The Cover Up

I've always covered up my pain with joking. I feel like it started as a pre-teen and feeling ugly and unwanted. I would cut myself down with the silent hope I'd be told I was wrong. I was rarely told otherwise and usually laughed at. This carried over into making jokes about my deepest pains but acting like I didn't care. Again, typically laughed at. I now can't accept a compliment no matter how sincere. I feel like it's only being said to stop my negative self-talk. Usually my mind goes into overdrive on the back-end thinking "Why did they say that when it's not true? It can't be true. It's what I'm dying to hear but I can't believe it so it hurts."

I make jokes frequently that I'm dying alone with my cats. I say it as a brutal way to force myself not to hope and to accept my fate. I say it and act like I don't care. I say it like I'm just cutting up and cracking good ones. Yet each time I say it and the other person laughs and nods in agreement, a little part of me dies. I get sent memes and jokes talking about women my age alone with their cats. Jokes about how if you're alone by a certain age all the cats know to show up. Funny things depicting a woman alone. I give a big laugh react and a "LOL" as I wipe tears. I gave them the material to laugh at so it's my own fault for the outcome.

The whole dying alone thing is a tricky one as there is nothing you can do to change it. Sure you can position yourself at places to meet people, be social, get out there. But the chance of you running into "your person", "soulmate", "the one for you", is luck and coincidence. When I attempt to explain this to someone with a partner I hear "Well you know relationships are hard." I have to bite my tongue from getting snarky about being in a relationship over two decades so I actually know this. Usually at this point they decide to put the blame on me for not loving myself enough. Because apparently when you hit peak loving yourself, then your perfect person appears!

I've also told myself to stop covering up the pain and just shut up about it. Find a reason to live and just accept you'll do it alone.