Pull me back up

Sometimes I look in the mirror and wonder if I'm the same person I used to be, if I'm even any part of that little naive girl that grew up in the desert, that little girl that knew nothing of the world except for that little Saudi city, of the gulf, or vacations to
Paris and Cypress and Amsterdam. And sometimes all I want so badly to is go back to that world, not the physicality of it, but the emotional innocence and ease of being a child, especially the child that I was there. To go back to when the hardest moments were when we wondered if the boy next door liked me, when the choice was to walk to school or get a ride. And sometimes when I try to remember, to put myself there in my mind, I can't and that scares me so very much. Sometimes I feel like that part of me is drifting from my mind, like a loved one lost when one day you wake up and can't remember their touch, their feel, their scent. I am forgetting the scents of the desert, the round about that the hub cabs all flew off the passing cars, I am forgetting the view of herds of camels on the horizon, and the rush against your skin of heat and sand mixed.

Anymore, all I feel is the weight of choice, the heaviness of decisions, of indecision. I want so badly to feel the lightness of happiness, or love. To feel that moment when I know that I am special, set apart from everyone else. I want so badly to just let my life happen, that I could have what I need and not have to go beyond that. And I sit here, alone, and wonder if this is how I'll end up in the end, because I'll never get the entirety of what I want from anyone. And someday I'll sit here and look in the mirror at the girl that ended up being so far from who I thought I'd be.

I'm so tired from the energy I exert, from trying to be that girl that everyone thinks I am, rather than the girl I used to be. I'm so exhausted from carrying the weight of it all, so worn out from always having to be the one to make the effort in life, in love, in family. I'm stressed and overwhelmed and lonely, I'm too tired to even cry, it will take too much energy I don't have anymore. And everything that I thought would work out, seems to be falling apart and nothing feels right, not here, not there, not anywhere.


And as we approach the holidays, I don't even have that family to rely on, no big family christmas, no fire places, no family dinners. Maybe it's because I was young, but as a little girl I always remember family getting together, I remember my uncles, my aunts, speaking to each other. I remember grandma's house at the holidays and I remember always feeling that warmth from being there. That however, was before my family stopped speaking to each other, before everyone moved away, before I grew up and felt the weight of responsibility, before I felt the pains of love. That was back when life was simple, when I didn't have to do everything on my own, when I could simply play with my Playmobil and act out the drama that is really happening in my life.

I don't know how much more I can take of this, and sometimes I think, maybe I should just break off every tie I have back home, stay here and just work and live on my own because that might be simpler. Everything is weighing me down, and I'm sinking by trying to get back there because there is no one on the other end to guide me back to the surface... no one is even trying to pull me back up.