Like most self-indulgent creatives, I have always loved keeping journals. A Food Journal to keep up with my eating habits, a Productivity Journal to hold myself accountable for my time, money and resources, A Gratitude Journal to help me count my blessings, and a Healing Journal to keep a record of all the lessons I'm learning on the journey of finding myself. I also completed the Self-discovery Journal, the Femininity Journal and Letting Go Journal that I thoughtfully designed for the wellness journey of the eldest daughter.
I have always thought that one day I would be famous one day, so I figured one day the rest of the world would care a great deal about what my healing journey has been like or what I wanted to be when I grew up. I cling to those journals for dear life, knowing that they will be my future’s only connection to my present. When I'm rich and famous, they will humble me and keep me grounded because they are a reminder of how far I have come.
Yesterday, after organizing my impressive collection of old journals neatly on bookshelf, I pulled out one of them and began to read from random pages. My heart sank slowly as I took in the familiar scrawl. My breathing grew shallow—every new line just sucked more breath out of my lungs. The air in the room grew increasingly heavy and I lowered myself to the floor under the weight of it. I kept trying to focus on the words, but my head begged my hands to close the journal. After a few more minutes of struggling, I had to admit defeat. These journals were filled with pain, and haunted by the mindsets I once thrived on, swimming in the despair that used to be my normal. I took a deep breath, closed the journal, and decided to packed all my journals back into the box in the closet to gather dust until the next time I gathered courage. I wasn’t yet ready to look past me in the eye.
I went about my chores but I kept thinking about how nobody thought I would come this far. I have watched the people I love distance themselves from me when I was at my lowest, while some got comfortable with hurting and disrespecting me because they thought my best days were behind me. But no matter how much I suffered then, nothing felt as lonely and overwhelming as living in that 6 feet by 8 feet room in Madaraka with a knowing that I'm navigating life and adulthood alone. Before that, there were other traumatic moments and challenges that came with being a firstborn daughter and they felt just as overwhelming.
They weren't joking when they said life is hard.
Some of us however, have been great at adapting to difficult situations, dealing with difficult/toxic people, disassociating from difficult emotions and putting up a good front despite how bad things got.
That will not be me anymore though. While there are those that love watching me struggle and I hate giving them something to talk about, there are also those that cheer me on and get inspired by my success. That love, support and growth would not be available to me if I wasn't vulnerable. That's why I talk about my pain and struggles. Some people, escape theirs, others distract themselves, others even deny the existence of their pain. I choose to write about it on this little corner of the internet and in my journal.
I work really freaking hard to be happy and love myself, but life still sucks sometimes. It’s not fair. Sometimes all my efforts seem to amount to nothing, and I feel like I haven’t really come that far at all. I was recently contacted by someone close to me who was concerned about something I had said in a previous blog post. I had mentioned that I used to bawl my eyes out on the floor all the time, you know, just mourning my struggle with anxiety and depression and all, and she had reached out to ask me about it. She was worried about me; she wished she could have been there for me. I thanked her for her concern, explained that she didn’t need to feel bad, and that was that. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Because, really?! Is this actually news for any of us? This whole “I bawl my eyes out about life on a regular basis” thing—this is not an anomaly, correct? Haven’t we all had really difficult seasons in our lives? I don’t ask these questions to sound cute. It’s just that from my lived experience, a whole lot of us feel the hurt of being alive for a good portion of our lives— especially a lot of artistically inclined people. I think it’s part of the packaged deal of being human. In fact, I am a little suspicious about anyone who doesn’t feel sad for a healthy chunk of the time, or at least every once in a while. Maybe not bawling-on-the-floor sad, but, you know, feeling things.
I think there’s a difference between feeling things deeply—including the hurt and the conflict and the confusion—and letting our feelings stop us from living full lives. I don’t think I have clinical depression. What I do think is that I am showing up for life day after day, even though most of the time it hurts. I don’t want this to be discouraging or melodramatic. I have no intention of living in perpetual suffering or throwing my hands up and saying, “I guess this is just the way it is.” What I’m really trying to do is make peace with this idea of being happy and hurting simultaneously. As you know, I believe in peace and happiness, in joy and fulfillment. I believe I can go several days in a row feeling pretty great and content, as I usually do. I put a whole lot of energy into choosing joy. I believe God wants me to be happy and is eager to support me in this. But I still feel hurt just as often—if not even more—as I feel joy, so I just sometimes have to conclude that being alive hurts. Am I doing life wrong?
I don't think so. I don't think happiness is some level in life that you reach if you work hard enough at it or if you prove enough times that you are a good person. It’s an ever-fluctuating journey of living one’s life, and life often includes a heck of a lot of struggle, confusion, and pain. I think most of us are sad and lonely a lot more than we let on. For me, just knowing this is the case can help take the guilt out of being sad and help me chill out long enough to catch my breath, recenter, and maybe help me feel a little better.
All that being said, I’m in no way always Zen or evolved enough to do grown things like “forgiving and forgetting” or “suffering in silence” when my world is crashing down. When life is coming at me hard, I turn to my go-to techniques like crying my eyes out, eat ice cream and cursing peole out in my journals. These things have their place. You need to treat your fragile heart gently, and when your body is begging for a glass of sweet red wine, it’s okay to give in. But I’m guessing that’s not really the same thing as loving yourself through your pain. It’s more of being empathetic to yourself. It’s like sticking a pacifier in a baby’s mouth to make it shut up. Solutions inspired by genuine self-love is ideally both comforting and helpful rather than being motivated by criticism and self-hate.
It would be a crime to talk about survival without discussing the brilliance of journaling in a bit more depth. By now, you know I’m a total journaling addict. I can’t imagine my life, or myself, without it. It helps me slow down the days and to mark a moment in time that I can then revisit later if I choose. The act of pausing and recording where I’m at at any given time helps me objectively see how I’m growing and where I’m at in my journey.
Sometimes, I look back on old entries and feel like a proud mama, marveling at how far I have come. Other times, I read passages and feel bummed that something I struggled with a few years back is still totally affecting me today.
Start the journalling today with a love letter to yourself that gushes about how fabulous you are, and promise yourself that no matter what happens or what drama fills the pages ahead, you are committed to honoring yourself and not using your journal as a means to beat yourself up.
(If you liked this article, you might also enjoy My Kind of Sad, Overcoming Intrusive Thoughts and Things I Have Learnt From People that Hate me)
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