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FREEDOM FROM ME

August 16, 2021

Why can I not be free? Why can I not deserve to be happy? Why can I not bare the guilt and shame of being me? The wind is blowing across the land pushing leaves along the ground and through the air to their new home. They have no control where they land or rest and yet, that is okay. Why do I feel the need to control them? Are they landing where I do not want them to? Is it my job to care? No, my job is to worry about me, and let the leaves and others worry about themselves. It is not my job to take on the chaos and problems of others, to be distracted from my own stuff. It is not my job to stop others from failing or learning through mistakes. It is my job to worry about Eddie and not to worry about what I cannot control. If I can do this, maybe I can learn to check the anxiety that chains me down and be free. With freedom, maybe the anxiety will subside, and happiness will have a chance to take root in my barren soul; the emptiness that is there; the broken insides that pain me every day when I awake, and the broken heart I cry myself to sleep with every night. Happy? Yeah right. But why not? Am I really a bad person? Or am I a person that makes bad choices? Am I responsible for everything, or just myself?

Was I not worthy to be born, or just a mistake? If I walked away would anyone really notice? Will I ever be free? Will I ever feel happy? Will I not always feel guilt and shame? I don’t know the answers, but I first must start to feel. I want to feel but all I feel is sadness. It is like my body is an empty vessel and sadness is a drink and as I drink it, the veins flow it through to the arteries, and it rests in my limbs, eventually flowing through my heart and it leaks. Even when happiness creeps into it, it leaks out and it’s a short-lived emotion, only to be replaced with unhappiness and guilt about why I should feel happy. Or why should I be allowed to be happy. Sometimes I feel as if I reside in a purgatory that every day is Groundhog Day and I go through the same hell everyday only to dream of happiness and freedom; only to awake before I can hold it each morning. It is like a curse that walks with me every day that I get a glimpse of lifting only to be reminded of each waking day. Maybe one day it won’t be Groundhog Day, and I will leave purgatory and my heart will heal.

~ Edward D.

This writing is selected as an excerpt from the book Effective Use of Creative Writing in the Treatment of Addiction to Chemical Substances, Eric A. Kreuter, Ph.D., editor, a clinician at St. Christopher’s Inn.
It is published by Nova Science Publishers, to learn more click HERE.

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