On giving up

Posted Jun 28, 2023

On giving up

Sometimes, in life, we have no other option. There are so many inspirational speeches and Pinterest aesthetics and kitschy merch items that tell you to never give up, but truly, there are times when the only choice that you can possibly make for your own good is to throw in the towel.

Right now, I’m in the process of giving something up. I don’t want to be cryptic, but I unfortunately can’t really get into detail here, because this site is public and even though I have told maybe 3 people total that it even exists, there are some secrets involved that are not mine to tell. In any case, I’m giving something up, a hope that I have (however unwisely) carried in my heart for years, and it is excruciating.

I’ve known for a long time that this hope I held had only the slimmest chances of ever being realized. Still, it has been incredibly hard to convince myself deep down that it really, truly isn’t going to happen, that there is no universe where the stars align so perfectly that this can work out the way I wish it would. I’ve been through the stages of grief with this particular hope before, and I thought I had buried it and found some peace. But my heart had other ideas, and slowly, so slowly that I didn’t even notice until the roots had grown deep and strong, I came to hope yet again that there was a single percentage point of possibility that this could be.

Hope can be a cruel joke that you play on yourself.

I don’t actually have any desire to give this up. The opposite, if anything. I don’t want to accept that this thing I feel so strongly about will never be what I have dreamed it could be, what I know it could be, if only. As much as it hurts to hold onto, it also hurts to let it go. The world is not perfect or fair, and sometimes things simply aren’t what you want them to be. With little things this isn’t so hard to accept, but with something that means a lot to you, something that could profoundly change your life? It’s not easy.

And in this case, it affects so many of the different parts of my life — my hobbies, my routines, my work. Almost every day, something or other forces me to acknowledge this reality, to feel this pain. It feels as though I’ve been constantly on the verge of tears for months. I’ve tried mitigating in so many ways, have spoken with my therapist about this so many times, have absolutely pummeled my brain in hopes of knocking some new solution out of it, all (obviously) to no avail. All I want to listen to is sad music. I gratefully disappear into any distraction media can provide.

Worst, I am harried by ridiculous intrusive thoughts about how if I could just lose a little weight to look better, or hit a milestone that would be impressive enough, or say exactly the right thing, I would be able to change this situation. Despite recognizing how irrational and unhealthy that is, and despite constantly refuting those thoughts, I can’t stop them from cropping up. Whenever my brain is unoccupied, they pop up in multiples to assail me, loudly proclaiming that I can control this, if only I could just [insert increasingly deranged “solution”] well enough. It’s like I’m at war with myself. I can’t even live comfortably in my own brain anymore. Maybe that’s why I obsess about getting this out, hoping if I put it outside of myself, it can’t continue to attack me from within.

I wish that if I could just describe my pain perfectly, detail out all the different ways and scenarios in which I experience this agony, I could somehow unlock the secret to not feeling it anymore. But, that’s not how the world works, so I’m not even sure why I’m writing this. It’s not super, ah, pointful1. I’ve journaled about this topic a lot, to try to work through my feelings and understand them better, so I’m not sure how much more there is to be said that I haven’t already screamed into one void or another. I don’t expect (or want) pity or problem-solving, because there’s really not anything that can be done. I guess, like the situation itself, the question of why I’m putting the proverbial pen to paper here will remain unanswered, unresolved, and I’ll have to accept that, too.

Bonus: a random observation

I tend to express myself best in run-on sentences, and this appears to be especially true when discussing something emotional. Sorry about that.

Footnotes

  1. I hate myself for writing that.

Tags:

personal

updates