I’m sorry I lied to you every day of my life. 3, 4, 5 times a day or more. I told you I would take care of you. Good care. I told you I would change. I wanted you to just roll with whatever I sent your way and never suffer any consequences. Not wanted, expected. After all, you were mine. I owned you. You were nothing without me. I drove you, I moved you, I kept you up late and made you get up early. I took you places. I drank. I ate. I ate. And I ate.
I tried it all, all the fixes. The healthy ones and the unhealthy ones. I desperately wanted one of them to work. Everything from a liquid diet to therapy to a 12 step program. It all ended in disappointment. And in my world disappointment was equal to devastation. Trying became too hard.
So I abused you even more. Because it was too intense. Or lonely. Or fearful. Or joyous. Or empty. Or excited. Or uncomfortable. Or habit.
It didn’t fucking matter.
Occasionally I would take care of you: a massage, a facial, a personal trainer, a few random trips to the gym always with promises of more. There was that time when we did yoga every day for a summer and we both looked and felt great. But it never lasted. And it was always nothing more than a band aid for the real problem: I couldn’t handle life.
I mistreated you. I punished you. I asked you to hold all my feelings inside for me and to make sure that happened I fed you so there was no way for them to come up. I fed you so that I wouldn’t need anybody else. I am a rock, I am an island. The fear turned to terror when I realized I was no longer capable of handling even basic emotions. I was an adolescent trapped inside the body of an adult. A very well masked adult.
When you couldn’t take it anymore you broke.
I cried. Sobbed actually. More promises. I would change. I would fix this. I promised through heaving chest that THIS time would be different. I knew I had been letting down all the people in my life, myself included. Tomorrow was going to be different.
All lies. Tomorrow will never be different.
But today, today is different.