Jamie Berube

There is so much beauty to behold and that beauty is sometimes most beautiful when we ourselves feel the most ugly. Seeking out that beauty with intention, however, requires discipline.

I can’t tell you what gift-wrapped presents I got last year for my birthday but I can tell you about how glorious it felt to have the day off of work, eat chocolate chip pancakes from IHOP with my husband in my PJs, and then go to Las Vegas for the first time, where I tripled my gambling allowance at the blackjack tables.

When I step back and consider some of the things that I tell myself on any given day, I’m disgusted because they are mostly things that I would never be cruel enough to say to someone else. But for some reason, it’s easy and almost automatic to talk to myself like this.

On the surface it sounds deranged, disturbing, and dark. But underneath that, beneath the act and the inflicted cut lies an untold story.

It is the voice of an oppressor and a bully that I let poke, prod, and shame me into submission to achieve the flawlessness I think is required to be whole and happy.

This paralyzing and logic-defying fear stuns and terrifies my body and mind in a way that is convincingly cerebral and completely crippling. There’s no real way to get used to such a sensation.

All too often, we find ourselves stuttering to justify or explain to other people how we could possibly not want to do the thing you are supposed to do after you get married.

I didn’t want to be seen as someone who heard voices and shouted demented things from behind a door in a hospital for “crazy people.” And for me, that was what I thought it looked like to be mentally ill.

I have a mental illness, I thought to myself. How will I tell my husband? Will he still love me? What about my friends? Would they even believe me?

I remember many New Year’s Eve celebrations from years past in which a part of the party was stuffing my face with as many Kit Kat bars and Cool Ranch Doritos and cupcakes as I possibly could.

At 26, I have no clue what I want in certain areas of my life. I’ve kind of given up on it. All I need to know is where my foot will land with the next step I take.

The human experience is messy. Every single person who has ever lived has has snot run down their nose. The process by which we enter the world is extremely gross and painful. Not even Jesus was immune to farting.