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Audio of “A Waste of Oxygen” by Demian
This is an edited and expanded writing based on a short post I originally made on my blog in 2019.
Let’s get right to the point. You’re not a waste of oxygen.
You don’t take up space that’s better reserved for someone who has something to give, and worth the air they breathe… unlike you.
These are lies. Every angle, every nuance, every part of whatever condemnation may be wrung out of these words—lies.
And if you heard these lies growing up, or you’re in a relationship so toxic you need a hazmat suit, that doesn’t turn these lies into truths, or even partial truths. Not one iota.
Maybe these words were directed at you, or perhaps at someone you loved, so that they might as well have been aimed at you.
Maybe this contemptuous sentiment was never expressed in words, but it doesn’t have to be. That level of contempt, and its cruelty, can be thrown on a piercing look, a derisive snort, a turned back, and the silence treatment that follows… like so many darts— bullseye! —directly into your heart.
A Convergence
Dusk is a magical hour, steel blue, cool, even in summer, slick and cold in the winter. I drink in the sky that seems to encircle me.
I had decided to chance a walk. I had recently turned a corner in a long bout of chronic fatigue. I’m eager to stretch my legs. It feels good to move my body, out in the fresh air, to stroll past trees on winding path, and the smells and sights of dusk.
Then I realize… I’m not breathing.
Oh, I’m breathing, but barely. My inhale is shallow... my throat feels tight, shut, and whatever air passes through it is squeezed.
I remind myself, “Demian, inhale… now release.” I repeat that to myself a few times. Continuing to walk, I look at the green around me slowly lose its color with the fading light.
I then realize, I’m back to shallow breathing.
It’s like my automatic nervous system has chronic fatigue. It can’t get itself out of bed without my prodding. I’m depriving my body of what it needs, and it begins to complain.
I barely exhale before the next shallow intake, and I feel dizzy.
This is crazy.
An image forms in my mind of me tiptoeing, careful not to disturb anyone, careful not to draw any attention, careful not to offend, apologetically quiet for having the nerve to be here, so that even my breathing is a kind of theft for which I dare not get caught.
I’m a child. I’m walking to school and focusing on my breathing. I can’t seem to get the rhythm right. It feels awkward, but I’m vigilant. I need to encourage my lungs to work, and that’s work.
That’s okay. When you have to focus on making sure you breath, you can’t think about anything else. After all, you need to breathe throughout the day, and that will fill every moment of your attention and time.
This is the child I used to be, who is apparently here, with me.
She is the one who, with the exception of being on stage to shine for her parents, was careful not to be seen, not to take up space even in the spotlight, to misplace herself in front of an audience, so all they could see was a hooped lilac dress, and a precocious voice coming from somewhere.
She feels guilty.
Breathe anyway, I tell myself, I tell her, and we continue our walk into the emerging night.
Do you believe the lie? Do you feel it’s true?
Someone made you feel that way. You weren’t born feeling like that.
This Is the Truth
That you deserve not only the air you breathe, but the air that’s as fresh as new beginnings.
You deserve water that is pure as love.
You deserve space that is true as a world with bright futures and tender memories.
You deserve deep-inhaling/joyful-exhaling of a life filled with all that is good and holy.
Those who say you don’t, are wrong, dead wrong. Literally, for me. The ones who first planted that belief in my head are long dead, and I’m thinking tonight, as I write this, that maybe I’m tired of resurrecting them every time someone hurts me.
Do you dare? Let’s. Together.
Take a long, deep breath. It belongs to you. And take another one and another. As many as you want, as long as you need.
You don’t have to stand at the helm of this. Trust your body. It knows the truth.
Let each breath fill and expand your lungs alive, let the power of your breathing carry away the tension and poisoning of your wounds, and let it stir your dreams awake.
Like a long, black ladle in a cauldron of possibilities, and magic, and creativity, and out of that brew, the synergy of every wish come true. And there you are.
I am here. I am here. I am here.
Can you hear this in your breathing? It’s as glorious as any trumpet announcing a hero, or the rising of sun, or the setting of moon, or a seed of a thought for an idea whose time is coming.
Let this be your radical act, then. Your defiant statement that you belong here, that you are here, and World, watch out!
Breathe deep! Savor.
You are the reckoning, the oak tossing its hair in a storm, the last beautiful straw breaking the back of apathy and untruths, one of which is that you are not worthy.
You are.
Today, when you hear the voices deriding you for taking up oxygen, breathe in more. When you hear them disgusting you for taking up space, spread your arms wide, and twirl like a dervish, and take up more.
Exhale any disbelief in yourself, and all apology for being.
There is nothing more threatening than someone who recognizes their worth. And you just became dangerous.
This is your revolution.
From my heart to yours,
Demian Elaine’ Yumei ~ Silent No More
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I loved this post Demian. I have tried to focus more on my breathing lately as I've noticed that I hold my breath frequently, which can't be as healthy as breathing regularly.
I've never knowingly been the victim of the contempt you write about at the beginning, but I've seen it and I'll never forget it. You describe it well and I like how you connect it to someone denying your right to breathe freely. Or at all.