I can feel myself changing now everyday. I am not exactly sure who it is I am becoming.
I've been questioning everything lately - the difference between want and need, why the line between love and hate is so fine, how to be who I want to be, if I can live with all the mistakes I've made.
Here is the difference between want and need: I need myself. These friends that I hold so dear make me feel inferior. And to a certain extent, that's my fault. They are good people and I'd never want them to change but at the same time, I can't live in their shadows anymore. I need exactly who I am in this moment: the eye of the storm. Everything is crashing down around me and I can feel it collapsing, but I refuse to shatter with it. I will stand tall and proud despite the chaos I've let into my life because I will be strong again. I may want these people in my life, but I don't need them. Because I don't need anyone to tell me what I already know: that I am a completely capable force all on my own. I never lost my strength, it just dwindled for a moment. And I'm back to reclaim it.
Here is the reason why the line between love and hate is fine: they are two of the most passionate emotions you can have towards another person. Loving someone takes as much energy as it takes to hate someone. So I'm going to settle for indifference. I can't live my life loving people who I know don't feel the same way about me. I've done it too often and it seems as though it gets more and more heartbreaking every time. I refuse to hate these people, to hold every bad thing they've done in my presence against them purely on principle. I won't do it. And I will wish them the best because even if they've done me wrong, I've probably done the same to them. And at the end of the day, they are still people with feelings and pasts and futures that I hope turn out to be exactly what they want them to. I don't have nearly enough energy right now to love someone or to hate them. It takes too much heart.
Here's how I'm going to start being who I want to be: going back to school. I've been blatantly not going to classes for almost a year and half now. Classes for spring semester start tomorrow and for the first time in years, I'm excited to go back. I've missed learning and stressing over exams, surprisingly. I think this will be good for me. I'm going to fill my time up so quickly with two part time jobs and full time classes so I won't even have the time to feel sorry for myself. I am going to throw myself in to being a good student and a good employee and be content with the knowledge that I don't need people to kiss the ground I walk on as long as I can look myself in the mirror and convince myself that I am worth that level of respect and adoration.
But living with the mistakes I've made? I don't know. I've made too many at this point to decide if I really can live with them. Some are small, some are explosive. But they've all left me sitting here at the cafe on my day off, writing this shitty post to make me feel better about myself. I can't help but think about how these mistakes, the paths I've chosen to take have made me who I am right now. And that's overwhelming because I am so many things in this moment. I am content and I am sad. I am optimistic and I am realistic. I am strong and I am weak.
Right now I am neither the best version of myself nor the worst. And I am going to make the conscious decision to be happy about the fact that I've come a long way. I certainly am not where I hoped I'd be at twenty years old, but hey, at least I'm not doing heroin or something.
I am selfish and vain and a little too closed minded. I drink too much and I don't think I was born with a verbal filter. I don't try nearly as much as I think I do and I let other people take the fall for the things that I fucked up.
But I've also given my heart away so many times only to see it be trampled on and depleted. So right now I'm going to focus on myself. I'm going to try and give up the people who are holding me back from becoming who I want to be and actually take the first steps to becoming that person. I'm going to make hella money between my two jobs, spend more time with my grandparents, move out of my parents' house, and never allow myself any free time to get caught up in my feelings.
Honestly, feeling sorry for myself is not helping anyone. These pity parties that I love so much are not helping me actually move forward. And moving forward is exactly what I intend on doing. I am going to fill my life up with so much good, that I won't ever be able to justify sadness again.
I cannot wait until these plans become a lifestyle. I just want happiness to be something that I wake up with, something that comes naturally. Isn't that what we all want? I am going to choose happiness every day and I refuse to apologize for it.
And if I have a bad day somewhere along the way, I will breathe through it. I will remind myself every day that sometimes all you can do is hang on and hope for the best. Every day is a battle - some days you demolish everything in your path and some days all you can do is breathe. But either way, I'm a fucking warrior. And I don't plan on forgetting that any time soon.
