The last six months have brought on a lot of change... but no blogs. I've started and stopped probably four dozen times. Nothing I say seems to sit right. It all feels wrong. Like shoes that are too small, bangs that are too long, or jeans that are too big. I pull and push and twist and try... and it never feels right.
Since I've been going to therapy (years now) - I've been tasked with trying to let myself live in the uncomfortable - the chunks of time where the things I'm manifesting are yet to come to fruition - where I'm in the middle of some sort of evolution, but haven't yet shed my skin...
My entire life feels like it's up in shambles right now. It feels like a mess. One big, overwhelming, disappointing, lonesome mess. But it also feels freeing. There is a sense of freedom in finally, for the first time ever, not knowing what comes next. Not knowing what I want or where I want to go.
Up until now, I've always been living, working, planning for the "next". As a kid, I just wanted to be older. I longed to be old enough for things to start making sense. In high school, I knew I had to work my ass off to get out of that tiny town that was suffocating me... but then I was too scared to go too far... My dreams felt too big. I wanted to go to Michigan State or Sarah Lawrence. Those had always been my hidden, secret dreams. But I was too scared. Sarah Lawrence was too far away... MSU was too big... I couldn't decide what was worse, being a small fish in a big pond, or forever feeling like I had already outgrown my pond. Neither one felt right. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, ya know?
So, I went to a medium school, not too far away. Far enough I didn't have to live at home, but close enough that I could go home on a moment's notice. Only that "home" was never mine.... At the exact time I was packing up to go to college, my dad was packing up the place we had called home for years... The first and only place that was just ours. As much as I had wanted to get out on my own, him creating a life that only included me on some weekends felt a lot like I was being left out. "You don't have to leave, but you can't stay here...." I didn't feel comfortable at school either. For the first time, school was HARD. Very hard. All of a sudden, I didn't automatically get A's and B's without trying. I couldn't write a paper the night before and get the highest grade in the class. I had to study, and study hard... and still pulled C's on tests. I never really felt like I got my footing. I changed majors, I changed roommates, I bounced between friend groups. No place really felt like mine.
Until.
All of a sudden, home wasn't a place. It was a person. It was the way we instantly clicked. How we met and the never seemed to say goodbye. The big spoon, to my little spoon. The hand that could fit around mine perfectly. The hug that always seemed to help me catch my breath. The voice I could pick out in a crowd of 100 people. Home.
Now... I feel like I've lost my footing all over again. Where the world feels too big, I feel too small, and time seems to endless. Those are the days where I don't want to get out of bed. Getting out of bed means accepting that where I live now isn't my home. The home I built with my person, and the home I built inside of my person... neither is mine anymore. My home is empty of my stuff now, but still filled with my memories. Someone else lives there now. But I still live there in my dreams... At the same time, I have to give up on those dreams... Those hopes, those grand plans are gone now. In their place, is a foggy sort of acceptance. Not even acceptance... more like giving in. This is what it is now. This is where I am. I can't accept it yet, but I can acknowledge it. Things have changed... and I know I have to change with them, but I feel stuck. It's hard to reconcile the place I thought I would be with where I am now... 31, starting over in a tiny downtown apartment on the fifth floor where I can look out the window and see the endless sky... a place that's all my own, but that is empty, no matter how much I try and fill it up.
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