“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”
― Anaïs Nin
I feel like the floodgates are opening. Like I'm falling, floating, sinking and swimming all at once. Like maybe, I'm feeling things for the first time in my life. Sure, I've always felt things - regardless of how much I've denied it, wanted to believe it wasn't the case or was convinced that I was in fact, not human. But, I've rarely let myself feel things... ya know, in the way that you first accept and acknowledge the fact that you're feeling something and then give it the opportunity to run free, twist, turn, scream, yell, dance around and be everything it needs to be at the time.
For the life of me, I can't understand why I've always been so terrified of emotions, of feeling things, of admitting that I'm human. All I know is that somewhere along the way (very early along the way), I came to the conclusion that I wasn't supposed to be weak, that things weren't supposed to bother me, and that somehow, the world demanded this of me and wouldn't accept me any other way. Apparently, I've done a decent job of fooling most of the people I've met over the years or maybe I was just fooling myself. Either way, I completely adopted and embraced the tough girl routine. Fake it till you make it, right? Riiiight.
It's almost comical, in that ridiculous way that only life can be, how we come to be the people that we are. How one thing leads to another and from there things that are good or bad, grow and develop from whatever foundation of ideas and beliefs have taken deep root in our brains and hearts. How who we feel we are and who we think we should be often end up in bed together wrapped tightly in sheets made of cognitive dissonance creating this other person entirely.
And then, it gets nearly palm to the face ridiculous when you finally come to a place where you can take a few steps back, look at all of these conflicting ideas and wonder why in the hell any of us ever think, for even one second, that we have to be something or aren't allowed to be something else. It's fucking absurd. Seriously. Think about it... We all have at least a few of these ideas or beliefs floating around in us that we ultimately take on as part of who we are, either internally or externally. We develop fears (mostly irrational ones), about who or how we should be and then let it hinder, weigh us down and then ultimately let it impact how we live our lives, the chances we take, and the dreams we're willing to go after.
I don't remember anyone in my life ever telling me that I wasn't allowed to or shouldn't have feelings. Not once. In fact, I remember people telling me I was building walls. Walls that at one point in time, China would have been envious of. Yet, there I was completely convinced that becoming some robot girl was the way it had to be. That it was the only way I could be. What's amusing is that as far as I was concerned, emotions and feelings were always perfectly acceptable for everyone else to have - just so I didn't have to deal with them myself. I felt a sense of shame and embarrassment at any drops of emotion that somehow managed to trickle in through an unknown crack in my carefully crafted walls.
As the years went on, I got better and better at patching cracks, reinforcing walls, and keeping everything and everyone out. All while keeping a huge part of me tucked away and hidden from the world. A part of me, that no matter how hard I tried to shut up and block out, never gave up dreaming that someday she would find a way to escape, breaking down all the walls in the process.
My fortress was safe. And for whatever reason, it was apparently necessary for me and my life. But you know what... the world just isn't any fun in a fortress built for one. It's flat, lacks meaning and is lonely beyond belief. It's debilitating and limiting and while it served its purpose for a lot of years, it was time for it to go.
I wrote most of this the other month and then stopped because it got to be too much. I wanted to finish it and I wanted to share it, but I managed to talk to myself out of it. Today, I decided to talk myself back into it. I think this was definitely something that I had to write. Something that I needed to acknowledge. Something that I now need to throw out into the universe and start to let go of.
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