“The words you speak become the house you live in.” – Hafiz

 

Today is a different day, which is very unexpected in the wake of quarantines & self-isolations. Today, I woke up and I realized something about that myself that I think I’ve always known, but I’ve never been able to say. Today, I saw a new light & felt a lightness that I haven’t had the privilege of feeling before. Today I feel like me.

It seems absurd to simply say “I feel like myself today, how great!” but, thats the truth. I’ve spent a lot of my life pretending to be the most confident person and acting my way through hard times. Because it hasn’t been sincere, most of my life has been spent judging other people & more often then not, simultaneously judging myself, but I would’ve never admitted it before.

You see, I think we all have a list of things we wish were different about ourselves, little (or big) things that we wish we could change. Someone else always has something we want & its their fault that we don’t have it. Because I’m a good person, I pay my taxes, I work hard, why don’t I have all these things that she / he does? As you can probably see, the problem is, my list took over all my thoughts. I was constantly hearing these little voices of doubt, but they just kept getting louder the harder I acted like they didn’t exist. The problem with problems is, they usually don’t just go away, it takes work & a lot of it.

Since I’ve been working from home for the past couple weeks, I’ve seen a lot of the people I care about suffer & still push through the mud. I’ve seen people get hurt & lose loved ones, all while knowing  they couldn’t do anything to stop it. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting and imaging the world where COVID-19 isn’t a problem anymore. Maybe a cure, maybe a vaccine, maybe a miracle? Hell, any of those would be a miracle at this point. I would feel wrong writing this & not acknowledging what is going on in todays world & not saying, thank you to all the essential workers, nurses, doctors, janitors, grocery store employees, everyone who has kept us moving in these uncertain times. Thank you. I also need to note that I have been incredibly blessed in this time, I am healthy, my family & friends are still here, I have a job, I have my dog & I’m home safe with Jordan. It’s not a bad deal for me, but the problem with all of this is that, like I said, this leaves me a lot of time to reflect & for a girl with mad anxiety, it doesn’t always paint a pretty picture.

I cannot remember a time where anxiety wasn’t a part of my life. She’s always been there just waiting in the background for me to give her a little attention so that she can ruin a perfectly good moment. The thing with my anxiety is, she’s a real bitch & I don’t say that lightly. I can be having the best day of the life & suddenly a thought pops into my head “What if Jordan isn’t going to love me forever? Okay, hang on, nothing is forever, so it makes sense, he definitely wont, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Hm, is he looking at me weird, he hasn’t smiled in a while? Oh my god, what if he doesn’t find me attractive? Come to think of it, do I even find me attractive? Oh my god, I need space, I need to leave, I need to…. cry? are you kidding me I’m crying right now? Why the hell am I crying? Fuck.

When I was younger I didn’t know how to handle these thoughts & because of that it always led to me being incredibly hard on myself when I met anyone who had something I couldn’t have or to someone whom I deemed was better then me. The weird part was, it was always in my head, I never screamed at anyone or was rude and disrespectful I just wanted everyone to like me. Dear god, I so clearly just wanted people to like me. I wanted the popular girls to let me sit at their table & just once invite me over for dinner. I would copy their outfits, embarrassingly, using the best I could find from my brothers hand me downs and second hand stores (ironically, both of which I love now). When that didn’t work I would claim that I was only friends with guys “because they just get me better”. Truth was, I just didn’t know who I was yet & I was trying so hard to find it that I just put together random parts of people around me who I wished I was & tried to let that messed up picasso of a personality take me through life.

Spending a lot of your life not being sure of who you are or why you’re here is really hard, but I think its something a lot of people go through. A lot has changed since I was younger, but I still have moments of insecurity when someone at work tells me how they think I should be doing my job or when Jordan says that the he likes my hair but thought I was growing it out. I really did use to believe that you had to take everything everyone said about you and use it to be a better version of you, basically just building a really fucked up Ms. Potato Head that everyone is going to love… yeah, because pulling yourself in twenty different directions while going through puberty is a really fun way to challenge yourself, said no one ever.

I wish someone told me then, what I had to learn on my own; I am my biggest critic but I also am my biggest fan. All the things that I used to hide and kinda hate are now some of the things that I’m so proud of. Do I still wish I had longer hair, was a natural blonde & fit in a size 2 without having to work out or changing my diet at all? Yes. Duh. But thats not my reality, my reality is that I’m a 5 foot 3, fake blonde who loves mom jeans. But more importantly I’m a really, really kind & cool person. I’m not embarrassed that I say sorry too much & that I love A LOT. Sometimes anxiety still gets the best of me but I’ve learned that it is a part of me and not something I need to be ashamed of, she comes in a hurricane & she comes in hard, but the most important thing to remember is, she goes, she can’t stick around because I wont let her.

I’ve got a lot more time to think & write during this quarantine, which is so good because I gave it up for a while, kinda forgot how happy it makes me & how much of a weight is lifted when I just put everything on paper (or the internet, whatever). So here I am, this is me & apparently I’ve got a lot to say.. like a lot more then I expected when I starting writing this afternoon. If you stuck around this long thank you & if you didn’t, i’ll just say “cool” & move on.

Hope you’re all safe & healthy. Remember to tell someone you love them today & stay peachy.

AL.