March 2023

March 9th, 2023, 10:20pm

Here’s my attempt at making writing a habit again. I love writing, but I also find myself avoiding it. And that checks out. Because unfortunately I do have a habit of avoiding the things I love.

When I really love something, it’s like…I’m scared of messing it up. And simply avoiding it altogether eliminates that risk.

But then I end up filling my life with things I only medium love.

And I guess that explains why I used to date people I only kind of liked and filled my time doing things I only kind of enjoy. But then life essentially becomes one long filler episode.

My days spent scrolling through my phone, going to the gym, watching tv, doing my daily tasks. Just existing, not living. Always comfortable, always safe. But is this how my life’s supposed to be? On autopilot until I die?

Sometimes it helps to think about my child self. Is this what she would’ve wanted?

Before she developed a pattern of avoiding anything that could hurt her even more than the world already had.

She was so unafraid of anything.

At 26, I’m smarter, wiser, more mature, more experienced, but also…more afraid.

I want to give my child self everything she wanted. How she dreamed her life would be when she’d grown up. The person she thought she’d be.

Before the world told her to minimize herself, told her she wasn’t good enough. Before it scared her into settling for mediocre love and a mediocre life. Before it made her believe that if she wasn’t the best, if she wasn’t perfect, then she wasn’t anything.

Thinking about how much time I’ve wasted just waiting for the day to end.

Not sure why it took me so long to realize that life is happening now, and I should spend it doing things I love. Actually love. Things that make me feel. Things I’m interested in. Even if I suck at it. Who cares? Because any time spent enjoyed is never time wasted.

So I guess this is my really long-winded way of convincing myself to start writing again. Without the pressure of making it perfect. Just fucking do it, let yourself enjoy life. No more avoiding.

March 10th, 2023, 8:20pm

Sometimes it feels like I have 2 different souls that exist inside of me.

One with a fully open heart, ready to give and receive warmth at any given moment. Wide-eyed and full of zest. Like there’s an energy inside me, so magnetic and ready to burst out and spread to every person I pass. Wanting to feel all the feelings, to experience the infinite potential of the world. Endless possibilities, and I don’t want to miss any of them. Even the bad ones. Because I’m so strong that nothing could ever break me. I want to feel alive, be alive. I want to live. Not just exist. Life isn’t so bad. And I really fucking love it here.

That’s when I’m happiest.

And the other wants to shut everyone out, completely detach from the world and never leave the confines of my one bedroom apartment. Even when it stops feeling like home, when it starts feeling like a prison I voluntarily choose to lock myself in. Everyone sucks, and I want nothing to do with anyone. No one deserves me, my heart or my energy. The only person I’ll give that to is myself. Emotions no longer exist, and I can’t feel anything. No matter how hard I try. Nothing inspires me, and I resent the hobbies I used to spend hours wrapped up in. The things that used to excite me now sit idle in the back of my mind as I lay on the couch and browse Netflix, Youtube, Hulu-desperate to find anything that’ll distract me and make the day end sooner. I don’t care that I’m “wasting” my days away, because there’s nothing here for me, I don’t want to be here. I’m just passing the time until it ends.

Obviously there’s one I prefer! And as much as I wish I could choose which one dominates on any given day, I’m human. It’s not like I have a switch on my back that I can flip back-and-forth to pick which mode I want to be on.

And trust me, when I’m the world-hating version of myself, I try so hard to change that. But most of the time, forcing things will only make them infinitely worse than they were to begin with.

And today?

Today I’m feeling both equally.

I’ve been feeling that a lot lately. Just really conflicted.

I’ll find myself feeling optimistic, jumping out of bed like wow yes I’m more than ready to open myself up again-to open up my heart to love, to heartbreak and everything in between. But then I’ll have moments where I’m like, actually no. Fuck you and fuck this. Feeling completely defeated and over it, deciding that none of it’s worth it, and I don’t want any of it.

There’s no resolution here. I wish I knew everything. But sometimes I just don’t know anything.

And I guess some days will end with me just having to be okay with that.

March 13th, 2023, 9:04pm

Some days I feel a little down.

And that can be caused by a multitude of issues eating me up inside. Or maybe by nothing at all.

I have a bad habit of seeing everything in black and white. And I think that’s why my brain finds it easy to come up with reasons I shouldn’t be happy. It’s almost like it views happiness as a threat. Because every time I do feel happy, it tries stopping me.

When you grow up under circumstances that repeatedly leave you abandoned by the things that made you happy, you can’t help but view happiness as this fleeting feeling that’ll always end up deserting you. And sometimes. Having it, experiencing it, only to have it taken from you hurts more than never having it in the first place. So I guess I can’t blame my brain for trying to protect me.

But here’s the thing. Most things aren’t black and white. Someone hurting me in the past doesn’t mean everyone will hurt me. Having bad relationships in the past doesn’t mean every relationship will be bad. Being in an unfavorable place in my life now doesn’t mean I’ll be here for the rest of my life.

