dream about me.

I would lie beneath the shadow of our curtains and imagine that I could still fix it. That if I had the sense to try harder, be better, I would be happier.

Going through the motions with the same hum of tired comfort, smiling at myself in the mirror.

I would commit only to what I always had, hesitation always in the back of my throat, the pit of my stomach.

A calendar reminder of being bigger than myself, encompassing roles that I dreamt of letting go.

But whatever in me has grown outside and beyond will go on.”

Is this what I've been numbing for the last 10 years? I thought I'd gotten better at processing and feeling, but maybe I just got better at turning my brain off entirely and leaning into distraction. Yknow, I say that, and I think the reality of it is that I am genuinely tired of everything else. For once it's not me exhausting me. Not entirely. Or maybe I'm just looking for something else to blame.

I don't doubt that I can be happy, I just wonder if I would ever find it with my brain turned off. I wonder if I can trust my past self to have made the right decision or the safe decision. The urge for new experiences I thought I'd left behind - content with the slow roll towards being an "adult".

Went back through chat logs from 12 years ago and I knew I had become a different person, but didn’t realise how distant I was from 20 year old me.

It’s like I was saying all the quiet parts out loud, and even then they were thinly veiled statements about what I actually wanted. Reflections of who I thought I was and how I felt I was perceived. How wonderful to have sloughed off those layers.

I suppose there’s a lesson in there for me now, which is probably along the lines of honesty and authenticity.

Things feel more real now- I’m not 20 years old fucking around anymore. Just 32 years old doing my best and trying to accept it’s gotta be good enough.

No distractions, and within that as many distractions as I can jam into the space so I don’t feel alone.

Not that it’s aloneness I’m avoiding- I love being with myself. It’s the absence of drive, ambition, tangibility of recognising and grabbing the things I want.

I keep giving myself timeframes. Six months to see if things change. And if they don’t, then I have to do it. But I don’t think I want things to change, I want to be forced into making the choice.

Six months is the yardstick by which I measure how much I want to live a life I love.

Feel the weightlessness of only carrying myself.

I think being an adult is more than just wanting to hold myself. But the urge to grasp myself in my own arms is all I can feel under the current.