– Audrey Hepburn

I have spent my whole life swimming

Fighting the currents

Trying to reach the shore

But I am tired

Of giving it my all

Only for the waves to pull me back

So instead I float

To avoid drowning

I can see the shore

I can make it

If the waves don't engulf me first.

Isaac Snowman - Slumber (n.d.)

The Kelpie by Herbert James Draper (1913)

My aunt died two days ago and while we were not super close, I feel her loss so profoundly. I have experienced so much death in my almost 30 years and it never gets easier. I got to the hospital just as they were taking her away and I wish I had arrived a few minutes later. I wish I never had to see them unwrap her like a mummy so I could say goodbye. She was cocooned and buckled in and all I could do was shake. Because even though I have been to too many funerals to count, I had never been around someone who just took their last breath. All I could think about was my dad in that moment and how the last time I saw him he was basically a vegetable in the bed. I begged him to move on so that he and everyone else would no longer be suffering. At that moment, all I could think about was how is just dust in a tomb somewhere. The thought of someone just leaving this universe as if they were never even here is so unfathomable to me.

Death scares me so profoundly and sometimes I feel like it is looming over me. That at any moment my life will be taken from me and I will be just a memory for everyone around me.

Am I hiding something from myself?

One of the main things I’m hiding from myself is how badly I want to be loved and to find a man to spend the rest of my life with. I joke around and say that I’d rather be single for the rest of my life but I yearn for someone to love me wholeheartedly. And don’t say that I shouldn’t rely on someone else to feel love and that I should love myself because I do!! I love myself so much!! But what is it wrong with me that people don’t want to be with me romantically? I want to be a mother, I want someone to spend the rest of my life with, I want someone to do life with.

But I don’t want any of that with the wrong person. I refuse to subject a child to the same life I had to grow up in. So as bad as I may want it, I can wait for my time a little bit longer; I’ve already waited this long.

I believe that the universe truly has something beautiful waiting for me and I look forward to the day that it’s finally my turn. Until then, I’ll continue to hide my urge to be loved behind jokes.

Are we all just pullin' you down? [x]

what was i made for?

“ophelia” by john everett millais but it’s barbie and for the sake of this concept let’s pretend that there is in fact water in barbieland

Source details and larger version.

Connecting the dots: constellations in the skies of old.

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 9:

What do you need to stop running away from?

If there is one thing that I need to stop running from, it is change. I do not mean change around me because I am always open to learning new things and opening my mind but I mean change when it directly affects me. I hope and pray everyday to be a better version of myself but I never do anything to initiate it. At the moment, I am working out and trying to eat healthier but the little voices in my head are fighting hard and winning. I am trying to find new job opportunities and I am trying to get back to school and I am just overall trying to crawl out of this hole that I am in but I feel defeated.

Every time I think that I am finally getting somewhere, there is a new obstacle and I am so tired. I am so tired of just being and fighting and looking at others where things come so easily. I am not sure what I have done in this life or past ones but I want to change that and don't know how. I know I walked about comparing myself to others and how I need to stop that but in instances like this, it is so hard.

While this does affect me, I will not let it drag me down.