“You dream of blending right into the wallpaper, rotten and water-damaged as it may be.”

– Bry LeBerthon

“Wired and Tired”

Fiction. Based on a True Desire to Hide

by Dorothy England

This journal entry is inspired by true events. Some of the characters, names, businesses, incidents, and certain locations and events have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes. Any similarity to the name, character, or history of any person is entirely coincidental and unintentional.

Trigger Warning: our program often motivates people to discuss their trauma. If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed, please, take a step back to address emotional flashbacks and trauma before continuing to push yourself. If you are experiencing a medical emergency, call 911 or the National Suicide Hotline at (1-800) 273-8255.

Pretending. That’s really what you’re doing – as you smile and laugh, at all the right moments, hoping it’s enough to pass, to make the others not see the sharp pain and exhaustion that wears you down like a rain soaked coat. You are the happy one. The cheerful friend, the funny, goofy, optimistic. And so you must be.

But this too, only add further drench to your body. Even though it’s been five minutes, it feels like an hour. How do you escape a party when you’re the host?

Of course, it’s not all bad. Kaleidoscope mixed drinks distance your anxiety, make you loose and loopy. And there’s a high in the laughter that follows your self-deprecating anecdotes. You both love and hate the attention. You know too, that you’re the one who’s built the glass frame you place yourself behind and perform behind. You crave the attention, the applause.

But damn, it’s tiring too. A different kind than the weariness that plagues your body on its routine meet and stay. You have to be quick even when you’re slow, loud even when you’re soft, happy even when you’re sad.

Is it all a lie? The truth? You aren’t sure. All you know is the truth of both extremities – they both hit with their own kind of passion. It’s as though you have a party devil against one shoulder and a sleeping cherub against the other. Who will win? Are you really confident to say you aren’t truly both?

Somehow the hours of the disco lights and stretching music have passed. The guests have slipped their feet out the door, waved their goodbyes. Your bed welcomes you with wide sheets and open space.

But despite the weight of your body fallen, you feel like you’re levitating, tension holding you alert and awake. You ponder the future – will you always feel this way – wired and tired. Sleepy and weepy?

You know the only way out is through – the only escape is letting the thoughts and worries pass through your mind, scarring as they go, then disappearing as they drift out.

It’s like walking through hell and feeling every pain only to be born again. How’s that for reincarnation? More like reincremation.

You sigh as your body finally releases. But you know, tomorrow, you’ll just be back to it again.