The Great Pretender

Too real is this feeling of make-believe
Too real when I feel what my heart can’t conceal
Yes I’m the great pretender
Just laughin’ and gay like a clown
I seem to be what I’m not, you see
I’m wearing my heart like a crown



I was running so fast. My breath was pounding in my ears. My right hip felt like it was tearing apart. My arms were cold. My heart, weak. The giant pine trees around me were tumbling down into my world. But all I could concentrate on, all I could see, was that lake beneath the next slope I was about to run on. It looked so clear and promising. A promise of a body of water filled with infinite moments and infinite thoughts. I felt as though I would run into it and enter a different dimension where all my mental disturbances would cease to exist. A state of total neutrality and complete blankness. I just had to get to that lake. Just a few more steps. A few more breaths to listen to. A pull of the hip and swing of the arms and pound of the heart. I was almost there when out of nowhere, a dog is standing in front of me. My feet stopped and the domino effect that followed was inevitable.

It’s strange to think that while you’re in so much pain it is possible to stop it by quitting what you’re doing. But it’s actually the opposite. When you stop, it hurts even more. For some time, it hurts twice the amount because that is the moment you realize how much strain you were putting on yourself. Your body begins to allow all the stress and pain to completely enter and for the first time you’re able to understand what you were doing to yourself. My lungs were desperately trying to grasp more air. My hip was unbearable. My arms were in a surreal sense of numbness. My heart was a hammer. The world was spinning and I was staring at the dog.

When you remove the pain, the agony doubles. When you remove the stress, it becomes unbearable. When you remove the source, the effect remains with you and inside of you, perhaps even a part of you… for some time. As you’re standing there gaining your senses back, your mind seems to get a rush out of nowhere. Thoughts are whirling on a speeding train on the tracks of your brain and you can barely understand what it’s attempting to make sense of.

Why is childhood always what we go back to? Everyone claims they were happier, carefree, beautiful times. Not so much so in my case for reasons I will not go into right now. Even so, I go back to that. It gives me a sense of a foundation. A place where I was who I was, not who I wanted to be. So… the stress entered and the pieces created a map in my head. Maybe I created my mistakes by accepting the things I should have not accepted.

That being said, the years that I spent caring for others were not wasted. You learn. I learned. I learned not to complain, but instead to listen. I learned not to look back, but to look forward because forward has better possibilities. I learned not to judge, but to understand. I learned there are bad actions and not bad people. Most importantly I learned that it’s okay. It’s okay for you to be uncertain. It’s okay to stutter in action. It’s okay to ruin everything. It’s okay to change your mind. It’s okay to remember while you try to forget. It’s okay to care and love so much that you give up opportunities, you give up wishes, you give up goals and give up your right to a normal life (whatever that is) just to make sure those you love are okay. Because once it’s over, once the ice begins to melt on that lake, you resurface and that first breath you take is the most beautiful one you will ever take.

What is not okay, is for you to pretend like this can go on forever. It can’t. It shouldn’t. It won’t.

I like to call myself the Great Pretender.

........ and just like that.... a few minutes later.... the pain was gone.