Jealousy and Insanity, Just Talkin’ With Myself

"I know I shouldn't be jealous," I say, looking at the computer screen. "After all, I've been the one to encourage her. She deserves it."

"Seems like you already know better," my mind-self shrugs back at me. Let's call her my conscience for lack of a better name. She sits on a chair identical to mine, a brown leather swivel chair. 

"It's just so hard, watching her have so much of what I've been wanting. Knowing that I could have that, if only I had more time, and didn't keep putting my foot in it. I always just seem to do what I don't want to. It's so hard knowing that if only my mind were clear, everything would be easier."

My conscience continues to sit there, but now she is thoughtfully tossing a ball up in the air.  Her head is tilted so her long brown hair falls out of her face.

"I'm tired of hearing myself complain, but I don't know what to do when I fell like I'm going mad, and no one listens to me."

"So don't complain. Maybe you can do something, maybe you can't. Might as well keep trying," she shrugs again, "and you know that."

"I'm scared."

She nods her head, turned away from me. The ball has disappeared much like it had come into being. "As I said, whether or not you can do anything, you can still keep trying. Keep trying to get better, keep trying to do well in school, and," she looks me in the eye, "keep trying to write, even if it's not as good as it could be. And respect takes time to build, and you don't have that. But stop making excuses. So people love her. So no one seems to listens to you." She raises an eyebrow at me. 

"I'll just have to be enough for myself," I say, and it's my turn to shrug. I don't know if that quite makes sense, but that doesn't matter here. 

"And that's what you've been doing."

"When I remember how to remember myself. When I remember to breathe."

"Yeah."

"I'm just so afraid that I'm losing myself," I whisper, but not to my conscience, for I am looking into the twilight beyond the window.

"You know I don't have an answer to that," she says, matching my tone.

I sigh and lean back in my chair. "I'll just have to keep going."

"Seems like we're cursed to learn the same lessons over again and again, doesn't it?" she chuckles roughly, darkly.

I don't nod this time. I don't have to. Her thoughts are mine, and my thoughts, hers. 

"You'll be someone someday. You'll make it. You're smart. You could be a scientist. You're also a talented artist, and a poet."

"If all goes well, that is," I say. I don't respond to her last few words, because though others have told me I'm good, I can't quite see it. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. It comes and goes.

"If you try," she corrects me. 

"If I try," I echo. And I will keep trying, whether it's cross-country, or my scientific pet projects, or art, or school, or friendships, or art or poetry. That's who I am. Maybe I'll fall, maybe I'm already falling, but I won't stop fighting to keep my balance. I can't. I'm just me, and though I don't always know what that means, this sheer stubbornness is a part of it. A part of me. If I'm in pieces then I'll pick them up and put myself back together.

"Seems like our chat is over," my conscience says, rising from her seat. "I'll just show myself out."

I don't look away from the window, nor up from my swirling thoughts.

Meanwhile, the door clicks shut.