Spooky Sunday

Today has been an altogether strange one. Full moon energy always has me shook. Late to sleep, awoken with a still raging Storm Ciara.

My mum brings boxes of my memories from the loft to sort. I look at the familiar bundle of things I keep for memories sake only without touching anything.

I had a mega productive day, writing, drawing, creating. Ticked a few things off the to-do list and feeling the weight of winter leave me.

I had promised to go along with my friend to a spiritualist church. She and another friend have recently lost people and she is looking for some closure with her mum.

As I sat in my skeptical manner I was aware that I doubted everything about this. But the medium was compelling, quick, full of insight that all seemed vague to me.

She turns to the ‘new’ girls in the room and says I don’t know which one of you this is for. She opens with a young person, and my heart sinks. I know it is for me.

With a few little I don’t knows she completely nailed it, things she couldn’t possible have known. And his name. Was I just communicating with him? What was this? What just happened?

On the drive home I am smiling, hopeful, I feel reassured by the experience. Sitting down to ponder I message friends to tell them of what happened.

I glance at the untouched boxes. My only photo of him is in there. The closest I have been to it in years. I absentmindedly look through the tickets and wristbands of many a night out and there it is.

Aged, battered and torn but that is him. One of the last pictures of him, if not the last. I didn’t think I needed closure. That year was tough, his life he took, ours were left to figure it out.

In that box are two diaries from high school. Horrendous things for me to behold. Full of longing and adolescent idiocy. I scan them, cringing and grinning.

I go to that date, nothing. I flick around the date, nothing. Not a word of his death, not a word of his funeral. And unusually months are blank pages. This year of so much left me unable to write.

I was 15 going on 16.

That year I took some of my first drugs, had a turbulent bad boy boyfriend, I lost my gran, wild nights, fights with friends, some of the craziest sex of my life. I lived like a fucking rockstar and I went to school.

I did fine in my exams. I ditched the shitty boyfriend and replaced him with another, yet to be shitty. I became house captain, learned to drive and moved out by 18.

I didn’t think I needed closure.

What is happening?

This week that passed was full of anxiety. My joy gone. It is a heartbreaking feeling. My mindfulness slipping through my hands.

I am full of guilt mostly, then shame. Shame for the past, shame for me trying to fix it. Shame for my over sharing, shame for my silence.

Guilt is bubbling through me, pushing my insides to my throat. My airways sufficiently blocked I cannot cry, I cannot scream. It jumps too frequently in me, I want to get help and then I talk myself out of it. I don’t need it, I’ve come this far on my own.

But I don’t want to die, I don’t want this to be the end. I want to, I don’t know. Start over?

What isn’t enough is the confessions, and the paranoia. The constant fear I will be ridiculed, that everything is a conspiracy to condemn me. Each invite a chance to publicly hang me for my sins.

That is my ultimate fear. And how to change it? Easy. Easy to do, leave my family, live somewhere else. Start a fresh, mindful. Fighting the temptations to be me. Find a partner to confide in, that is the real challenge, impossible! How to trust? How to let my guard down? How to be vulnerable? I think I can. Just not quite yet. Not quite.

Self Care

Self care is fucking hard. There, I said it.

You’ve got to put in the work. There is nobody that is to blame if this doesn’t work. It is your full responsibility. So you’ve got to eat well, exercise, manage your expectations, meditate, banish negativity and struggle to motivate yourself to do each of these things.

The easy road is to eat the junk food and sit and wallow in your depression and feel the anxiety well. It isn’t nice. But it is fucking easy. It is the current default mode.

I try to break it, every day I push myself to make sure I’ve checked at least one thing off that list. Currently I am managing most of them each day but after some recent relationship troubles where I wasn’t managing my expectations because by-fuck! I’d fallen in love, I am negative. There is a huge weight on my shoulders and a voice in my head telling me that I am broken. Worthlessness has engulfed me.

I’m drawing, I’m writing, my work is good, my diet is great, I’m meditating, I’m exercising and doing these things is my sole driver. They get me out of bed. But it isn’t enough to rid me of that pain and I am sure that time will make it better. I just can’t see the point of waiting it out at the moment.

My luck

I said goodbye. Well, I waved through tears. Day 3. I’m not comfortable yet, the decision was there but I was fighting it. I wanted to believe in joy, in commitment and in perseverance. My weakness – I am just an emotional human.

I have been hurt, I can’t hide it with support. I want to love, not to fix. I’ve been led on, there has been a karmic effect. I deserve it. I have to learn this lesson.

Years of unavailability has led me to 3 men. One too young, not ready for my weight. One too vulnerable, not willing to take the risk with me. The last one, was the hardest test, I questioned my everything. I explored my sexuality, my insecurities, my confidence. I became aware of my hang ups, past trauma and my behaviours in the moment.

This is like no breakup as it was no relationship. A series of flirtatious moments, strong sexual desire, words of encouragement and a misinterpreted belief in him.

To realise it was all a fantasy broke me. When I longed to make it perfect, he found comfort in pointing out my imperfections. How can someone keep up an act for so long? When I was not near I was everything, when lying next to him I was nothing. He couldn’t trust me with the why.