I'm starting to slowly come to grips.
I used to imagine myself living a little Barbie doll life, straight long blonde hair, a perfect little convertible car, a clean shaven, chiseled boyfriend, a modeling job, and happy as a damn clam.
Buuuuuuuut here I am. A little damaged, a little cracked, a little off my rocker, scouring the floor for a few glass marbles I'm not even sure I've lost yet.
Since around the summer after my senior year of high school I've been trying desperately to hold onto some sort of semblance of what I knew of myself.
"I'm an artist. I draw. I like to draw. I'm going to pursue art.
I'm pure.
I've grown up in a beautifully traditional home that's been a safety net underneath of any low-suspended tightropes I have to cross.
I'm positive. Everything is okay. Everything is going to be okay. Nothing bad ever happens. Nothing bad is ever going to happen to me."
And dear god was I wrong about a lot of things. I don't think I have anyone or anything to blame on nearly suffocating myself with these unrealistic expectations of my years to come, besides myself.
The summer after senior year of high school, things went south. At first, things started to slip in a blurry, confused way. I didn't really realize what was happening, or what any of it meant. But I could very painfully cross one thing off of my list of expectations and facts about myself.
Freshman year of college, there was lots and lots of lying. Lying to myself, lying to some of my professors, lying to some of my friends, and worst of all, lying to my family. This backfired rather quickly and I completely lost hold of who I thought I was. So the second half of freshman year I floated around blindly and sadly. In fact, I honestly can't really remember most of what happened then.
Just lots of feelings of regret, confusion, loss, sorrow and a desperately muted plea to be close to my family again.
Then sophomore year came around. I acknowledged my loss of hope that had occurred as soon as high school let go of me, the fact that I couldn't make a living as an artist, the fact that bad things do happen to good people, and that my clean white skin, was now covered in a slow-drying mud. But at this point? The drying mud was beginning to crack. I began to accept that though I had made some bad decisions, and that a bad decision of someone else had affected me so painfully, it didn't mean that I didn't deserve to be happy. It didn't mean that I couldn't trust myself.
So I began to pick at the dried mud, caked on my skin, and learned to love the slightly tainted version of myself underneath. It took a while, but I even started to rebuild my relationship with my parents, telling them every painful detail of my recent life and why I had strapped an anchor to my ankles in the semester prior. And at this point, I began to fall in love. I fell back in love with myself, with my friends that I had somehow successfully managed to surround myself with despite my prior level of self-loathing, and in turn began to fall in love with life again.
From then on, I've had my fair share of "off-days" where I sit in a steaming pool of self-loathing (gross description, but hey- it gets my point across) and can't help but feel like a piece of shit. And as much as I hate those days when they happen, the morning after is like a breath of ocean air. I can feel my face float lighter towards the sun, despite the never ending dark before. No matter how deep sorrow carves into my soul, I've found that it allows me to hold more joy and love. And not just hold it, but understand it and deeply, honestly appreciate it- no matter how short or fleeting it might be.
I'm still learning to let go of things. Yes, I'm a little jaded, and a little closed off about some things here and there, but we all have room to grow. I've learned to forgive, but I'm working on forgetting. Okay, not necessarily forgetting, but translating unfortunate situations into formative chapters in my life.
So I'm not sure why I shared this post on my now more public blog. I'm sure you've clicked around, assuming I'd be sharing recipes of drinks, or what I wore to brunch last Sunday. But to me? None of that really matters. How often do you finish looking at a girl's blog like that and think "Huh, I'm really glad I just spent an hour and a half of my life looking at photos of a girl running around Orlando, Florida and all of the drinks that she recommends, as well as the bars that she doesn't."?
Even though you personally might not really give a shit about whatever I just wrote, I guess I'm posting this just for those one or two people who need that little bit extra of encouragement.
Those one or two people who stumble across this, understand the trouble I've been through, and needed to see that it does get easier. That there are other people out there who burned a few too many bridges, made way too many bad decisions, and are still struggling with constantly feeling "okay".
Because we all go through seriously hard times when we don't feel "okay" and feel like we never will. But I guess I'm just hoping that my blog will serve as a buoy to hold onto when seas are getting rough and skies are getting dark.
Because no matter how dark the night before is, the sun always rises :)
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