My Sphere of Madness

It was bordering to loneliness this feeling she kept walking around with. It was a heavy feeling somewhere deep down in her chest, a throbbing pain she couldn’t put into words. If you asked her she would deny it. She wasn’t lonely, she just had some days that were heavier than others. Some days it just wasn’t that easy to put on a happy smile and pretend everything was all right. That some days were in fact most days went unsaid.

She wasn’t lonely and she didn’t need anyone. Always one to be responsible, being used to taking care of herself. Her happiness wasn’t supposed to be dependant on others. She found most people annoying anyway, preferring to be alone. She was good on her own.

But then there was this feeling she couldn’t explain.

Most days it was a dull ache that could easily be ignored, but some days it was worse. Some days it got so bad she could barely breath. The pain burned and tore at he insides, her heart felt like it was trying to rip straight though her chest, crushing her ribcage in the process. Her heart tormented her those days. It called out to her, telling her it was dying. She ignored it.

That’s how it was, in truth. Her heart had been unused for so long it didn’t know how to beat anymore. It longed to love, to be loved, but she always denied it what it was yearning. The heartache that was sure to follow having broken her spirit one too many times.

One day she had loved. A long, long time ago she’d let her heart decide and it had left her broken, shattered almost to the point of irreparable. She was not going to let that happen again, she’d promised herself she would never again let it go that far. So instead she shut it down, put in hibernation and wrapped it up, taking all necessary precautions to prevent it from getting damaged ever again.

That was why she had decided she didn’t feel loneliness anymore. How can you feel lonely when you have no heart to tell you that’s what you’re feeling? No, what she was experiencing was something more akin to … boredom.

Yes, that was it. She was bored out of her mind. She had no one to talk to and no one to waste time together with. Alone as she was, there was no one to entertain her or to keep her entertained. And quite honestly, she’d run tired of entertaining herself.  There is only that many times you can tell yourself the same joke and find it funny.

That boredom isn’t supposed to hurt was easily ignored.

It was something she’d become very good at over the years; ignoring things. She ignored the jealousy that rose when she saw happy couples passing by on the street and she ignored the silent tears she shed at night. She ignored the vacancy inside, that hollow feeling that was eating her up from the inside. She ignored the fact that her face never smiled back at her in the mirror. She ignored the fact that she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed or even felt remotely happy. She ignored the emptiness in her stare and the dark shadows around her eyes. She ignored her hollow cheeks and her greyish skin. She didn’t care what she looked like; it wasn’t like it mattered anyway.

There wasn’t anything wrong with her. She hated it the most when people told her she looked sick. When people told her she should eat more, she stubbornly pushed her food around on the plate. How was that supposed to help with her lack of appetite?

She was all right. Staring at herself in the mirror, that’s what she told herself. She never said the words out loud, only watched at her pale lips form the words in a silent mantra. She was okay.

It was easy living life that way. No one could hurt her and she had the time to focus on her own objectives. That there was never any energy left to reach her goals were easily blamed on others. They were the reason she never got what she wanted, they were the reason she couldn’t even be bothered trying. Why would she? They wouldn’t give it to her anyway, no matter how hard she worked for it.

Most of all she hated it when her close ones told her she’d become a shadow of herself. When they told her she didn’t seem like herself anymore, that she didn’t look like herself anymore, her blood started to boil. How could they not see she’d only improved? She was happy, she had finally settled in her own skin but they wouldn’t acknowledge it. They claimed she was losing herself and she hated it more every time they said so.

She wasn’t losing herself; she’d just found her. The one she’d wanted to be ever since she was young, she’d found her and she’d claimed her seat amongst the giants. She was stronger than ever, tougher than ever and colder than ever. Why everyone claimed being cold was such a bad thing, she didn’t understand. It made life so much easier when you didn’t let things get to you.

Day after day she walked around in her own world, never letting anyone else in, never letting them close enough to touch her. She was happy. At least that’s what she said out loud. To the pale figure in the mirror she said it was only a rough patch and that it would pass.

Years had passed by and the rough patch had long ago become the norm. If she had happy days, what she claimed was happy days, it made her utterly confused. She didn’t know what to do with them. Usually she locked herself up in her apartment and waited for them to pass. After a night alone in the darkness, having too much time to reflect on her own situation, she was back to normal. She could deal with normal, she could deal with the agony and the hollow feeling, those she knew. Happiness was a foreign language she didn’t understand.

They told her it wasn’t normal, they told her she was strange. She told them she was strong and that nothing could get to her. She was right. Mostly, at least. Life couldn’t get to her. Everyday life couldn’t get to her.

The pain got to her, every single night, but she never told them. She didn’t like looking weak.

It might in fact be loneliness, this feeling she carried around without knowing. The problem was she wouldn’t have recognized it even if had hit her in the face with a shovel. She’d closed off that part of herself that knew how to feel, knew what it meant to be lonely and how it felt not to be. She’d forgotten how it felt love and be loved in return. She’d forgotten how it was not to feel hollow and lonely, how it was to have someone there to share her worries and her strife, to share her joys and triumphs.

She’d forgotten, it had been so long since she’d even tried to understand. It had been so long since she’d last tried to let anyone get close, to let them touch her heart. The fear of getting hurt had brought her to the state she was currently in.

Too many times had she let them get too close, too many times had she let them in and they’d stomped all over her fragile heart with their dirty and heavy boots. Too many times had they played her for a fool and too many times had she been left alone to pick up the pieces of her broken heart.

Not anymore, She wouldn’t let them near her again. Carefully she’d stitched the pieces back together; the longest time she’d spent nurturing it back to health. Then she’d put up fences, arming the high walls with  archers and warriors. Anyone that dared move into their reach was shot down. She preferred it that way; not even letting them close enough to scratch the surface. Why would she let them when she knew they would only tear the skin and leave her bleeding?

It might be loneliness, this feeling that was slowly breaking her down from the inside and out, but she couldn’t have named it even if she tried. Loneliness was for the weak; she took refuge in her solitude. She found strength in her own company, dragging it out from the deepest and darkest corners of her soul by brutal force.

No, she wasn’t lonely. She was simply …