one of those nights

 

I had a nightmare last night and I should have seen it coming because before bed I felt a familiar depressive mood that I hadn’t felt for a while, but over the course of the day had sort of resurfaced. But before bed, I reminded myself that the feeling was temporary and in the morning I would feel better. And I did. I think for a long time I was confused about who I was – I thought I was the depression. I thought I was the isolation and the cynicism. I’d spent so much time estranged from myself that I thought that was who I was. I’ve already made this blogpost before, about being sunflowers and about acknowledging ourselves and our needs. But someone can say something and suddenly you’re 16 again and really want someone to like you, to see you.

 

The nightmare was actually about seeing something horrific, and no one acknowledging how bad it is. A true ‘it’s all in your head’ take. Perhaps, the reminder of that feeling sent me completely out of myself – the, no one will like you or love you if you talk about this. If you reveal those parts of yourself, you will be hard to love. But if no one has told you this today yet, I’ll repeat what my best friend thousands of kilometres away said while we were playing games the other morning: “You are easy to love.” You are easy to love. In fact, it’s the walls we put up in front of the vulnerable bits that make it difficult to feel or express those things. It’s the mask that keeps us from being truly seen.

 

To be loved is scary and its cringy. It’s, “let me leave all the things I thought I had to hide about myself in the open”. What happens when we start seeing our flaws as our successes instead of failures? What happens when we stop naming emotions as bad and good and just let ourselves be. Like, leave yourself alone. You’ve done so much, and you try so hard. You’re doing so well. Even when you make a mistake, we all make mistakes, it’s incredibly human – you’re just being your species. This year, taking responsibility for my depression and how it affected my relationships was the number one thing to uncovering my unhappiness. “Why didn’t they choose me?”, “Why didn’t they reply to my message?”, “How do I change myself to make them like me?”. Why do they have to like me? If I’m not important to them, why am I waiting for them when I can meet someone else who thinks I’m important? I needed to stop thinking I knew what my happiness looked like and let it show itself me to instead. Even when it was uncomfortable, even when it was different, but sticking it out because I can’t leave myself behind again.