Who

          Who am I off the stage? Who am I when I have nothing to offer or give? I am told I am brave to go on a stage and sing a song, strum a guitar, but to me, performing is easy. Let me put on an image, a strength, and give every last ounce of me that I have to give, that is the easiest thing for me to do. You see, even before I decided to take on a music as a career I have been an excellent performer. I spent my life hiding myself to be a strong, independent child, who then became a woman, and I dealt with my inner darkness alone.

          Depressed? Oh no, not me, smile and laugh, watch the world happen around me without taking a thing. There is no room for me to be taking, this world is full of greed, I refuse to be another mouth to feed, I refuse to be another weak human being.
There came a time when I just wanted to stop fighting, but then I wondered "why am I here taking with nothing to give, nothing to offer?" Why should I be here at all? Why can I not just stand on my own two feet, and breathe and love others? What I didn't see is that love is an exchange so when I needed I felt shame, when I was weak I felt guilt. So when that happens I shut down and sit in silence until I can find the strength to live again... The problem is however that I am human, and now I have depleted all my resources because I was constantly giving to no be a burden and I honestly don't know how to receive anything.

          It isn't that I don't want to receive, at this point, I just don't know how, and I much-less know how or when to ask. I feel like an intruder, even when someone invites me into their life. In my mind, the person who loses sleep for you, stops their life for you wants to invest in your life and your health, that is a person who loves you. That is what I understand as love. It is for that reason I will lose sleep for you, I will suffer for you, I don't mind and will never mind because you are important to me. When I love I give.

          Mom did that for my brother when he was a baby, and later for me when I was a baby. My mom spent years in a painful and damaging relationship because it was the only way she knew to care for my brother and I, the only way she was sure that we would be fed, sheltered and cared for and whole. I remember her fighting sleep to cook for us, or even spend time with us, despite having to wake up at 3 am for a job where she was sexually harassed and physically overworked. That to me was love, but as a child who loves her mother and has never had a child of her own, I never stopped to think she was receiving from us, for whatever reason, she benefited from my brother and I just being her children.

          So as I sit here, and I cannot give, and especially when I need, I see no reason for me to breathe. It is silly really, because when I care for those I love, the very reason I give, it doesn't feel like anything is taken from me. To be honest, when I can give I feel alive, but I cannot seem to accept that someone else giving of themselves to me is just as beautiful and fufilling and human to them as it is when I give.

          Who am I when I am not performing, not on a stage, not trying to be super human? I am myself, and she is weak and strong all at once, she is human. Who is each of us when we are both weak and strong? We are all beautiful and able to make bonds of an endless exchange, humans who are able to love. There is joy in giving; I really hope to give myself room to find joy in trust and receiving. All these years and I still don't know how to be loved because I don't trust enough, and faking is easier than living.