Tears and resolve stain my pillow. It’s been the first time in months that I’ve actually felt any emotion in full to have the pain squeezed out of my eyes in liquid form. The numb feeling went away last night after my decision to leave was in place. The tears may have been sadness or a sense of relief; maybe both. I wanted to take a load off the shoulders of the people I care about, and I wanted to be somewhere they wouldn’t need to worry and fuss over me anymore. Somewhere I wouldn’t have to worry about my problems burdening the people around me. Nothing I’m going through could be important enough to lay it onto someone else’s shoulders or even have them carry a portion of it. They don’t need more problems on top of their own.
Maybe that’s how I became numb; the months of carrying a load so heavy it caused me to lose feeling in my body. Making this decision must’ve lightened the load enough to get the feeling of pins and needles in a corner of my body, hence, the tears on my pillow.
Getting up and checking my phone to see the time, I noticed a text from an unknown number. Curiosity got the best of me and I opened it. It was just a simple text saying “Just fyi, you’re not making anyone’s life harder so stop acting like it. :)”
I almost dropped the phone. Who could this have been? A list of every family member and friend it could be ran through my head. I mean this could be the work of my best friend, but I doubt she wouldn’t give out my number to someone without asking me prior. Could it have been a wrong number? One digit off maybe? No, something in me is telling me it’s not.
There was only one other conclusion I could think of: this must have been a complete stranger that knew nothing of me or my life who sent a text that could put a smile on anyone’s face. So why did it flip my world upside down and inside out? It couldn’t be this important, could it?
I tried to shake the text off and continue with my morning routine. A morning routine which features plastering a light smile on my face and raising my eyebrows ever so slightly, so it doesn’t look like the only thing inside me is an empty void. I learned the eyebrow trick almost a year ago when sadness was what I felt on a day-to-day basis. I didn’t know how to talk to anyone about it. The few times I tried to speak up for myself, I instantly regretted it and withdrew from that relationship. I was scared that I had said too much and had been too vulnerable with someone and in turn they would never see me the same way again. I ruined a lot of relationships through this process which led to me clamming up and stacking every problem, feeling, preference, and anything in between high onto my shoulders.
I lost sleep every night as I laid awake in my bed, unthinking, just feeling every emotion that came and went throughout the day over and over again until they became a mush of numb underdeveloped feelings. I stopped feeling inclined to eat anything altogether.
Until that text.
The entirety of the day those words stuck in my head and became a melody my body buzzed to while also using them as a wake-up call when I began relapsing back into my old ways. I paid attention to myself and my needs. Focused slightly more on what was best for me. It was so confusing; the text wasn’t even that deep or sentimental. It shouldn’t have this much effect on me.
I tasted sweets and treats I hadn’t felt explode on my tongue since a time I can’t even remember. It felt like a was a little kid again; sneaking into the kitchen late at night to steal a candy from the jar. I said yes when the random girl with a birthday sash and rainbow sprinkled cookies asked if I wanted one.
Everywhere I went, the sun seemed brighter, and the flowers looked extra full and pigmented. That text took a load of my back I didn’t even know was stored up there; it said words I had banished to the outskirts of my soul and refused to believe. Perhaps the timing and directness of the words is what really impacted me. That must be it; the reason I felt light as air wasn’t because of the text at face value. It was the deeper meaning behind it and the fact that those words had been dying to escape from within me and be inserted into the truth section of my brain.
It felt amazing to feel again. To know what sadness felt like and that laughing and smiling out of joy was real and didn’t need to be faked.
Who knew the reason I was able to smile without it being forced would be due to the kind words of a stranger that meant more to me than anything I’ve ever heard before; the words that saved me in ways I didn’t know I needed to be saved. Who would have guessed that a stranger would have offered a new perspective on my life and given me a new meaning that would keep a bounce in my step. Gratitude lined my very being and wrapped around the corners of my mind and heart with words that I would cherish forever.