Let’s be serious here. How do you forget who you are and what you stood for and what you liked and what you believed in, and just become a shell of a person?
I know how. It happened to me. But now that I’ve found myself again, I can’t believe it happened to begin with.
I am too damn scared of people. I seem strong, but that’s for my friends. I am terrified on the inside and I think everyone is like that. Terrified. A lot of girls don’t seem to like my face, and my comfortable way of dressing for classes. They don’t understand why I love comic books, and manga, and video games, and science fiction, and novels that aren’t romance.
“How is she so strange?”
I don’t know. I just don’t. And guys seem to think the same too. So I can’t even say at least I have buddies. I just have people. I have people who have the same mindset and understand the same feelings and are different too. They’re good people. Amazing people.
But not even the best people can prevent you from losing yourself. From believing everything people say about you… To you… And you can’t always just “let slide off you, like water down your back”, because sometimes it’s a fucking Hydro Cannon attack or some shit and you get hurt and your heart gets heavy and you get all twisted up inside and you lose faith like I did when a Christian told me I was going to hell and that one day, I would fall and require help and he would come along, laugh at me and leave, all because I asked him to lower his voice while he was in the restaurant.
And boy, losing bits of yourself is HARD. And falling in love, and thinking you got caught in a safety net, only to have that pulled up from under you, is just as hard. But you fall and think maybe I’ll find myself again when they love me back. But you can’t find yourself through another person, and you learn that the hard way when the net disappears. Never do that. Never try to find yourself through loving someone or having someone love you. You need to know who you are and what you’re about before you come to that. And I think that pushed me harder. In both things: losing the rest of me, the final tiny bits that were hanging on like those annoying little seed pods that stick to your clothes when you take strolls through tall grass with your indie music at a mellow volume, and realizing I need to find that again. Not at the same time though.
I think I must have torn like… 5 books and one sketchbook in all my confusion and anger and sorrow. I didn’t cut. I did not. I never even thought of it. I’m so proud of myself. I went through some hard things, and I never even tried to hurt myself. I don’t even know why I did before. And I sounded so hurt and confused and mean and maybe a little off to everyone I talked to… And distant… Because I had no idea what to do. And where to go.. And I should be sorry, but I’m not. I truly wasn’t myself.
But then… You know when it’s been raining for a long long time? And even though you like the rain, it’s gotten a bit tiring and you would like to see the sun. And then the rain stops and the clouds part and you can see the sun again… Learning everything again is like that. And you feel a bit stupid, because… How could you have forgotten what it’s like for the sun to shine? How could you not realize that this was missing? That this made everything better? And it took away all the damp and cold from inside of you now that you have all the things you love again… The beach, the park, painting sunsets, painting sunrises, make flower crowns, drawing still life, drawing the landscape, writing about the landscape, dancing in tall grass to your favourite indie band, dancing between trees to your favourite pop band, just dancing for no reason. Living. Remember that? You were so thrilled about just living. Not existing, LIVING. And you loved every second of it, not dreaded it. LOVED it.
Now you’re back :)
And it will rain again. Oh it will. But you will dance between the rain drops, or dance in it, and take it in stride, because you have what makes you, you. You have yourself, your loves, your likes, your dislikes, your people, your quirks, your talents, your sketches of eyes, your pretty freckles, your bright red nail polish, your cat-like disposition, your sketches of petals, your silly anime-like expressions, your favourite alt. rock band that means the world to you because they sing about your life and they were made just for you, your books, your notes, your instruments, your notebook full of songs you carry in your back pocket, your words, your tattoos, your dances, YOUR TUMBLR, your passions….
You have your sun.
