the stories that we tell ourselves

Everything made her cry for some reason. Tears would well up in her eyes, some sadness, some overwhelming emotion would bubble to the surface so quickly it took everyone by surprise, most of all, her.

Fears. Doubts. Insecurities. Secrets. Untold humiliations. Betrayals, real and imagined. Frustrations.

At the slightest urging, all those things could be recalled in an instant. And it was if it was happening all the bad things that had ever happened were happening all over again. And it was as if all the good things that had ever happened didn't exist. That is the story of victimization. That is the story we tell ourselves. It was the story that she was telling herself. And if there is any effort, any struggle, any quest to put things in perspective, to take responsibility of those things that we are responsible for, and to release those things that we are not, the stories become a calling card of a higher self that does not yet exist or else the stories would cease to merit any time at all.

children waiting for the day they feel good
happy birthday, happy birthday
makes them feel the way that every child should
sit and listen, sit and listen

went to school and I was very nervous
no one knew me, no one knew me
had the teacher tell me what's my lesson
look right through me, look right through me

and I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
the dreams in which I'm dying
are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
'cause I find it hard to take
when people run in circles
it's a very, very mad world, mad world,
mad world, mad world

and all around her were familiar faces, running in circles. And messages from the universe, in signs in the street, bumper stickers, magazine headlines silently urging themselves into her conscious world from the racks at the grocery store. And their tears are filling up their glasses, and her tears were filling up her glasses. And it can't be for no reason at all, right? So what was the story that she was telling herself? Where was that pain, sadness, whatever, manifesting itself into tears, coming from? She tried looking to the right, trying to manufacture an answer. Then she switched to looking to the left, trying to remember some truth, some logical rationalization. And neither side produced any answers.