Hey, friends. It’s been a while since I’ve stopped by; are you still there? Did you wait for me?

If you didn’t, I can’t blame you.

Even I wasn’t sure I’d be back.

I hesitated writing again because I wasn’t sure anything I had to say would be of any use anymore. I’m healing, you see. A lot of my lingering pain that acted as my muse for my words here is finally draining from my body with every deep breath I’m able to take these days. It’s not completely gone, and it never truly will be. There will always be a ghost of the things I’ve lived through deep within me. It will help guide me for the rest of my life, and possibly allow me to help those close to me. Sometimes, it will resurface in a more painful way that may still bring tears to my eyes, but lately I’ve been able to look on these things with much more clarity.

In doing so, I’m able to see myself in present time more clearly as well.

Like I said, I’ve done a lot of healing in the past couple of months and tried to focus on my personal growth more than anything. It felt selfish at first, because I’ve never paid attention to myself so much before. I always made an effort to put others above myself – their needs and comfort above my own. I thought if I had sacrificed everything for the people I cared about, I would be happy. And it did make me happy in a way. But the thing about living that way is, explained perfectly by some stranger I saw on the internet, it’s not that you feel like you don’t have anyone, it’s feeling like no one has you.

I couldn’t have described that feeling any better. I always was the one to take care of others in every situation, and deal with the difficult things no one else wanted to in the hopes of relieving their discomfort, btu all I was left with was a mountain of hardships I was facing alone. Things started to fall into my lap because it was assumed I’d deal with them. People rarely asked me if I needed or wanted some help with anything, because I had showed them I could do it alone. And when I came home, it was no different. My roommates would both unload on me about their days, voicing every frustrations and grievance while I sat attentively and listened. But when it came time to ask me how my day was, for them to return the favor, they suddenly wouldn’t have the energy or mindset to talk about work anymore. They’d both grow short in their responses, never asked any questions that might show me they were interested, and had on one occasion even voiced that they couldn’t take other people’s work problems seriously after the kind of serious things they had to deal with in their jobs. Eventually, I stopped going into details about my days and would give the typical, “it was fine – busy, but fine.” Eventually I stopped caring enough to try.

But lately, I realized I’m not actually okay with that. I’m not okay with putting everyone else above me all the time. I’m not okay with never being selfish to protect myself and my feelings. I’m not okay with not voicing my opinions on things. I’m not okay with not going out and doing the fun things I want to do, just because no one wants to go with me and I might be doing it alone.

That’s not who I wanted to be anymore, so I decided to try not to be.

Honestly, it’s been going well so far. It was especially difficult at first, because every time I tried to choose myself, I felt an immense sense of guilt for it and would have to talk myself down from a near panic attack. But it’s getting easier, I’m noticing.

It’s always a little surprising when you see that self-improvement actually start to affect different aspects of your life. I guess, when you start, there’s a part of you that thinks it will never really change anything. But a lot in my life has changed so far. I’m more confident and comfortable with myself in general, and that’s translating into other parts of my life as well. I’ve been doing better in my job, which has opened up new opportunities for me. I have some trips planned out already this year, one of which being a concert I will be attending alone, but am excited for, nonetheless. This confidence and maturity has helped me approach my family and reconcile some things we’ve been sweeping under the rug for too long.

I am more stable, financially, though of course I could stand to make a bit more than I currently do!

But I’m happier overall with the life I have now, and am learning to appreciate what’s right here rather than pity myself for the “what ifs” and dreaming about how different my life could be now had things in my past worked out differently.

When the new year rolled around last month, and I saw everyone’s New Year’s resolutions they were committing to, I was reminded as I am annually around that time, that I don’t believe in setting New Year’s resolutions. And it’s not because I think myself better than other people, like I don’t need to improve myself. It’s the opposite actually – I feel the need to constantly work on myself. I don’t set goals to work on myself at the beginning of the year, because I see it as more effective if I set these goals for myself year-round. I don’t wait for the new year to decide I want to be nicer, or more organized, or go to the gym more. I set those marks as I come up with them at any time. The only issue with that is that I hadn’t been setting the right goals for myself in the past because I was blind to my biggest drawback, which was putting others above myself.

But like I said, I’ve been better about that recently.

It’s still difficult for me, and still a work-in-progress, but I can see the change already. And I’m proud of myself for that.

So, what does this all mean, and what’s the point of this post just to say I’ve been doing well and I may not have the same motivation for this I used to?

Well, first, I still love writing. I always have, even since I was a kid so it’s natural for me to want to keep this up even if I’m unsure of what it will turn into.

I don’t want to give it up, and I still find that even in times when it feels like I’m writing something incoherent or without a point, somehow even that helps. Maybe it just helps unclog my brain from all the bullshit so I can actually focus on what I want to convey next time.

Secondly, just because I’m doing better now doesn’t mean there won’t still be tough times ahead, or that I should only write about my pain. I will deal with the difficulties differently from now on, I’m sure. But there will still be times when I don’t know where else to go; or don’t know what else to do except put my pain here for you to see and maybe gain help from. With Valentine’s Day just right around the corner, I already have been feeling that sense of suffocating loneliness with everyone around me talking about their plans – I sense another post coming sometime next weekend.

But the content on here just may be slightly different moving forward, hopefully in a good way!

I didn’t think it was possible to be this happy or content with how things are, and that’s not to say I don’t hope for more in my life. I actually have more dreams than I know what do with at the moment, or have the means for. But for the first time in my life, I don’t feel weighed down by the things that shackled me in the past, and I hope you can find that too.