Lifeguard Off Duty

Lifeguard Off Duty | Written By The Blackedout Barbie

            The waves are picking up…The current is pulling at my leg…Thrashing in the water…Each breath of air is further and further apart…I can no longer reach the surface…

I’m drowning.

That is life in the year 2020. Every part of the world is on fire, which does not bode well for anyone’s mental health, and it especially does not bode well for my personal sanity, or lack thereof. The quarantine went into effect in March. I had just begun seeing this boy who would soon consume my life and then leave me just as swiftly as he had arrived.

The world was looking up, slightly. I was happy for a brief moment in time. It seemed as though everything were going to become possible, there was hope, an electric surge that would have manifested itself into the beginning of my life. I was on the last 10 weeks of my undergraduate educational career. I was going to be working at only one of the two jobs that I had at the time to help myself coast into post graduate life. I was maybe going to take a trip, or two, to explore this vast world that I have only seen a small morsel of in my 21 years. I was going to grow up, work hard, figure out what life had in store for me and welcome it with open arms. And then the entire world shut down. My life and my ideas were forever altered.

            I went into quarantine with a hope that it would last maybe a few weeks to a month. I would work on myself in this time, I would focus on beginning to grow into that person that I so longed and hoped to become as I was nearing the end of my undergraduate career. I was going to work on my health and fitness and workout everyday once again and get myself back to my desired weight and onto my physical appearance goals. I was in love too, something I longed to feel for so many years. I waited and tried, tried and waited for this one person who was going to fill up my emptiness with the love I could not give to myself but hoped that from another person it would help me to finally cherish myself in the way I should. That is never the case. But more on that later.

            All of these hopeful thoughts I had about preparing myself for the future, for what was to come, never came to fruition. I spent my days doing the bare minimum of what needed to get done. I would attend zoom university, half-heartedly and always disinterested. I would do my laundry and occasionally clean up the room I was living in, not my room but the room of my brother whom I not-so-graciously, kicked out so my boyfriend and I could stay there while neither of us had our own apartments to live in.

I took advantage of my brother, of the situation to make some domicile home for me and this person who I barely knew. I was naïve. I did nothing for myself during this time. I was the antithesis to myself. I was in all actuality, sabotaging myself in a clouded attempt to find and fill my emptiness with young love. I gave of my empty self for 6 months, trying to give to this person. I worked hard in that relationship. It was my sole focus, the thing I put all my energy into to both ignore the abyss of nothingness I feel inside and to escape the treacherous world that had begun to unravel outside while we were all cooped up in our homes.

            When the restrictions were finally lifted a bit and I was able to return to work and a semi-normal life, the feelings of hope still never returned. I was being taken advantage of by my job, working a lot of hours for minimal pay to currently having my hours cut to just 5 hours a week. My boyfriend began to feel like a stranger, a person I longed to know and feel a part of but ultimately was too illusive for me to grasp. It was during this time I felt as though I made a terrible mistake for jumping into something because I thought having someone by my side would be more worthwhile than having no one. I was wrong, I realize now how wrong I was.

I gave all my love, time, devotion, attention, affection to a person that lacked the ability to provide what I ultimately need. I thought if I continued to stick it out, if I showed him how amazing I can treat him, eventually he would recognize it and return everything I was giving to him and more. That is never the case, you end up just taking advantage of yourself. I wish nothing but the best for him going forward, realizing now the capacity of our relationship was more-suited to be friends as opposed to lovers. I realize and take responsibility for my actions. I am the one to blame in this situation, I am the one who neglected myself. I continue to avoid what is right for me and choose people, situations, actions that are dragging me underwater.

I am the one who is drowning but I must also be the lifeguard who saves myself.