he posed a question.
"So whats your course of action?"
I was taken aback, he wasn't going to bypass this, he was going to force me to find my own answer. It was a good question- how was I going to proceed with these thoughts?
I answered quickly and truthfully... I guess right in that moment my subconscious took over and knew my course of action was one I didn't even have to think about. I had already been living it for a few years now.
"Take care of my kids. Take care of myself. My job is to help people and make them happy. And I'm good at that. I'll keep doing that."
It was that easy.
I was hit with the realization that I was turning my emotions into their own entities. I was letting them take over the bigger picture and not allowing myself to feel a basic human instinct. Sadness. Again I associated sadness with weakness and turned a simple moment of tears into my entire being a fraudulent personality. When I write my joys and gratitude down I mean them because I feel them in that moment. And those moments are far more present then the sad periods I go through. I am not wearing some mask, preaching happiness and gratitude to people when I myself don't feel it. I am speaking openly and honestly about happiness and gratitude to everyone because I do feel this way. I want everyone to feel this way. However, I can't cover the world in rainbows and glitter. I have to be honest with myself and honest with everyone else so they know it's absolutely okay to feel the down times, to embrace them lovingly and treat them kindly.
"I'm a fraud."
I had to get those words out to someone who would never tell a soul. I didn't want anyone to ever know just how deeply the rawness welled inside of me in that moment.
But as the day went on and I processed the feelings that swirled inside of me, the word fraud didn't feel right to me. It was sour and unnatural on the tip of my tongue. Worse to look at in text. Fraud was not a word I would use to describe myself. As the day went on and I calmed myself, I realized I didn't want him to hold this admission for me. I was ready to hold myself. I wanted to open my heart and share my shadow parts so that others who are like me, others who "Sad Shame" as I call it, understood that these feelings are just as crucial to growth and ascension as happiness and gratitude are.
So there... That was my day today. I felt low. Very low. And then I took those emotions and quietly listened to them as they sat in my heart. As the day progressed they slowly dissipated into the most beautiful lesson.
The lesson that it's okay to feel.
I felt some shit today and that's totally cool.
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