Thoughts I need to get out
I really want/need to start journaling more. I keep telling myself I will but then never do. I think in some fashion I am afraid of it because journaling means accessing emotions and really feeling them. hmm.
I miss writing poems and want to start that again too. I read other's poems on Instagram and feel like shit, I can totally write something like this, but it's hard for me to access the feelings and the words. I always say to myself- write first, define and organize later. Maybe I should make it more of an effort.
Life has been really great these last few months. Happiness is scary because it feels like something that can be easily taken away. I started Lexapro and it's changed my entire life. People have always been scary and frightening. Social settings have always been filled with fear and doubt. While they still kind of are, i'm learning to lean into the discomfort. I'm learning that every interaction is a chance to learn and grow. I put so much pressure on myself to have it all figured out. To know everything someone else is talking about. To not appear stupid or awkward or whatever else i'm afraid of. To be light hearted and breezy, funny, easy. I put pressure on myself to be aloof, but I think instead I need to harness the fact that I am a serious person, and I like to have serious conversations. I have avoided this part of myself and deeming it as negative, but if I harness it in a positive way, I show my truth even more.
I recently went camping and I brought this game with me called We Are Not Really Strangers. It's a game designed to get to know the other person you're playing with. There's different prompts and questions. We did it as a group and I was really afraid of bringing it because I thought it would be too serious or deep for a camping trip. But honestly, it really brought all 4 of us close together, and in a way bonded us for life I think. It turned the short one night trip into a truly collective and connective experience. I'm glad that I brought it and that the closeness we felt was partially initiated by me bringing that game. All people want is to feel loved, accepted, and connected to/with. I need to remember this.
I also made a new friend. Since I started taking Lexapro I have really seen the world in a new light. I feel connected to people without knowing them. I call people by their name when I am at a store or buying a coffee. I try to learn something new about myself or someone else daily and part of that is reaching out to strangers and sharing a connection, big or small. It's been really nice talking to this new friend, someone who shares lots of the same interests and thoughts as me. It's really crazy to think of how many people are wandering in the same patterns as you, but not actually touching you. I mean, this person literally goes to the same exact places I often frequent, or close to. I wonder how long it was that way before we crossed, and why timing lines up the way it does. Do we try to give meaning to things that are otherwise just happenstance?
The other thing I just have to mention, is that I finished watching Maid on Netflix, and connected to it way more than I thought I would. It's about DV which is something i've never experienced, but it also is about a young girl who has to care for her bipolar mother, and someone who has experienced poverty, which are both things that I currently deal with in various extremes and levels. It hit really close to home, with story lines about manic episodes, explosive outbursts, homelessness, caring for others when you can barely care for yourself. It hurt a little, actually. But more than anything, I actually felt something I wasn't expecting, and that word/feeling is proud. I realized that even though I still deal with these things, I am on the other side of it now. I can control it and manage it. I don't feel like a victim of circumstance anymore. I don't feel like my life is happening to me without option for change. I feel like I have the tools to expand and grow and help when needed. I feel like the worst is behind me and that's an amazing feeling. And I also took the time to give myself credit. Because i've actually been through a lot in the last 8 years.
We lost our childhood home, we had to put everything in storage, my mom moved like 5 times in 2.5 years and was homeless, I had to work 3 jobs to pay for my family, take out loans to buy us cars to get to and from work. I drank every single day, before events and after them. At one point I had no self care routine what so ever, but now I do. I lost 30 pounds and I started getting out in nature. I started feeling my body and being aware of my thoughts. I started stretching more. I started loving myself and therefore loving everyone else. I started to believe in myself and reach for happier opportunities. I got a pay raise, I excelled at my jobs. I've established healthy coping skills and things I can rely on when I fall off track. And that's the thing, I do fall off track. A lot. I lose myself and I come back to myself over and over a million times a day. But the most important thing is that I am building a foundation of myself that I never had before. I am building self trust that I never even knew I needed, until now. And damn, does it feel good. Self trust is literally everything in this world. Everything.
Without self trust you can't succeed in any area. You must believe in yourself and trust that you can do it and that it's going to be okay no matter what happens. Building self trust means doing what you know is healthy for you and having the wherewithal to be mindful and honest when you're falling into old patterns. Like I said, I do that. And I fall out of self trust and self alignment. But now I know -okay, I can do this. I can get back to myself. Because i've been building at that trust. And since I started that, my whole life has changed.
Life isn't just going to be okay, it IS okay. Here, now, in the present...there, then, in the past...and soon, to be, in the future.
