Heal

I write. It’s the one thing I know how to do to process the jumbled chaos inside. I capture the happiness, the anger, the sadness, the confusion, and I try to make sense of it all through writing. If I don’t write about whatever’s clouding my mind, the thoughts become entangled and sooner rather than later, I can’t distinguish one from the other. My brain goes into overdrive, and in turn, I find myself at the edge, desperately waiting for a lifeline.

“The pain you feel now will subside and become a mere memory of something that made you stronger in the end.”

Sometimes it’s hard as hell to give things a place. It’s why I write… so I can give a memory, a person, a thing, the place that they belong in my mind and in my heart. Healing from it requires a specific kind of strength. One that makes your jaw clench to fight back the tears, to feel your heart crumbling to pieces. And yet, right when you think you’ve moved on, the thoughts creep back in and you’re sitting on the floor with red eyes and fighting to breathe. When enough time has passed, you find yourself managing to get off the floor, and moving forward. It’s a long process, and even the strongest among us get hit down from time to time. What may be the most comforting thought to me, is that I’m never alone. For me, it’s the people that come to sit down next to me, that offer their hand and a hug, those who are there even when you both know they don’t have the time. It is the belief that you’ll get through whatever hardship was brought upon you this time, it is people telling you that it’ll be okay, that the pain you feel now will subside and become a mere memory of something that made you stronger in the end.

“What I know is that I need to be buoy my friends and family search for in the ocean when all seems lost.”

I’d say 12/10 times, I forget myself. A friend of mine recently told me that ‘wearing your heart on your sleeve’ perfectly encapsulates my personality. I’m not sure what to make of that, but I do know that all my life, I have put myself last. I sometimes keep myself up at night, wondering how it’s going with each of my friends. Even when it feels like I’m carrying the world on my shoulders, I shake it off and pin it further down the road, as if that will make it less important. What I know is that I need to be the buoy my friends and family search for in the ocean when all seems lost. And I like to believe that I can do that, that I can stay afloat forever. But I get tired, like everyone does. I lose sight of myself and I let my heart open for too long that each time, it gets more difficult to mend the pieces back together. I forget that I need time to heal, to process the losses in life. My losses. I’ve recently spent a lot of time alone, and somehow gotten through many lonely nights. This time, I was the one swimming in the ocean, looking for a sign. Anything to give me a reason to hang on. To make me believe that it’ll get better.

So I continued writing. I wrote pages and pages, text messages, letters even. To set my mind at ease, to clear the path in my head. And after everything this year has so far brought me, there’s two things I now know better than ever: you never have to walk alone & the sun will rise again.