Every time I step away from writing for a while, I know i’m losing myself again and things are getting bad. Those moments are when I realize how much writing means to me and how big of an outlet its always been for me when I was overwhelmed. I’ve given up on a multitude of things in my life but writing has held up the longest.
As soon as I could form decent sentences I poured my mind onto paper . From just speaking about my thoughts to creative writing, it was my safe haven. I set the rules and that has always felt incredible. When the pain took my voice away, writing gave it back to me, and that was louder than my voice ever was or could have been.
Ok onto serious business. When I entered my 20’s last year I really didn’t know what to expect. I was in Europe, and sadder than I needed to be. I spent my summer in some of the most beautiful cities in the world and yet I felt miserable. I felt beyond ungrateful. I couldn’t wrap my head around why I felt as empty as I did when life was giving me about a billion reasons to feel whole. It was devastating. Between the laughs, sightseeing and fun, I was still taking way more anti-depressants than I should have been and occasionally mixing them with alcohol.
Looking back, remembering how much I didn’t care, is scary. I was so detached from the consequences. I look at all the pictures and videos and no one around me realized it at the time , but there’s a deadness in my eyes that is heartbreaking to see. After I came back home I was thrown back into life. I was done with college and found myself working in a job that wasn’t what I really wanted to be doing. The small business I ran started to feel like a drag, so I started slacking. I couldn’t process everything that was happening, everything that was changing. At the same time my health took a turn for the worst and suddenly I was more sick than I had been my entire life . I was in more pain than I had been my entire life. Emotionally I wasn’t prepared. I’d been sick since I was 13, but my condition suddenly became the most debilitating it had ever been . I felt destroyed which didn’t feel right because I didn’t think there was any more of me left to destroy.
I’ll be 21 in a few months. The whole covid situation really forced me to re-evaluate my entire life. The most damning realization that in less than a decade i’d be 30. I don’t want to waste my 20’s the way I feel I did my teenage years, in regards to the pain I carried with me for so long. The sadness, the lack of confidence, the disdain for life that sucked the joy out of every single thing I cared about. I want to reclaim my life. How i’m gong to do that exactly, i’m yet to figure out. All I know right now is what I don’t want and that is a start. I deserve to live the life I wrote about as a kid, before it became a painful life instead of a painful day or moment.
I’ve already lost more time than I had to spare. I do not want to do that anymore. Even with the disabilities I will now have to live with for the rest of my life, I can’t let that ruin everything else. Not anymore . I know I need to find a way out and for the first time in a long time I’m willing to try again and hope that this time trying doesn’t kill me the way it almost did for the better half of my life . 20 is as good as over, maybe 21 will be better .I guess 20 was a trial run. Ready for the real deal. Ready for my roaring 20’s
astoldbyabrowngirl 