The Feeling Is Real

Having a difficult time imagining what it must be like doesn't mean I don't know pain.

Not having been through the same exact thing doesn't mean that I can't feel sorrow, grief, or moral injury.

It shows in your body. It shows in your face. It shows in your choices in action. It's easy to try to find a way to drown or numb the way we feel.

The struggle is real. We feel what we feel. It hurts and it feels like there won't be any escape.

While the world judges us, criticizes us, demeans us, and shames us for not fitting in their neat little boxes of categories with identifiable properties that make them feel better, we can only hope they will never know how it feels.

Titles don't mean anything. Status doesn't make it better. Power means nothing when we feel so broken. Nobody understands how the hurt is shredding our insides or how our heart aches to feel better.

The feeling is real while our guts feel twisted like horses must feel when they're writhing from colic.

Maybe a drink will numb it, we think. Not realizing that the lie is in "nobody," "everyone," "should," "can't," and "never." The lie is in the phrase, "just smile." While we lash out at demands that we're prettier when we smile.



We don't care about being prettier or making them feel good when they don't understand. How could they?

How could they know what it feels like to have an identity that feels like an empty vessel? How can they know what it feels like to have nothing? How can they know how deep the sorrow goes and how can they know the cracks in our soul?

Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't understand what to say or how to say it. Only certified professionals have the credentials to help us through. Except, we don't want anyone in our heads and picking us apart because the pain of dredging all of that up is too difficult to face.

Maybe I don't know exactly what you feel. How could I? I do know what it is like to feel the sense of hopelessness and helplessness. I do know what it feels like to love and to have lost. I know what it is like to grieve and what it is like to despair.

I know how the chest can ache with sorrow and grief and I do know what it is like to miss someone we love. I also know what it is like to love and to never be loved in the same way we love and what it is like to hate that.

There is a lot that is familiar to me and while I may not understand, I do feel. Many of us are feeling the feels and those that do not understand and cannot love us in return--it was never about us. It was all about them.

Makes me think about so many people. Knowing the pain and choosing a different path. Trying to help and not succeeding. Wanting to take the pain away. To bear the pain for them and knowing the only way out is through.

Lyrics:

I don't wanna be the girl who laughs the loudest

Or the girl who never wants to be alone

I don't wanna be that call at four o'clock in the mornin'

'Cause I'm the only one you know in the world that won't be home

Ah-ah, the sun is blindin'

Ah-ah, I stayed up again

Oh-oh, I am findin'

That's not the way I want my story to end

I'm safe up high

Nothing can touch me

Why do I feel this party's over?

No pain inside

You're my protection

But how do I feel this good sober?

I don't wanna be the girl that has to fill the silence

The quiet scares me 'cause it screams the truth

Please don't tell me that we had that conversation

I won't remember, save your breath 'cause what's the use?

Ah-ah, the night is callin'

And it whispers to me softly, "come and play"

Ah-ah, I am fallin'

And if I let myself go, I'm the only one to blame

I'm safe up high

Nothing can touch me

But why do I feel this party's over?

No pain inside

You're like perfection

But how do I feel this good sober?

Comin' down, comin' down, comin' down

Spinnin' round, spinnin' round, spinnin' round

I'm lookin' for myself

Sober

Comin' down, comin' down, comin' down

Spinnin' round, spinnin' round, spinnin' round

Lookin' for myself

Sober

When it's good, then it's good

It's all good till it goes bad

Till you try to find the you that you once had

I have heard myself cry, never again!

Broken down in agony

Just tryin' to find a friend

Ohhh

Oh-ohhh

I'm safe up high

Nothing can touch me

Why do I feel this party's over?

(Why do I feel this party's over)

No pain inside

You're like perfection

But how do I feel this good sober?

I'm safe up high

Nothing can touch me

Why do I feel this party's over?

Whoahhh

No pain inside

You're like perfection

But how do I feel this good sober?

(How do I feel this good sober)