i’ve been feeling bored. although i’m secretly a little pleased about the school closures, it’s going to be a month of strangeness, and i’m not sure how i’m going to live with myself for so long. i think i am bored of Myself. i wish i could become someone else for a change, and see things differently. i’m too used to my own joy/struggles. i want to experience someone else’s; that would be so interesting!!!

i’ve been itching to write poetry lately, but i don’t really have anything to write about. i miss the satisfaction it brings! i miss the catharsis! i’ll try to write something later tonight… when it is dark and quiet, and my mind is (hopefully) most clear.

today i saw dr S, but there wasn’t very much to talk about. i told him how unpredictable my state of mind has been. i keep thinking in extremes, in a dangerous all-or-nothing. it’s something that will be difficult to unlearn. i will work on it, slowly. i hope the pain lessens, little by little.

it is a rainy thursday evening. today i’ve experienced a flurry of emotions, good/verygood/bad/verybad…? but i am on my way home now, and i am feeling an incredible sense of calm. i am grateful for moments like these, when my mind is quiet, when i can engage in calm existential questioning without it descending into yet another 3am cry fest. i am so grateful… there really is much to think about today.

[about ki] it feels weird, to know that fate is no longer in My hands. now all i have to do is wait. it is scary and yet at the same time oddly relieving. i have written my emails, i have said what i wanted to say, and now all i can do is to pray about it. and wait.

[about hands] i am grateful for the gentle probing, for the friends who wait, patiently. i am grateful that they ask without pushing for an answer. i am grateful for boundaries.

[about slowing down] i’ve been trying to slow down, i think the speed contributes to the frenzy. i took my time in the morning today. i found time to pet mika, replenish her hay. maybe time isn’t really as limited as i used to think it was.

[about connection] i’m glad you can trust me, and i’m glad i can trust you. friendship isn’t calculative and transactional!!!we just help each other as much as we can and the “much as we can” bit varies for each individual. :0 i’m glad you’re here.

. i am very scared right now. sometimes it feels like my life is dominated by Fear and Guilt. when i feel these feelings it is hard to feel anything else, i want to leave.

; but life will get better, it has to. there are moments of Happiness in every day, no matter how fleeting they may seem. this transient happiness and gratitude can tide me over and maybe i shall stay.

. this feeling… i’ve experienced it for days, months, years, and yet each time it’s different. it twists and morphs and shape-shifts into… something else. a black dog. an anchor. a hill. a valley. it’s always so familiar yet so foreign. maybe i’ll never learn.

; you will. things will get better with time. you are young and there is so much you don’t know. it is okay not to know. it is okay for something so familiar to feel so foreign. you’ll never truly understand the illness. no one will.

. is it worth it, putting up such a fight? i’ve been fighting for a long time, you know. i think i’m getting tired now. maybe i’m too fragile for this battle.

; you have done this again, and again, and you will do it yet again tomorrow. you will grit your teeth, and go. to. school.

(an ((irrational)) stream of consciousness)

(i think a lot and i know i’m not thinking very productively, i ask questions and i let them stew inside my head, i am bad at problem-solving. i try to find answers but my quest for the Answer always only leads to more questions, i want to learn how to think critically. logically. rationally. i am deeply interested in philosophy and the very foundation of thought. i want to learn about the most powerful/destructive tool we have, our mind. ki is such an amazingly useful subject because it is actually directly applicable to all aspects of my life. i know it’s going to be tough. i know. i want to learn something that challenges me, that excites my soul. i’ve known i wanted ki from the start but i kept trying to convince myself that i didn’t because i was afraid… but i’ve been strangely unhappy with the subject combi i am taking now. i realise i’ve lost my joy for learning. i want it back. i want it back.)

i’m afraid of losing what i have now, and of losing things i’ve yet to have. there is this fear bubbling inside me all the time, and sometimes it is hard to shove it deep down within myself and pretend it isn’t there.

i’ve always been very, very anxious, but as irrational as i often am, i think logic grounds me. i need to know what, why, how. as i get older i begin to realise the sheer magnitude of what i do not know and it unsettles me greatly… i think i’m impatient. i want to be in the know. i want to climb out of the pit of irrationality i have fallen into. i wish i were… wiser. calmer. stronger. there are some things i know i can only learn with time but the impatient part of me wants to get to that stage, now. i told Z i wish i were more mature, and she laughed at me. “no one your age has life figured out,” she said. oops!!!! i am overly jumpy and jittery about it i think. perhaps i need to Trust in the universe, and Trust that i will eventually get to where i’m meant to be.