Most things don’t last forever. The relationships, the friendships, the way your life is at this exact moment. And yeah that can feel terrifying. But what’s more terrifying is never changing. Never growing. Being stuck. Happiness might feel fleeting, but ya know what’s also fleeting? The sadness you might feel, the loneliness, emptiness, anger, pain. None of that lasts. Even if it feels that way right now. Also…even in those moments where happiness “left”, it always came back.

Most things don’t last forever, but most things aren’t gone forever either.

When you’re in a really low place, imagining how much better life can be can feel nearly impossible. But sometimes I’ll think about all the moments in my life that felt like rock-bottom. For example. When a relationship ended, and I was so upset because I didn’t think I could find anyone I’d like more. Anyone cooler, more interesting. Because they’re already the coolest and most interesting person that exists, right? And they’re the best I can do, right? But then I found someone better. And I liked them more. So much more. Like I didn’t know liking someone this much was possible. Because I thought I liked the last person the mostest. And not only were they way cooler and more interesting, but they did things the last person couldn’t. The way they brought out a version of me I had never met but loved so much. The way they inspired me and helped me realize I wanted so much more for myself. And to go after it. I had no idea how much better things could be while I was going through that low point. I couldn’t even fathom it.

I think that when we “lose” something or someone, a large part of why we’re so upset about it is because we think that’s as good as things are going to get. There’s no one better, no circumstance that could be better than whatever that was. We think it’s either them or it’s nothing. We get stuck seeing it all in black and white.

You have to give your life’s potential a chance to expand. That person was only the best because you couldn’t fathom finding anyone better. That relationship was only the best because you couldn’t fathom being in anything better.

So maybe you do feel stuck right now. Maybe you feel like shit right now. But this moment isn’t forever. It’s just that. A moment. A time in your life. Not your entire life.

Change is sooo fucking beautiful, but you have to allow it to happen.

Don’t be afraid to start over. You might like your new story better. You just have to give it a chance:)

March 19, 2023, 7:34pm

I love writing. But here’s the thing.

I feel most inspired to write when I’m going through shitty situations. Situations (more like situationships riiight ha ha) that I enter being like, “Welp! My emotions are about to start fluctuating like crazy.” But in the back of my head, I’m like this is goooood. This is character development. And now I’ve gained the most abundant collection of emotions and thoughts ready to be poured out all over these blank pages. And I’ll admit that in the past, I voluntarily jumped into the habit of making “bad” (but usually fun) decisions for the sake of obtaining inspiration to draw from. “Fuck it, do it for the plot.” And I did, with 0 regrets. Because I believe that every decision I made in the past forced me to grow into the person I am today and to arrive at the place I am today.

And despite how often my depression is channeled in these posts, I wouldn’t want to live any other life than the one I’m living now. I’ll also point out that my depression has almost nothing to do with what’s happening in my external world. And I wish more people understood that instead of telling me to “just drink more water and go to the gym!<3” while I drink 6 liters of water and workout sometimes twice in one day.

But, back to the point. I guess the other caveat of making those decisions which, most of the time, consisted of me entering relationships I knew would become toxic, is that now, when I look back, I question how genuine my feelings actually were. If they were genuine at all. Or if I just forced myself to turn up the extremities in order to create more chaos, more…content that’d open the door to an even wider range of feelings ready to be channeled into my writing and character development. It was like creating a story. And I was basing my actions off of how I wanted the story to go.

And okay, I do know for a fact that most of the feelings I felt for those people were so real at the time. And some of those endings really did tear me to pieces and force me to feel a hurt that I never ever want to feel again.

Sometimes in the midst of dating someone, I hit a point where I realize this person isn’t for me, and this isn’t who I want to live life with. Or I get the sense that this person could hurt me. And that’s when I become okay with letting them go. And I guess the part of me that craves excitement and passion pushes me to start sabotaging. Because then I get to control how it ends. I get to control the narrative.

That’s such a toxic way of thinking, I know. And I’m happy to say I’ve grown out of that.

But now I’ve entered a place where I feel so…at peace? I’m no longer stuck in an endless cycle of volatile relationships like I was in my early 20s (ok that makes me sound old, I just turned 26 last month.)

This is the most calm, least anxious, most serene I’ve felt since I was a kid. And that’s great, but now I don’t feel as inspired to write. Feeling at peace is so fruitful but so…boring? Like I’m a little too at peace. And I don’t know what to do with myself, because this all feels so foreign to me. Not complaining at all.

Of course it’s not like this all the time. That’s just not realistic. Or human. Life’s always changing and so are we!

But I do think it’s helpful to remember that whenever you’re going through something difficult, it’s not all bad. And despite all the toxic decisions I made in the past, I always found a way to make them somewhat…positive? Beneficial? You can use that hurt you feel to your advantage. I saw this quote on Tumblr (lol rip) back in 2015 that said something along the lines of, “Some people are lost in the fire. Some are built from it.” You can’t always choose what happens, but you can choose how you react to it. And I guess I’ve just always chosen to be built from the fire. Even the ones I start myself.