why i’ve been avoiding + accepting all of you and every version of you

hello hi what the fuck is up.

So at this point, i’ve come to realize that I’m pretty horrible at staying consistent. With most things in my life. Self-aware queen !

The process goes like this:

1. I develop a hyper-fixation on something…maybe someone, but that’s rare.
   • And I’ll get sooo deep into it. Like deeper than my favorite sex position that everyone should already know by now bc I overshare most things. And it’ll be the ONLY thing I’m focused on. And maybe it’s because of my ADHD that even Adderall can’t make a dent on. But it’s also because I’ve always been super selective with my energy. I’ll either put all of my energy into something/someone or none at all. But anyways, developing the hyper-fixation is always how it starts.
2. It lasts for however long.
   • Whether it’s a day, a week, a month, a few months. However long it is, that’s ALL I’m focused on.
3. And then, it’s gone.
   • And then, out of nowhere, I stop being obsessed with it. I stop caring about it. Seemingly for no reason at all. That feeling just disappears. And I even start avoiding it.

I tend to define different times and phases in my life by the hyper-fixation. Like, my freshman year of high school was my theatre kid phase, my sophomore year was my art club phase, my first 2 years of college was my first boyfriend phase, my last 2 years was my traumatizing 2nd boyfriend phase, the summer after graduating college was my alcoholic phase, etc. And…the beginning of quarantine, March-April 2020 was my blogging phase. And that’s when I created my blog:) I was balls deep into it.

And then, like everything else, I stopped being interested in it. I stopped writing. But I love writing. There was never a point when I stopped loving writing.

So why do I always lose interest in the things and people I Iove?

I don’t know why. And trust me, I wish I did. Because it sucks. It sucks when you start enjoying something, and instead of fully enjoying it, the thought of, “great, how long am i going to enjoy this until I get sick of it” is lingering in the back of your mind.

It’s like, you know when you hear a really amazing song for the first time and it feels like pure fucking euphoria? Like happiness that you’ve never felt before. I remember being 15, in some music lyric video rabbit hole on youtube (because I’m old and at the time, Spotify and music streaming services in general weren’t really a thing. Youtube was where you would find and listen to music). But anyways, I was deep in that lyric video rabbit hole, and then in my suggested videos was a song called “Electric Feel” by MGMT.

And holy fucking shit. What I would give to hear that song for the first time again. It felt like what I imagined falling in love would feel like, I felt invinceable, like I could do anything in the world and nothing bad would ever happen again. No matter what, everything would be okay. Because none of it mattered. It was so good that it made everything else seem so small. Like I would never feel sad again. Like problems and real life didn’t exist.

So I listened to it. Again and again. For…2 weeks? Non-stop. It was all I would listen to. I would abuse the fuck out of that replay button. And then, one day. It stopped. I got tired of it. I never wanted to hear it again. At least for the time being. I wore it out. I was done with it.

And now when I hear it again, my mind just makes me think of naive 15yr old Brittany who thought this song was the best thing to ever happen to me. And it starts to make me cringe. Because I don’t like living in the past. I never like past versions of myself. I remember 15yr old me being naive about boys, confused about my sexuality, insecure in my body, feeling so alone because I had no friends-and that being the reason I spent my weekends alone and at home, deep diving into youtube music videos and finding this song that I was so obsessed with.

At 24, when it starts playing in Target or whatever store I’m in, I’m brought back to that 15yr old version of myself. And I’ve never liked past versions of myself. Whether it’s a past version of myself from almost 10 years ago or last week.

I feel like i’m constantly changing, and I’m always looking down at the previous versions. Even when I enjoyed being me at the time when I was being those versions.

God this was the most long winded metaphorical answer to why I stopped writing in my blog.

But, bringing it back to now.

The last time I wrote on this blog was March 2021.

I wrote my last blog post when I was really really fucking sad. I was sad about a person. And I can’t help but think, “god brittany that’s so fucking pathetic. You were sad over…a boy? A potential relationship that you always knew was never going to work. You’re never sad over boys. You’re reverting back to your stupid high school self who was stupid and weak enough to be sad over boys-boys that you never even liked.”

And so whenever I would think about my blog again, I’d think about that post. I don’t even remember what I wrote in it. All I remember is how I felt and what I was going through at the time that I did write it. And I never want to feel that way again.

I never reread my old posts, because to me, they serve as reminders to my past selves. Once I’ve moved on, I don’t like looking back. I don’t like feeling like being reminded of those feelings and phases.

So I stopped checking my blog. Like literally never went back on it after I posted that. This is my first time being back on.

So what made me decide to come back?

So much has happened these past few months. Like it’s insane how different my life and how different I am now compared to when I made that post.

And I’ve been healing.

And a huge part of properly healing is being self-aware. Learning about yourself, realizing and reflecting on your repeated toxic behaviors. And instead of punishing yourself for them, you realize that those don’t have to be a part of you. That you have the power to put a halt to the habits that don’t serve you.

My whole life, I’ve been running away and avoiding.

You think that after you’ve run far enough, those things and those feelings won’t catch up to you. That they’ll be so far behind you that you’ll never have to face them again.

So you avoid and you run. And you think it works, because it’s not right in your face. Instead, they’re in the back. Lingering, just constantly lingering, but never going away. You didn’t face them or deal with them when they happened. But if you did, if you had done the hard thing and gone through the grieving process in the beginning, you could’ve nipped it in the bud and yes it would suck, but by now, you’d be healed.

Like breaking a bone. I remember breaking my left arm when I was 10 from riding Heelys. Remember those? So I went to the doctor who showed me an x-ray of my arm and told me that he’d have to pop my bone back into place. And it was scary and it was uncomfortable and it hurt. But the hurt lasted for like one second and then it was over. And then all I had to do was wait for time to heal it. Say I refused to have my bone popped back into place. Yeah, I wouldn’t have to face the scary, uncomfortable and hurt that I’d feel if I did. But then my bone would still be broken, it would never properly heal, no matter how much time passed. It’d also probably constantly hurt and be uncomfortable for months. That feeling just constantly and subtly lingering.

Get it?

Avoiding and running isn’t going to heal you.

And neither is avoiding and looking down on the past versions of yourself.

You accept those versions of yourself, you sympathize with those versions of yourself, you validate those versions of yourself. And you also accept that those past versions of yourself don’t define you. You can change, you have changed, and you’ll continue to change.

I look back at my old blog posts, and even though I don’t read them, I’ll see the title, and be like “oh yeah I remember that phase of my life”, and I know I’ll do the same to this post. And okay so what? That’s all they are. Just little snippets of certain parts of your life and phases of yourself. Great. And it’s kinda cool to realize how far you’ve come, how much you’ve grown, and how you’re going to keep changing and growing into more developed versions of yourself.

No more running from the past and unwanted feelings, no more filling up my life with distractions.

It’s time to heal. Like actually heal this time.