In flux

This year, I lost my ability to read novels the way I use to. I would devour words hungrily without stopping since…well, always. But 2019 wrang me out like a facecloth. It changed the way I move in the world. I moved further away from being able to sit still and give in to a story. I lost my ability to sit still at all. 
Remember how you laid in bed as a kid and looked at the ceiling listening to music? Or the birds outside? Or the crickets? Listening to your breath and giving into the gravity of the bed. Of the moment. Of your body. Knowing there wasn’t any where else you’d rather be? 
That feeling of safety and comfort is what I lost. Which is what it feels like to me when I read. 
And I will say also, no one took that feeling from me (not fully anyway), I gave it away. I gave that and everything else I had away in hopes that my martyrdom would be seen as love. I’d didn’t know what I was doing, just trying to do right and live towards goodness. 
My gifts were not seen that way-it was rejected. And it was an act of deep self-betrayal to do it in the first place, if I’m honest. 
So I gave it all away, and was left this violent, hungry, painful person. 
Who didn’t enjoy singing or reading or writing or working out or looking in the mirror. 
I pretty much only enjoyed seething. And crying. And living in my regret that I simply was not good enough. Inherently unloveable. 
A lot of men in my life have considered me a muse. They take the raw material, they interject their own desire of what a dream girl is and they pin it on me. And I let them, I am compliant and adjust towards their beckoning. And then, they hate me when I can’t actually live up to it. It is confusing to your insides to 1) do that to yourself and 2) be despised. You can see it in their eyes when it flips, like a light switch, how fast adoration turns to abject disgust. And then-worst of all for my little people-pleasing brain—apathy. 
Anyway-I read a book. I started it yesterday and finished it today and it was ok but enjoyable. Most importantly, I did it. Whatever that means. 
Maybe nothing. Maybe something.
Time will tell.
Healing takes so long. And patience is exhausting.
Isn’t that annoying?