Enough

“Take for instance life. Take for instance my life. A birth and a death and something in between. A series of failures and inexperience, never enough for what they want me to be; as if I even knew what it was they wanted me to be.”

“What do you want to be?”

“What I want to be? That doesn’t matter…”

“It should.”

“Maybe for you. But for me the only thing that matters is what other people expect of me. I’ve tried doing what I want, or at least doing what they want from me their way, but it never amounts to anything. Who I inherently am isn’t enough… so why bother doing what I want?”

“To be happy.”

“Happy? Happy is a myth created to make little kids think there’s something better than the mess the world is now. Happy is a myth that keeps people lying to themselves that somewhere things are better. They have to be better because if they aren’t better how could there be happy? I’m tired of believing in somewhere. All there will ever be is here. Here and me and the things that are expected of me.”

“You’ve really never been happy? Not one day in your life?”

“Why does it matter?! It’s not like I’ll ever be happy again, so why bother remembering when I used to be?”

“But you have been happy before. Do you remember why?”

“I don’t like remembering. It just makes now so much worse. I used to believe in myself, in the world.”

“What changed?”

“I did. Or the world did. I don’t know. I don’t wanna think about it.”

“You have to.”

“No.”

“Remember.”

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It was summer. I still wanted to make something of myself; I didn’t know any better. I wanted to be a scientist. I thought there was something for me out there. There was this part of me that saw the light in the universe. A part of me that thought the world was full of wonder.

There was so much of the world left to explore, I wanted to see it all. It didn’t take long for me to see the world for what it really is. Cruel.

The world is mean and vicious and doesn’t care about the creatures living in it. I don’t think the world even knows we’re here.

Once I saw the world for what it really was, and the rose colored glasses fell from my face, and everything crumbled around me. All that was left was bitter anger and fear, I didn’t know anything anymore.

I couldn’t trust anything. Surviving in a world like this, nothing but cold eyes and sharp teeth, I had to cling to apathy like a lifeline. If I did as I was told and stopped getting in the way then I wouldn’t get hurt as often.

Sometimes I lashed out, my fear festering into a brief flame of anger. Apathy became a shield around me, hardening into concrete and keeping my anger in check.

I didn’t have the energy to be happy, and even if I did, it would have just been used against me. Everything I’ve felt since has just been a mask.

Sometimes the mask slipped and I would scream or cry. Not usually because of what had just happened, but simply because the mask had been a dam so long for so many feelings that I didn't have the strength to hold them back without it.

It wasn’t easy, living life always on the edge of exploding, but it was safer that way.

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“Are you happy now?”

“I thought you said happy was a myth?”

“Can I go please.”

“Not yet, I wanna talk about your mask.”

“My mask? What is there to talk about. I wear it, it keeps me safe. Story over. Let me leave.”

“It hasn’t always had cracks like that, has it.”

“Years of stress does that. Nothing’s perfect forever.”

“Do you ever think about taking it off?”

“Why? So that I can lose all the progress I’ve made and let the world get some more hits in?”

“You’ve gotten stronger you know, with or without the mask. I think you’d be surprised with yourself.”

“But what if you’re wrong? What if I’m not stronger? Then all of this, everything i’ve suffered through, will be for nothing. At least if I keep the mask on I can pretend I’m strong enough. Pretend I’m worth something.”

“Everyone’s worth something.”

“If… if I take off my mask now, realize I never needed it, won’t it invalidate all the years I wore it? All the years I held my tongue and bottled up my emotions. All the times I wasn’t strong enough and everything exploded. All the scars it left me with. Is all that pain worthless then?”

“No, it still happened. And you learned from it. So it will never be worthless. You just won’t have to carry it anymore, you can move on.”

“But what if I’m not enough? What if despite all my growth I still can’t handle being a protagonist in my own life? What if it’s too hard?”

“Then keep trying. Keep growing. Find what you need to keep going.”

“I don’t know what I need.”

“You’ll find it. Trust yourself. You have always been enough.”

“I do trust myself.”

“Then trust me.”

“We are enough.”