I'm taking a break

I'm blocking out the doubt, the insecurity, the weakness, the drama. I'm turning off the faucet of these things that has been filling up my life to the brim. And that's exactly how it felt: like i was drowning.  I left myself treading in the suffocating mess of my life gasping, literally, for a breath, as the shell of me went about my life ignoring. Ignoring the frustration, the dissatisfaction, the emptiness. Don't think about it, do your homework. Stop!You'rethinkingaboutit, Quick!turn on the tv,check your email, paint your nails! I think I've given my nails 6 manicures in the past 3 weeks. But ignoring it all is easy when you can pretend. Pretend nothing is wrong. Pretend you're happy. Pretend you're confident. Your hair looks so good today, how can your life be falling to pieces? And I wasn't all that bad at it until I came to the gut-flooring realization that well, yea, my life has become a total stage. What'd you expect. No, when you wake up tomorrow morning, it won't be a new day. It will be another heavy turn of the dizzying merry-go-round that is your life. And you're doing everything you can not to throw up over the side.

    I caught a glance of myself in the semi-reflective glass cupboard in our new lab the other day and I couldn't recognize my face.  Who was that? Her eyes were perfectly smudged with her favorite Sephora eyeliner and her mouth was still curved from the laugh she just shared with the grad student in the lab. But her pupils were dull and her smile painfully retreating to a stoic stare.
     I miss the girl with laughing eyes and relaxed posture. I miss catching a glance of the happiness that girl's face so effortlessly communicated, a quick peek into her confidence she guarded like a little brother.  Where did she go? Why did she go?
     I'm going to look for her. I'm going to do it by myself. So that when I find her, I can keep her and she can be all mine. I'm never going to let her go again.