Isaac Snowman - Slumber (n.d.)

And you’d know I’d say, “the last time I drank, I was face-down, passed out there on your lawn.”

Orange Juice, Noah Kahan

Day 14:

What do you minimize about yourself? What do you flaunt?

Since I am fatter than most people, I try to minimize myself in several ways. I try not to take up too much space but always end up failing. When I am on a plane, I will make myself uncomfortable by squeezing my arms in so that I do not touch the person next to me. Id I am in a car, I will do the same but scooch as close to the door as possible. If I am in a crowded place, in an elevator, on the sidewalk, etc.

It is so subconscious at this point that I do not realize even doing it. It truly was not until this question that I realized I was making myself uncomfortable so that my bigness would not offend or bother anyone around me.

What I flaunt is more of a difficult question because it is so much easier to think of the negative than the positive. But I think that I am at a place in my life where I will proudly (kinda but I'll explain later) flaunt my height. I love wearing heels and I love going out and peering over a group because with heels I am about 6 feet tall. BUt the only time I feel self-conscious about my height is when a guy I am talking to is shorter than me in heels. And I KNOW that I shouldn't care but it is still a stigma that has stuck to me that will take some time to unlearn.

The Kelpie by Herbert James Draper (1913)

Write an apology letter to yourself.

Dear Me,

I am sorry for what you have been through. I am sorry for the pain that you have had to endure. I am sorry that life has dulled your spark.

But most of all, I am sorry for how long it has taken me to forgive myself. I have been so hard on myself and for what? I mean, look at me! Despite it all, I am still here.

You joke about your trauma to make it easier but it is still trauma. Be kind to yourself and let everything fall in to place. You are a survivor who is trying their best despite the odds they have been given. It is time to be soft and delicate and to stop scrapping with life.

You are made of gold and diamonds and you are not glass. You might fall under pressure but you always rise to the challenge.

Do not let this world continue to ruin your beautiful heart. You love so wholeheartedly and I am so proud of that despite everything we have been through. Despite everything you have witnessed growing up.

We got this and I forgive me for using my past as an excuse at every step in my life. It is time to grow up and realize that yes, you have been dealt shitty cards but it will not always be that way. Start a new game or fold and move on but do not let it continue to drag you down. Stop being weighed down by the past.

Your dad was an angry man who you have let affect you all your life but he is dead now and you are here. Your mom is an alcoholic who regrets so many of her choices but she is not you. I am made of both of my parents but I do not have to be like them. I am so much better than them.

Learn and move on but stop making excuses.

Love,

Me.

Day 7:

Do you hold grudges against others that could be let go? What’s your motive for holding onto them?

If there is one thing that I have begrudgingly learned from my late father, it is the ability to hold a grudge. Pride meant everything to him and as an adult, I am realizing that I am my father's daughter. There are friends who I am sure have matured and realized their mistakes but I am still stuck in the past. I am holding on to the thread and the memory of them screwing me over. It hurt my feelings to know that someone I loved at one point in time could negate my feelings entirely and purposely hurt me.

I think I hold onto them because I do not want them to ever happen to me again. I don't want to look like an idiot forgiving someone for continuously screwing me over. At the end of the day, while I am scared of being hurt, I am terrified of looking like a complete idiot. So, in turn, I hold onto things and they are always at the forefront of my mind.

I do truly hope to let go of those inhibitions one day and just let things come and go as the universe wishes it but I know I'll have to work hard to get there one day.

Day 1:

How does the feeling of envy show up in your life?

For me, envy shows up in the sense of self-doubt. I will look at someone's life and what they have and compare it to what I do not have or how I do not look. I will look at strangers and friends and wish that what they had was me. I will look at someone happy in their career, happy in their body, or happily in love and seethe with envy.

It always comes down to, why not me? Why am I stuck in a rut that I can't climb out of? Why are good things in life never in the cards for me?

I am always stuck in a poor me cycle and I am realizing that I am blinded by the fact that I am getting in the way of my own happiness. My negative thoughts have encompassed my life for as long as I can remember I quite simply do not know how to be anything else. But I am tired, I am tired of being someone hoping and wishing from the sidelines, and have decided to take my fate into my own hands.

I will be the catalyst of change in my life and I will shed the skin I have conformed to and start anew.

Healing is difficult and facing my trauma is one of the things that I have dreaded the most in my life but the generational curse ends with me.

In the garden and Summer, 1890s

Thomas Wilmer Dewing

aura