learning to live with myself

understanding and being alone

i woke up this morning, late, sore from the yoga class i went to last night. i looked outside and it was damp, traces of rain already half-dried on my window. no text back from you. or any texts at all, for that matter. only silence.

i sit at the kitchen counter and i drink my two cups of coffee. i try to read- it doesn’t last long. nothing does these days. it all feels very still, very slow. i try to make something of it, to spend time doing meaningful things. things that are supposed to make me feel better. they don’t, though. i sit in the park, i read, i make art. and it all comes back to you.

i don’t know how to feel. there are no answers to the questions i am asking myself. i try to explain, i try to talk through it, but i repeat the same things over and over. i have run out of things to say. i try to justify feeling so sick, so stuck. i think it only hurts because it felt so good. it felt so real. it doesn’t anymore, at least not most of the time.

i place a lot of my self-image in the hands of others. i’ll let you decide how i feel about myself, i’ll lose myself just to make things seem easier. i know i shouldn’t do this. i try not to, but it’s second nature. i slip back into old habits, old mindsets. i forget myself.

i was alone in the city for a few days, not too long ago. i spent most of that time wallowing, counting my days in the number of movies i could watch. i cried on thanksgiving and i bought a homeless man chicken. he said thank you but somehow that made me feel worse. i cried because i feel very alone in the world, but also because i realize that i’m not. i am plagued by this self-awareness, this realization that my problems are trivial and often unsubstantiated. this doesn’t stop them from hurting me. it almost makes it worse. i am aware that i need to get over it, i am aware that i am more than this, i am aware that i am surrounded by love in more ways than i can count. but none of it can distract me for long enough.

i miss my friends more than words can describe. my world is so small but also so big, and right now everyone is spread out, spread thin. i make lists of people that i love, i convince myself that i am not alone. it’s still hard. to be surrounded by people, to be busy all the time, to have someone truly take care of you- and then to have it all drift away.

and so it’s summer in december, me waking up before you and writing and reading and drinking my coffee. i am back to living in my head, this time with a new sense of desperation and longing. a realization that i had something good, even if it doesn’t feel like it ever really existed. i must live with myself now. i am learning to live with myself. i get up and i get dressed, i make myself go outside. i am doing things that are good for me even if they don’t feel good right now.

this morning i woke up, sad, but at peace. i understand now. things are not always in my control. i still must learn to live with myself. things take time, life moves slowly. you cannot let other people determine how you feel about yourself. it’s almost upsetting, sometimes, that there is a lesson in everything. i want to be mad at the world, but i understand. i understand why this had to happen.

it’s just you. at the end of the day, as lonely as it sounds, it’s just you and the world. no relationship or friendship will ever change that. sometimes i think that’s beautiful, sometimes i think it’s the worst truth ever told. it’s true nonetheless. i am learning to be by myself, to take care of myself, to love myself. i am all i have for the rest of my life- i want to be okay with that. i will be.