Been a while since I've posted here, but if you've not caught on yet, I write on here when my mind's too clouded with bad thoughts and need an outlet to release them. I've been, Alhamdulillah, focusing so much on The Taf, that that has been distracting myself from anything worthy of writing on here. That's a good thing, I've been trying to focus on positive things that could lead to a positive kick-start to my dream career. So with all that at the top of my priority, little things don't get to me as easily nowadays. But this year started on a good note, that turned really sour really quick. Hear me out.
Having a birthday so early in the year is a good thing. Although the new year technically makes you a year older automatically, I've always believed you really turn a year older on your birthday. Since mine's in January, it feels like I get to start off the year with a clean slate with hopeful wishes and new determination. This year I've decided to start doing things for me, to benefit me, to do things that make me happy. I've lived 22 years making sure everyone's emotions are in check but mine. I do things for people too much. So much that when I don't, I sleep with a heavy heart.
And that has done so much to my mental health over the years. When you live to impress, you 1) give people the remote control to you life, 2) let people take advantage of the things you thought they'd appreciate, 3) have people think that any action that deviates from your usual is unusual. You give people the power to belittle you for not doing things that you've always done, when it's not even your duty to do them anyways.
So as soon as I blew out the candles on my cake this 17th of January, I wished for a more me self that puts myself number 1, that does decisions without wondering if anyone else approves of it, that is finally in control of her own life.
But some people don't get it. Part of my journey to the person I want to be includes keeping very few of my closest even closer. I finally need people around me that makes me feel better about myself, not the other way 'round. So I did. My circle of friends have gotten smaller, I'm working on the best relationship with my family this year, it's all about quality and not quantity. But by doing this doesn't mean I'm pushing everyone else away from me. I'm just letting them stay in the position they've always been in my life without me pulling them any closer. Friendships, because it's not biologically bonded to us like family, is an effort between two or more parties, and that effort should really just be effortless. I don't need to feel like it's something forced; forced to go out with, forced to talk to, forced to laugh with. And I acknowledge that effort is a two-way road, and I admit that I stopped making any effort. I stopped. I stopped force-efforts towards things I never wanted anyway. At the end of the day, I'm living a life for myself and not anyone else's. So who do I owe all this to?
I get that some people might be taken aback with all this, and think I'm being incredibly unreasonable with my brusk words and actions, but that's only because they're so used to me not speaking my mind and tiptoeing around other people's feelings. To hell with that, that got me through more mental abuse than anything else. What happened to my feelings? What happened to my side of the story? I went through so much self-hate because of words of others, when they mean so little to me compared to what I though of myself. That has held me back from so many great opportunities - opportunities that I could never get back. And that's not right, and I'm never going to put myself through that anymore.
Hate me or love me, that is something I cannot control anymore. I no longer see other people's emotions as my burden, I've learned over the past 22 years that caring about what they feel never contributed positively to how I felt anyway. This sense of belonging I forced myself to believe was nothing but a way to make myself relevant to the people around me, but why bother? They always fail me anyway.
