one week later.

Hey all!

The support and love I’ve received the past week has been amazing. My heart is overflowing with love. All the support and love has inspired me to start writing again. A whole year since I wrote something. The last time I let my words spill on paper was for a man who didn’t deserve me or my words. For a long time after that I had refused to let the words escape me out of fear. And fear can be a hell of a drug, my friend. But I’m slowly overcoming my fear, all thanks to you guys. So thank you, thank you, thank you.

Things are getting better. Slowly but surely. I'm enjoying my own company once again. I’m writing. Reading. Going gym. Booking my summer holidays and making plans. Focusing on the good. Last night I dressed up for a night out with my friend, done my hair and makeup and I felt like my old self again - confident, independent, fearless, social, positive and happy. It has been a while since I dressed up and FELT GOOD and confident in my own skin. It was a great night. I actually put aside my phone and enjoyed the life around me.

My mind has been so busy with negativity lately that I forgot what positivity tasted like - freedom. For weeks and weeks I felt like I was locked up, mentally, physically and emotionally. Like a hamster on a wheel, going round and round but really going nowhere. The past week I’ve learned that only YOU can save YOU. Weird thing is I’ve always told my friends - you can’t save someone, only love them -, but I had forgotten to take my own advice. The past year I relied too heavily on others to save me. I guess we all need to fall down and crash in order to get back up, better and stronger than before. It still terrifies me that I am going to return to that negative bitter person. But I refuse to go back there. I am now learning to breathe and remember that patience is key. It will take time but I will get there. Time is everything. Your mind. Your soul. Your body. Your heart. Every part of you will heal in time.

In this new chapter, I am learning not to hold grudges and to stop OVERTHINKING. I am an over-thinker. I spend so much time and energy overthinking everything. I mean everything! One of the reasons I been so down lately was that I overthought people’s inability to stay in my life. I felt everyone was leaving me so easily, from my best friend to friends to guys, without so much as a backward glance. I blamed myself. I questioned myself. I am now learning that sometimes people leave and you just don’t get a closure and that is okay.  My new motto - if people want to leave, let them leave. It doesn’t make them nor YOU a bad person. It doesn’t define you. Just stop investing in people who don’t care if you were to stick around or not. Stop over-thinking their absence. Stop allowing people to stroke their ego with your attention. They don’t deserve it. Just stop feeding people who order plates to go. Only love those who sit at your table beside you.

Which brings me to my next question - why is being selfish considered such a bad thing? I’ve always been told - a good person thinks of others first. But to what degree do you put others before yourself? Can we ever measure how much of ourselves we give to our friends? How much is too much? And how much is too less that we actually get called ‘selfish’ and a ‘bad’ person?  This past week as I’ve been focusing more on myself, I found many faults from my end, which has left me with questions such as - Do I simply expect too much from people? Is that where I go wrong? See my problem is I am not a selfish person. I don’t know how to be selfish. Simply put - If I love you than your problems become my problems. That's the kind of person I am. It has always been one of my favourite qualities but lately I find myself not only being let down by my closest ones due to my own expectations but also being emotionally and mentally drained. Numerous people numerous times have told me to be more selfish, to put myself and my feelings first and to focus more on myself. I’ve been told to not drift with people’s problems whilst trying to help them out, to remember that I am not a psychiatrist and I can not fix everything. And it's true, I think I need to learn that being selfish is actually not a bad thing but in fact a self-responsibility in order to be happy. Putting your happiness and well-being before others should be a priority. It helps to recharge your energy so therefore you can be your most happy and productive and meaningful self. One cannot make others happy if one is not mentally, physically and emotionally happy themselves. Loving yourself is a simple way of being responsible for managing and regulating your own feelings so you don’t take out your anger or neediness on other people. And that is exactly where I was as my depression closed in - my self-love and self-esteem down in the dumps which of course led me to dump my anger and neediness on the closest people around me. We are always so quick to give our loved ones confidence boost when they're feeling down, yet so so hard on ourselves. And why do we expect the credit from others to make ourselves feel better instead of uplifting ourselves? Self love isn’t selfish, it's important. At the end of the day - you’re all you’ve got.

Last but not the least - always have hope. Know that no matter how dark it gets, there is a light end of the tunnel. But it's only up to YOU to flick the switch on. Hell, change the light bulb if you have to! Just please don’t let the darkness define you. It's a sad, miserable and lonely place and you deserve much much better than that. Life is beautiful. Scary as fuck but beautiful nonetheless. I know now its okay to dance in the rain. What is a bit of rain after a hurricane aye?

Like Taylor Swift once said: “Being fearless isn’t being 100 percent not fearful; it’s being terrified but you jump anyway.”