i will probably look back at this and laugh. every year, i think of what i’ve been like the past year and c r i n g e. i’ll probably feel the same next year, and the year after that, and the year after that. i think it’s good to recognise that i have (i hope?) grown, but maybe it’s not so good to be embarrassed about the person i once was (or maybe still am). i need to learn to be comfortable with myself, past and present… :O i am still very painfully insecure about who i am.

but i know (because Wise People have told me,) it’ll get better with time.

i am turning seventeen on friday and i am confused. birthdays are very confusing. what am i even supposed to feel on my birthday? it feels strange to celebrate… yourself.

but i guess i don’t have to if i don’t want to. i never really know what to do when people start singing and everyone is looking at you. it’s strangely uncomfortable but nevertheless i appreciate it very much. i think, maybe i’m just embarrassed.

i am very bad at receiving compliments of any sort and i’ve realised how unhealthy it is. today i received notes and cards from friends and reading them made me feel touched but at the same time embarrassed (?) it feels strange to read nice things about you. it’s one thing to give love, it’s another to receive it. i am just very, very bad at receiving love, i think. for some reason i subconsciously find it… humiliating? i don’t know.

(you can’t receive love if you don’t even love yourself. you will hold a shield up against yourself, deflecting all the love that comes your way, because to you, you don’t deserve it. i think i understand it now, why you need to love yourself first.)

the idea of self-love still makes me shudder. i guess it is difficult to swing to the other extreme when self-hatred is all you’ve known for a while now. maybe i don’t have to love myself. maybe it’s okay that i just find myself… acceptable. i am not a great person, but i am not particularly bad either. i am… okay. and for now i hope that is enough.

(i am overwhelmed!my brain isn’t working)

things have been good and bad, and bad and good. i am confused by the duality of it all. life is so simple yet complex. so beautiful yet sinister. i’m so terrified but at the same time i think (…?) i’m in awe.

how do you find beauty in suffering? that is something i can’t seem to wrap my head around. tonight i watched a movie about the syrian war (For Sama) that reminded me of all the unspeakable horrors life can throw at us. a stroke of (un)luck, and i could have been living a life of blood, tears, helplessness. how do you make sense of a senseless war? how do you stay grounded when all that you know and love is uprooted? i am overwhelmed with questions i don’t have answers to. all i know is that i am very, very grateful for the life i have now.

(ps. give thanks without turning your gratitude into guilt)

Your comfort delights my soul.’ psalms 94:19

today i slipped back into old habits. the thick fog had surrounded me and i was trying to run away, i was trying to pretend it wasn’t there. i slept, a lot. i scrolled through my phone mindlessly. i stared at the blank screen, my fingers hovering above the keyboard, writing, deleting, writing again.

i’ve been feeling, a lot! i’ve been overfeeling but i’m not exactly sure if i’ve been overthinking. my mind seems surprisingly emptied. i don’t think i’m thinking. i’m not sure why i feel so bad because i can’t figure out the thoughts that caused these negative feelings. ah oops, emotional reasoning :0 yet another cognitive distortion i’ve fallen for! (i feel __, so i must be __.)

maybe i am too obsessed with finding a “why” for anything and everything. i’m sad. i don’t know why. remember, there’s no point mulling over it for hours. it’s not going to make me magically understand the root of my sadness! life goes on.

i am overwhelmed, but it doesn’t prove anything. emotion is not fact. i am overwhelmed but that doesn’t prove the present circumstance is too much for me to handle. it is but an automatic feeling. in sec one miss j showed me a diagram of a brain, and she pointed to a strange knobbly part of it and said, “the amygdala, it triggers your fight-or-flight! yours is probably a little overreactive and that’s okay.”

that’s okay. this sadness/PAIN/unease/worry are only feelings. only feelings. they cannot actually hurt you, unless you let them.

unless you let them >:•(

i haven’t been writing lately because there are some things i’ve been avoiding thinking about. my heart has been bitter; i feel like it is squirming and writhing within my chest cavity. how do you think about something you’ve suppressed for so long, too long? i think i’ve forgotten why i’m hurting.

meanwhile, i’ve been enjoying these scattered, fleeting moments of happiness, when i wake up from a nice dream, when my sister laughs. when i spend time in the balcony, when i keep the laundry. when i find my old stuffed animal. when i watch my dad tend to the plants. there is so much pain and happiness in every given moment if i let myself feel it.

i’ve been very, very confused, and i know for sure that i’ll continue feeling this way, probably for a long time.

(This is how it works / You’re young until you’re not / You love until you don’t / You try until you can’t / You laugh until you cry / You cry until you laugh / And everyone must breathe / Until their dying breath / No, this is how it works / You peer inside yourself / You take the things you like / And try to love the things you took / And then you take that love you made / And stick it into some / Someone else’s heart / Pumping someone else’s blood / And walking arm in arm / You hope it don’t get harmed / But even if it does / You’ll just do it all again)