i barely have the breath to breathe, much less to fly away

Have you ever woken up one morning and wondered where the hell you were?

I’m not talking about that sinking feeling in your stomach you get after a one-night stand,
where you literally have no idea where you are, although that is part of this--I’m talking
about that sinking feeling in your soul when you suddenly realize you have no idea how your
life got to this point.

More and more I've been feeling like I'm just going through the motions - wake up, get
ready, go to work, go to class, come home, go to bed, and do it all over again the next day,
and the day after that, and the day after that. It's as if I'm mechanically working towards
the arbitrary goals I've set for myself, with no real idea as to why this is what I'm doing. I can see the endpoint, but I have no idea if that's actually what I want.

My life is a million miles away from where it was a year ago. It's not entirely a bad thing, but a lot of who I am got lost somewhere along the way. I've been searching and searching for something to fill the gaps in my life, and I'm beginning to realize that it's going to take more than another bar and another boy to make the difference.

All I want is for the world to stop spinning, just for a minute, just long enough for me to catch my breath and recenter myself. I need a chance to look around and figure out who this girl is--and if she's really that different from who she was.

I find myself shutting people out more than I ever have before. Some of my closest friendships are barely hanging on, and it's my fault. It's as if I'm afraid they're going to see who I've turned into, and realize that I'm not who they remember. Hell, I'm not who I remember. What happened to the girl ready to take life by storm? The eternal optimist? The dreamer who romantacized everything? Is she still there, somewhere, trying to work her way out of the cynical realist I've become?

Some of the changes, a few of the changes--they've been needed. I'm less fragile than I was. Less likely to fall for someone too hard or too fast. Less willing to trust someone who turns out to be careless. More driven. Less of a pushover. More of a fighter. But I'm also more bitter. More careless with other people. Less naive, FAR more jaded. I find myself seeking out relationships where I don't have to give too much of myself, because the less I give, the less it'll hurt. I alienate the people who love me and who have stood by me for years, because I don't want anyone who knows me too well to see how much I've started to hate what I've become.

Maybe I'm not getting hurt as easily...But isn't part of the beauty of life, and love, the ability to let yourself get broken? Isn't getting up and dusting yourself off, ready to try again part of the most basic human experience? Doesn't feeling a hundred kinds of pain make the healing a thousand kinds of wonderful? Aren't we supposed to turn to the ones who care about us when we're at our lowest?

I might not be at my lowest, but I don't think I'm that far from it. I hide it well most of the time, but it's almost to the point where I don't know if I can make it through another hour without standing up and screaming. I feel lost, and I feel alone. I know I'm strong enough to pull myself out of this, as I always have before, and I know tomorrow things will look different, in a different kind of light. But right now, today? I'm looking in the mirror and wondering who the hell is looking back at me, where the hell she came from, and how in the hell I'll ever be able to merge the me that was and the me that is into the me I wish I could be.