I watched our neighbour being wheeled out of their house on a stretcher. I made sure to come at the correct time. It was organised but a few hours before. They looked so tiny in the bed.

The scream that came from their loved one and life-long friend will stay with me for a long time. Tears welled in my eyes. I told myself ‘it’s okay to cry’. The resistance in me held strong, preventing a waterfall from falling down my face. The emotion stuck in me. A few tears flowed out. A constellation prize, perhaps for my longing. ‘Here you go, have these’.

As I stood on the doorstep, holding the hand of the one who stays behind, she turns to me and says ‘Do you realise how special you are? I have never met anyone like you. I am 85 years old and I have never met anyone as unique as you’. I think she is referring to my letters I gave them just a few days ago. I don’t know if her words are true or not. The resistance in me prevents me from accepting them as real, for I am a fraud. I tried really hard to accept them, I really did, but they won’t seep in.

I called a new friend maybe an hour after this, after I sat in my office lounge chair and tried to will more tears to come. Why is that I can’t cry the tears I want to cry? How deep does this well go, if there is fear for what might come out of me? Am I searching for something that does not exist?

This new friend already knows that something is up with me. I share a few pieces of what’s been going on. She is searching for me. Asking me to dig deeper. I am usually very open with sharing. Something in me shuts down the conversation prematurely. ‘I have to go. We will speak next week.’ Before this though, she tells me there is something about me. She said she knew there was something special about me. She knew she could trust me from the very beginning. Again I struggled to accept this compliment.

I remembered from my therapy group that resistance to compliments has to do with shame, toxic shame to be explicit. I should get back to my CPTSD book readings. Something in me made me stop too.

It’s odd to feel the forces working against you, but in your own body and mind. A continual ‘check’ in this complicated game of chess with myself.

Next I had a call with an old friend. I knew they had news to share. I thought pregnancy or an engagement. They bought a house! I wasn’t sure what I wanted to share with them, and so I asked lots of questions to get them talking about themselves and their lives. I looked good on camera, the first time I have felt this type of observation about myself. The nit picking was absent in this call. When it got to my turn to speak, what flowed from my mouth seemed hell depressing. I think the returned pity on their face really did me in. I began questioning myself.

When people ask me how I am or what has been going on, I am truthful. My initial response is always negative. I don’t know how to do the short talk walk, so I spill what’s at the top of my mind. I got so insecure about myself and my presence after this call, after this day, I asked if I should just pretend everything is fine and dandy. Sunshine and rainbows. I have a switch I can flick to turn that on. Bright and sunny disposition, coming right up. Sitting in this fakeness drained the life from me. I have fought so hard to show up as my true self, rain or sun, and to pretend like everything is roses does not serve all my hard work.

I think my response will be ‘I am evolving’, coz this is true, and the conversation can go either which way. I can have a string of bright, sunny and feel-good updates, and a string of my current reality. I can give the other options for which route they want to take.

Oh, and I also wrote half a chapter of my book today. It felt really good to sit down to intentionally write. Now to keep it up.

Lots of love,

Kate