Something in My Eye
It is very windy today. So windy I was literally driving INTO the wind on the bridge on the way to work today. The kind of wind you don't get back East – but you get like crazy out here, in the Midwest. The kind of wind that you have to point into, like a sailboat, because it's literally pushing you sideways. You have to brace yourself.
It's that kind of wind that blew something sharp and grating into my eye this afternoon. Like a bug that won't come out. Something is up in there, and all my right eye can do is weep. Either it scratched my eye, and it's just irritated still, or there's still something up there that I can't see, my husband who peeled my eye back can't see, and it's sure as shit not coming out. Just like a little piece of dirty, scratchy wood up there under my right eyelid. I've tried to flush it out, use eye drops, you name it. Just not coming out.
Very irritating. Sometimes you'd rather just have PAIN than irritation. Not that I'm wishing pain on myself. Not for a second. I have enough of that, anyway – the kind I notice, and the kind I don't.
But it is irritating as hell. An itch you can't scratch. There's something about it, that drives me nuts. You just want to get it out. Just want to get rid of it.
It's like a splinter, that I can see and feel deep under my skin, and I'll gorge into my own skin to get it out, rather than just let it grow out, or take a bath and let it soften and easily come out on its own. No, I have to rip out the sucker, hacking into my skin and taking half my finger with it.
Acne is the same way – especially the nasty, cystic kind I get. Like little balls growing under your skin, you can feel them coming long before anyone else would even notice. But I can't leave them alone. I have to pick and pick and gorge and scrape and hack at those motherfuckers until my skin is all red, raw, and bleeding – from ME. NOW people will notice. Because of my dumbass. NOW I have to wear a shitton of makeup, or even a bandaid. A turtleneck, or thick scarf to hide it. In these days of the ever-present facemask, ain't no thang – just hide that shit with your fashionable mask or scarf thing. Nothing to hide, really. And an irony that this is when my skin has gotten better. Well, also because I'm not wearing a pound of makeup every day. That helps.
But this eye thing. It's really annoying. Because the best thing is to probably just leave it alone – sleep on it, and see how it feels in the morning. The worst thing I can probably do is keep my eyes open, looking at screens, and to keep fucking with it. But the later is what I'm prone to do. The later is how I always approach my problems – a compulsive urge to scratch the itch which must be left unscratched. The temptation to watch the pot of water as it comes to a boil. If something just needs more time and to be left alone, I will then proceed to hound it into submission, until it wilts and succumbs to my bullying. It will give up something – not the answer, or the healing I want, but something. Because you can't keep hitting flesh and not expect blood to flow at some point.
That's something I realized about myself recently – that I'm a bully. About certain things anyway. I get that from my Dad. Not the beat you up, alcohol-type bully. But the kind that will relentlessly hound and beat you verbally until you just succumb from the sheer exhaustion of constantly defending yourself, or trying to not react negatively to it. I do this to my husband. I do this to myself. Don't make eye contact, whatever you do. Just don't. That's when you give the bully – the monster – your soul. It sees it has an entry. It can enter and possess you, only if in your mind.
I want to release that bully within me – whatever it is. That relentless voice that just won't take NO or STOP as an answer. The raving, rabid animal that is coming after you with unnatural speed. No sense, no logic, no purpose other than to destroy you out of some distorted idea that you mean it harm. You could have meant it well – to help, even. But it is coming for you. The craziness, pure black in its eyes, tells you that there is no escape. That is the scariest thing in the world. It will run you off the cliff and go down with you, and not even care. The bully with zero fucks left to give – that's what is the most scary thing in the world.
Sometimes I feel that bully rise up in me. On a day like today, not so much the bully part, but the part that could justify her presence – the “not giving a fuck” attitude. And not the care-free version, that simply isn't concerned with how others see her, but the kind that doesn't even give a fuck as to her own safety and health. When that version pops up, it can get scary. We often can do ourselves so much harm, because we often care so little for ourselves.
The bully in me wants to see me suffer. It wants that one fucking fatal flaw in me – that it can see, but I can't – it wants it OUT. Like an irritating splinter all jagged in the palm of my hand, or a nasty-ass cyst about to break out on my face, or a horrendous cold sore on my lip, swelling up all grotesque-like, I just want that shit OUT. GONE. Get the fuck out of me. A cancer I want to hack out of me. My own disgustingness just swelling, pussing up on my skin for everyone to see, for me to hide and be humiliated by. The bully wants it gone, and it will go to whatever lengths it will take to get rid of it. And boy, does she HATE me. Does she ever think that I'm just the lowest piece of shit for letting that grow inside of me in the first place. To harbor this kind of ugliness, filth, and disease, and not squash it right away; but to let it fester and fester until it growths in strength and manifests as something so disgusting that it causes my whole toenail to break off. Fungus on my nails and feet. Acne on my skin. The f-ing whatever it is in my eye. Shit that needs to be extracted from me, like a splinter. Get it the fuck out. Get the flaw in me out. Exorcise me of my shitty shit, my disease, whatever it is. Please, God, just get it OUT of me. I can't pray it out, I can't pull it out, hack it out, will it out, coax it out, wait for it to come out, or force it. It just won't come out.
The flaw just won't budge. This splinter is permanent. My eye won't stop weeping. It won't stop until the irritant is gone. How will it go, though? Maybe just sleeping on it is enough.
But what about the irritant to my soul – this fatal flaw that needs to be extricated from me? How does THAT leave me? Not sure.
All I know is me focusing on either problem ain't going to help.
Goodnight, then, and Amen.