21 forever

I always mistook discomfort for bad news. Anything even sort of remotely maybe wrong sent up all the red flags, warning signs, alarm bells.

I never bothered to figure out why. So, even though I was learning to be with myself, I wasn’t getting to really know who I was. I wasn’t putting two and two together. Not searching for cause of my effects.

I was sitting there with a stomach ache thinking, “this sucks” instead of thinking, “did I eat something that caused this?”

So I chose to start noticing. To hear my words from other peoples ears and ask myself if I was a person I would be friends with. To listen to my intuition and see people for who they really are. To change my perspective from “why me?” to “why did this happen?” and not to blame myself but just to understand the course of events that led me here.

You know that feeling when you’re in the water and you lay on your back with your ears underneath but your face is out? In that moment where you just feel really sort of light and unimportant. And you feel quiet. I’ve been giving myself a lot of that time. Where I can take a hit of any kind and just sort of absorb it and manage it rather than have it knock me over entirely. A lot of that feeling is forgiveness.

Forgiveness

“I forgive myself because I now understand that I did my very best for what I knew at the time”

I didn’t always know what I know now and I don’t hold it against me anymore.

For a very very very long time I was hard on myself for being the “problem child.” The kid who always has to argue everything or hated when her food touched or didn’t want to wear the pink coat if someone asked me to.

Then I kind of wrote myself off as a problem. Always. And stared in the mirror for long periods of time wondering what makes me so inconvenient, and why everyone’s path looks the same and mine looks kinda completely different.

Haleigh at 22 can set the record straight for you now, you were just a kid then. You didn’t know better and you shouldn’t have had to. You were never a problem and you are not an alien for being different than the people around you (times that by a million if you’re living in a small town).

And your responsibility as you get a little bit older is first to realize that, and second to know that you will have to be okay with that by yourself. Lots of people who have preconceived ideas of you in their head won’t change their mind about you and you’ll have to be okay with that. Even if those people are family.

Lots of people are going to be committed to misunderstanding you. I’m sorry that’s going to happen.

I made it clear for myself (and it’s taken me all this time so far) but I’m not a bad person for doing things for myself that affect me and only me, even if someone else “would’ve done it differently.”

If you ever feel like a bad person remember that bad people don’t care about getting better. Forgive yourself for being who you are.

You don’t have to be perfect to be loved.

I’ll leave the lesson on forgiveness here with this:

“You cannot live alone on the fantasies that feed your mind, eventually you have to touch your life for real, assess and analyze your habits, understand your character, try not to hate yourself for your character as it was shaped when you were very young by circumstances outside of you, expose yourself to more uncomfortable situations, ask yourself why you want to leave that friendship before you leave it, raise your anxiety levels on purpose so that you can grow, and so your life can be experienced by you in full and in reality.

It’s very hard work.”

Loneliness

“A lot of times we are angry at other people for not doing what we should have done for ourselves.”

Somebody told me that anger is the part of you that believes in your justice. That it’s the part of you that loves you. Anger is the way you defend yourself in the same way you defend your friends.

Trying not to be angry at things starts out feeling really lonely. It feels like you’re starting to bottle things up instead of feel them out - this is not true. Anger is a reaction, not a response. Learn that you can feel angry at things and people without outwardly expressing it. Remember that this is your emotions fighting for you. Let your guard down.

You’ll feel madly alone. Firstly because, without anger, you are left with the more raw emotions like sadness and fear. And secondly, because you’ll begin to see people around you reacting in anger and feel sorry for them rather than confused.

A man honked at me while I was merging onto the highway yesterday, I must have been going too slow. I saw a dream catcher hanging on his rear view, like the one I have in mine. So I thought on some level, we’re kind of the same. I wished he’d have known that.

Understanding reactions is what elevates your self understanding to the next level. Because you’ll ask why instead of being upset.

Wildly unspecial

“You’ve mastered survival mode, now it’s time to live.”

There will be days (more than a few) where you’ll come to realize the averageness of yourself. You’ll see for yourself that things you thought you did as an individual are more common than you think, and that person you thought treated you special really treats everyone like that. You’ll notice one day that nobody texts you after you leave to ask to hang out or see if you’re okay.

Take comfort in this.

It means that you’ll never be the only person to mess up. You’ll never be the first or last person to do a thing. You’ll have embarrassing moments and on top of the world never-been-never-will-be-cooler-than-this moments too. You’ll be alone with yourself, without the burden of impressing or entertaining someone. There’s certainty in similarity.

Some days, you’re gonna look up from the bench and realize nobody’s on your team. And in that permanent, excruciating moment, you will remember that at the very least, you’re valuable enough to play in the first place.

And you’re special too, even if you feel wildly unspecial now.

You’re a complete person, someone who has a handwriting style anyone can recognize, a preference for floral patterns, an aversion to mushrooms. Everything you do gives you away. To the people who surround you, you are completely special.

Okay again

"If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch."

It turns out life doesn’t start when you think it does. It doesn’t just magically start happening “when I graduate” or “when I get married.” It turns out there’s no key that opens up the door to the real world. If you keep acting like the next big thing is your catapult into your “real life,” you will continue to be disappointed by each ordinary passing day.

Some time ago, you only dreamed of being where you are now.

This goes for you as a human being, too. You don’t just magically get better, or wake up one day and know yourself. It takes someone who doesn’t respect your boundaries to learn where they lay. It takes living back at home to realize where you want to go. It takes heartbreak to know peace.

You don’t learn all that at once, sadly. And that’s why healing is not an easy thing to do. Life, as it is now, is going to show you a lot about yourself that you wouldn’t have otherwise found. And you, as you are now, are going to live an extraordinary life you wouldn’t have otherwise planned.

You’ll be okay again.

Forget living for the future, it’s selfish to think we might ever get there. Be okay right now, look around at your life and notice you last year, who couldn’t imagine what life would be like. Even if it’s sucks, it’s yours to keep. Yours to change.

Twenty two

Twenty two years of me. Can you believe that!! I’m getting old!

This is the age I used to wish I could be. Haleigh at 11 couldn’t wait to drive a fancy car, be done school, have a million boyfriends (if anyone wants to, ya know, make that one happen), dress stylish, have so many friends, and be happy.

I’m the Haleigh I always wished I could be one day. *tears*

Someone told me I’ll be 21 forever so I’ll hold that close. I hope 22 reminds me that being lonely and unspecial sometimes is still okay. That being authentic and vulnerable is okay. That getting older is okay. I hope it reminds me that life is constantly happening, constantly existing, constantly reintroducing me to the real world, and that there is no “when” there is only now.

I think little me would be jumping for joy right now.

⁃ a note to self, this time.