Capacity…or Lack Thereof

There are some things I can’t write about.

Some things I can’t let myself sit with long enough to find words for, even privately.

I wish I could explain the complex nature of trauma.

Or maybe I just wish I could explain mine.

Some days I see things clearly.

Other days I feel like the biggest pile of shit for even allowing myself to see them that way.

It’s wanting desperately, deeply to be loved.

To feel loved.

And knowing that cup might always stay empty.

I don’t know if I’ll ever have the capacity to actually feel love.

That’s a truth I sit with.

And without that capacity, my sense of connection with people stays blunted.

Knowing this doesn’t fix it.

My fear of connection is so big that I can’t push past it to let love in.

Real love.

Real closeness.

I shield.

I block.

I move away.

Loss always makes me painfully aware of that lack of capacity,

because while I grieve the absence of a person,

I also grieve the absence of what could have been

if I had let myself open up enough to be seen.

Enough to be known.

Enough to know them in return.

I’m too scared to give and receive love,

and that is the burden of my life.

It may always be.

I don’t say that with self-pity.

I say it with strained eyes,

a burning throat,

and an aching heart that wishes things could be different.

Maybe they could be.

But sometimes things feel too deeply engrained to change.

Author’s Note:

When I start to write, I never know which way the words will unfold.

Sometimes you’re reading me witnessing myself from a new angle for the first time…

seeing the heartbreak of self-discovery and limits, as they reach me.