oliviabrehler

Nobody can prepare you. Even though when you're in the middle of it, you really wish that someone would have told you. Offered you a helping hand, giving you a tip on how to handle the anguish, the hoplessness, the lonliness, the fact that you feel completely helpless because there is nothing you can do. Nothing at all. 

 

I keep wondering though, if someone would have told me, would I still have done it? I'm not sure. I think I would, because I'm stubborn like that. I refuse to let anybody decide anything for me, and I always want to do everything by myself. And I guess that's a really good thing, to prepare yourself for living without a safety net, to be able to trust yourself in any situation, thatyou'll be able to keep your head above water. 

 

But what happens when you feel like you're drowning? You're thousands of miles away from everyone you used to be able to rely on, thousands of miles away from any help what so ever. And you're standing there alone. 

 

Nobody can prepare you.

 

Nobody can prepare you for how lonely you feel when coming home after being away for a long time. Everybody around you are expecting you to behave the exact same way you did before you left, because in their world nothing has changed. 

 

People expect you to go right back to doing what you did before, with the same people, and most importantly; they expect you to be happy about being back. Because if you're not it means that you don't love them anymore. Or that you didn't miss them while you were gone. 

 

Wrong. It has to do with the fact that you've changed. You're not the same person anymore. And you're walking on familiar streets, with old friends and you feel completely alone. You're drowning in thoughts and feeling you can't share with anyone. Because nobody that hasn't been through it understands. And on top of that, you have to put on a smile and pretend that everything is okay. 

 

Why didn't anyone tell me? Could anyone have told me?

 

You feel completely alone, in a world that you now consider home with new problems every day. Everyday. And you tell yourself that you'll get through it, like you did with everything else, because you can't go back. 

 

Going back would mean giving up. And why would you give up everything you wanted?

 

Because it's too hard. It's too damn hard. 

 

That raises another question.. how long do you have to keep trying until you've had enough? 

 

And when the problems finally go away, you miss your family. Every day. Every single day. You start realizing that you are probably going to have to raise your kids thousands of miles away from the family you grew up in. And that thought kills you a little bit every day too. 

 

You realize that your kids aren't gonna know the world you grew up in. And you're dead terrified that you'll always have a hole inside you, that nobody can fill. And nobody really understands it either. So again, you're alone.

 

Am I going to have to be alone forever?