Tenderized
Obsessive Compulsive
People always say, “At the tender age of…” when they speak about a turning point, a moment when something began or shifted. It isn’t always meant to be tragic but more often than not it leans that way. I think about what ails me now and what “tender” age it all started at but, honestly, I still feel tender. Right now. And not tender like softness, but tender like raw meat; an open wound. Something unprotected by flesh, or anything.
Sometimes I think I’m a paranoid the way my mind suddenly turns on me: telling me stories, urging me to places in my head that I don’t need or want to go, shouting at me that something is wrong. And when I inevitably follow it down the rabbit hole I find myself there, living in that liminal space. Searching for something; for answers to all the questions I have or confirmations of what I think I know. Searching for what’s real.
I’ve always thought of myself as a martyr; thought suffering a way of life; imagined salvation really might only come from nailing myself to some very personal yet conjured up cross, so long as it was done with conviction in the pursuit of something real—of truth. Of knowing. Because knowing feels safe—controlled. But control, as we know, is an illusion. Yet I still just can’t help but to dig and analyze and configure. So here I am, stuck in something that feels like purgatory, searching for things that might not even exist like I’m Sisyphus—unrelenting, earnest, convinced there is a summit if only I keep pushing. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” Well. I’m not happy. Not really. Not like this.
I keep thinking: if I think enough, if I think harder, if I think longer, if I go over it again and again and again, it’ll click and make perfect sense and I’ll just know. I’ll just know. I just want to know. I just need to know. I can’t help myself. Because if I know, if I have all the answers, if I can put all the pieces together, if I can see with unadulterated clarity—then everything is illuminated and there are no more exhausting questions to be asked. Everything will finally be quiet.
Like when you ask mom and dad to turn on the light in the closet, just for a moment, so you can be sure there aren’t any monsters in there and then peacefully slip into sleep. And you really are at peace then, briefly. But suddenly your mind beseeches you to shine a light under the bed and behind the drape curtains too because, well, monsters hide there also. Don’t they? You just can’t let it go until you’re sure. And you have to be sure, or else.
Whether whatever answers I keep coming to are truth or not, I don’t know anymore. I can’t even say for sure if I trust my own mind at all. I can’t even say if there is any solid truth in this world—as nuanced as everything is. Maybe I just project what I think I know, whatever validates what I want to believe, onto everything and call it truth so that I at least feel like I know—feel like I’ve cracked some enigma; a breakthrough. Though I can’t seem to come up with an answer for the question that haunts me most. At what tender age did I stop believing I was safe? Because I still feel tender.
