let’s call out: FANTASY
I have this problem - and maybe you can relate to it - I often dream and wish about a life that isn’t mine. I fantasize about relationships, jobs, happiness, or just about who I want to be.
Fantasy has led me down dark paths. It led me into abusive relationships because I couldn’t see the guy for who he actually was. I clung to the fantasy he projected, wishing it was real. At times, I still do.
It has led me into depression and anxiety. I don’t like my life as it is. I thought I would be married by now. I thought I would be further in my career. I have an image of what I want my life to look like and the more I’m faced with reality, I have to admit that those things aren’t going to happen - at least not exactly as I’ve imagined them.
Fantasy has killed many of my relationships, my happiness, my loves and I don’t know how to escape it.
This isn’t a post where I tell you how to overcome a problem. This is a post where I’m admitting I have a one and I’m stuck.
Fantasy is comfortable for me. I’m a storyteller. I write fantasy fiction for a living. I’m really good at telling myself a story about me or another person and believing it. I don’t like reality. Reality is harsh. It’s brutal. It shows all the nastiness of people in a blinding fluorescent light. I’d rather let life stay in soft candle light.
But that’s not how life works. And knowing that hurts. It’s like a gut punch. A knife twisting in my chest.
I don’t know how to accept life for the way it is. I barely know to grieve.
If letting go of the fantasy of life or even the fantasy of people is anything like grief, the only way to accept life and people for who they are is to turn on that light. Accept things for the way they are, grieve what needs to be, and move on.
But, dammit, that’s so hard to do.
I don’t know about you, but I’m tired.
I’m so tired of creating a world that doesn’t exist. Of trying to fit in to everyone else’s worlds that don’t exist either. Of hoping for a life that won’t even come and getting let down. Of expecting too much from myself and being disappointed when I don’t meet my own unrealistic expectations. Of expecting so much of people - hoping they’ll reach their potential - and seeing they can’t. They’re not there yet. So, I watch them hurt themselves and others.
I’m tired.
Life is hard enough. I don’t want to continue in this way.
So, I’m done.