Alone [manxman]

twenty-four:: when you finally find your footing.

[Settling by Summer Walker]

COMMNT COMMENT COMMENT VOTE x

TWENTY-FOUR: when you finally find your footing.

I've made it through all my bad days so far.

Even if that sounded like something out of a self-help book, I tried to remind myself the things that Dr. Thorpe and I went over in therapy that week. Since my lack of ability to retain information often hindered me in learning, a year prior, I'd realized that maybe that also applied to my health.

Maybe I needed to remind myself by rewriting the changes I wanted to make in life. That and weakly journaling had gotten me into the kick of writing my feelings down. And I'd spend hours just writing down anything and everything that came to mind, trying to understand myself more.

And on top of this list, it was always the reminder to do things that made me happy. A lot of the time, when I started to open my notebook, there were days that just that reminder was enough. Those days were often hard to remember when things got difficult again and on those bad days, I'd venture further down the page.

I'm not alone.

I am allowed to feel pain.

I've made it through all my bad days so far.

With everything getting aired out again, I'd gotten back into the habit of journaling, bought a new composition book and skimmed through my old one, snatching out the good pages and stacking them in a folder with the rest of my work. It was outdated, the whole concept of journalling but typing everything did nothing.

Physically writing was easier to get my thoughts in order, anger tiring itself out with the heaviness of my writing, pressure put on my pen and pushing out that rigidness I was holding when I suppressed my own anxiety. Three years ago having a diary would've felt so fucking weird but when life beat me up, I guess I realized that I had actual feelings.

And they were deep and crippling and I had so many fears and so many unresolved issues that crept into my mind at 3 am.

The whole situation with Calum made me so incredibly vulnerable that sometimes, I'd sit down and think about times that I didn't feel this insane, unrelenting pressure to make other people like me.

Maybe my emotional baggage actually did alter me completely and maybe this cross on my neck was only a reminder of that.

I thought I was in love with the boy on the football team... the crazy popular blond who had daddy issues because it was idealistic, it kept me away from my own problems. If I couldn't fix what problems I had, maybe I could fix him.

Then I actually fell so far in love with a man who had so much fucking baggage and buried it so deep in himself. A person who had an internet persona and who did charity work, burrowing himself in everyone else's problems to distract from his.

And I was starting to think that had a lot to do with my mother's lack of presence in general. Her inability to separate her faith and her children as individuals. How that fueled my lack of understanding for why people were religious anyways.

Why people believed in anything when everything was so goddamn pointless.

After Paul left, I showered. I took a second to venture downstairs to grab another banana and I took the time to do some things for myself that used to keep me sane. I watched college basketball highlights -basketball cause soccer would bring me down- and thought about normal, stressless things again.

Like video games and music and hanging out with my friends. I actually found myself with enough contentment and some inspiration to work on this new project I'd been holding back on.