I remove the pajamas that I’ve been wearing all day and pull on exercise clothes that I don’t plan to exercise in. Somehow, these are considered more appropriate in public even though they’re more revealing. I don’t question why people do things. I just observe and copy. That’s how to get along in this world.

I walk home in a sort of trance. It’s not until passing pedestrians give me double takes and odd looks that I realize I'm crying.
I don't try to stop.
I let the tears fall.
I cry for the girl I used to be.
I cry for me.
It's a foreign experience. Self-pity is not an indulgence that I allow myself. This doesn't feel like pity, though. It feels like self-compassion, and the realization makes me cry harder.
No one should need a diagnosis in order to be compassionate to themself. But I did. Tough love doesn't allow room for weakness, and tough love is all I've known. Maybe for now, just this once, I can experiment with a different kind of love. Something kinder.
I cry until my muscles ache, and then I cry more, like I'm letting out tears for a future sadness. People watch, and they whisper among themselves. A little girl points at me and asks her mommy what’s wrong with me, and the woman picks her child up and hurries away.
I see, and for the first time in my adult life, I don't care that I'm making a scene. I haven't hurt anyone. I shouldn't be ashamed. I shouldn't need to apologize. This is me.

“Sometimes it's really hard just being here,” I say quietly. I think he's doing as much as he can, and I don't expect more from him. I can't understand why she looks down on people when they're trying their best.

My violin is dead. I killed it with my own hands.
I took a beautiful innocent thing, and I murdered it. Because I couldn't bring myself to say no.
I've destroyed everything good in my life.
Because I can't say no.
Because I’m still trying to be something I'm not.

The truth is art will never be as effortless as it used to be, not now that people have expectations of me. All I can do is go forward, and to do that, I must stop chasing perfection. It doesn't exist. I can never please everyone. It's hard enough just pleasing myself. Instead, I must focus on giving what I have, not what people want, because that is all I can give. I don't mask anymore if I can help it.