5.12.24: A year going by in a flash – Part 2 ~ May to August

 

May 2024: How do I start to truly believe in myself? I think that question is one of my main issues. I don't actually believe in myself, in my own skills, my achievements, my abilities, my future. Part of that is because I don't see myself really belonging, belonging in this world, belonging anywhere really and that's another aspect I have to work on. But it starts with me not believing in myself.

How am I truly supposed to get anywhere, much less where I want to be, if I don't believe I can ever get there? If every little step I take feels somewhat in vain anyway, what's the point? Why do I even bother? Of course I know and actually believe that there are a lot of great things about the journey alone. Really the journey is the goal. The goal itself is just a nice little bonus, the cherry on top.

Is it the same with believing in myself? Is the fact that I am starting this journey of learning to believe in myself already where I want to be, the actual goal with the end result I am aiming for only being the bonus? I guess that is a way to take off the pressure. Sometimes I need pressure but sometimes it just feels crushing and makes everything worse. I need the right amount of pressure.

I am not yet entirely sure how exactly I can build up my belief in myself. Changing my negative belief of not being good enough, my skills not meaning anything and my achievements being pointless is one very important step, but I think there is more to it. Just telling myself that I am in fact enough, that I have great skills and use them all the time, that I am proud of my achievements and they will get me where I want to be, will only be able to do so much. It's the very basic foundation, the first brick and I need many more to have a stable ground to stand on.

But I'll figure it out. I can do this. I tell myself that all the time and I do believe that, I really do. It just takes time, dedication, determination and some hard work, but that's okay. I am now in a place where I can start working on myself and building myself up, starting by believing in myself.

June 2024: I have so many swirling thoughts about 'Being who I want to be' swirling in my head. It so often feels like something impossible to achieve, almost even feels like a lie, a deception. Of course I can't just be who I want to be. How is that supposed to work? It takes effort and time and dedication and all those sorts of things that I don't always or even rarely have. So how the hell am I just supposed to be who I want to be!?

The truth is that I already have achieved a lot. I am already the person I want to be in many ways. If I went back only a few years I would be incredibly impressed with the things I have managed to do and with that how I have come closer to being who I want to be.

Writing everyday or at least writing a lot was something I always saw as part of who I want to be and I was already doing that for years and years and yes, I fell off a bit recently, but I am working my way back into it and the fact that I already did it for many years, that I am dedicated to getting there again, that I feel this joy and passion and need to write by itself already shows that I am a writer, that I write regularly, that I create characters and worlds and stories, that writing is my passion, my calling. That has been something that I already am for a long long time. That part of being who I want to be I already reached and I am proud of that.

Doing Yoga pretty much every day or at least every other day, again regularly, but actually daily for the most part, is another big achievement that is part of who I want to be. I am someone that does Yoga a lot, that loves Yoga and that through Yoga is more active, more mentally and emotionally stable, calmer, more at peace, more connected. It's lovely. It's something I am so proud of and something that makes me happy every single day.

Being vegan is another big topic that makes me feel extremely happy and proud. For years and years of watching vegan youtubers I thought I could never do it while wanting to do it so much. It was one of those things that felt so impossible to me and yet here I am! Here I am having been vegan for 1,5 years at this point! And I have no intention whatsoever of ever stopping being vegan. I didn't always know that this is something I would care about so much, similar to Yoga which I only really discovered once I had tried it out. But it was something that was on my mind for so long and I knew the person who I want to be would be vegan and now I did it, I've been doing it for over a year! How wonderful is that!?

Those are just three things that are part of the person I want to be and I successfully turned them into three things that are actually part of me, of my daily life, of who I am. There are many other things I have at least partly achieved, things I always work on, big things I know I want to and in a way have to get to in the future. There is still a lot more I need to do, need to change to really fully be who I want to be, but some puzzle pieces are already there and I am so happy and proud of that.

August 2024: I have tried picking apart and putting into words what my struggles are many many times and sometimes I feel like it is good enough, it's a start, it's something, but I am never really satisfied with it, never feel like it captures the full picture, always feel like something is forgotten, left out, maybe even undiscovered, still hidden within my deepest depths. And I don't know how to get to it. I don't know how to make it right, how to make it perfect.

That is a struggle in and of itself, isn't it? This need to make it perfect, this feeling of it never being quite right. I know logically that it is impossible to make it perfect, to really capture all of it because that “all of it” is all of me and how can all of me ever fit into a few words, a few notes, a few lines attempting to explain what I am struggling with? Of course that can not work. Of course not. And still I wish it did. Still I wish I could lay all of myself bare, could present myself openly and completely, could show all the things I have such a hard time showing.

I feel like if I was able to do that, I could finally be seen, fully and unmasked. I tried to make myself invisible for a long long time. It was comfortable to not be seen, to not be noticed, to stay in the shadows, to stay hidden. It felt safe. There was reassurance in the loneliness. No one was bothering me, no one was laughing at me, no one was judging me.

There is so much within me that I don't know how to convey to people. Hell, I struggle to convey it to myself, even though I feel it so clearly, so obviously, so brutally at times.

I do believe that all of my issues, the social ones, the emotional ones, the functional ones, exist because there is something deep within me. It might be some childhood trauma of emotional neglect or an undiagnosed neurodivergency like autism or ADHD or both. It might just be me and insecurities that are weighing me down. I don't know. But I would like to know because I think knowing what it is will finally give me the chance of being able to deal with it, to handle it, to find ways that actually work for me.

It would be so nice if someone could help me get over these rocks properly or help me break them down or find a way around them or whatever would be best, whatever would work for me. That would be so nice.

5.12.24: A year going by in a flash - Part 1 ~ February to April

 

February 2024: I am SO obsessed with this role play writing that my writing brain simply refuses to engage in any other writing and it would be fine, it is fine when I am able to indulge in the role play writing. But when I am not... when I have to be patient and wait around... that's a different story. It's so hard and so annoying and so frustrating and I just don't know what to do with myself!

Do I just accept this as how things are right now? I kind of feel like I have no other choice. I could try to push myself to write on something else, but even the thought of that feels wrong. I do not want to do it. I want to write on the role play and nothing else. Nothing else seems appealing, satisfying, rewarding, enjoyable enough.

I depend on writing getting me through so much that not being able to just do it, feels like I have nothing to cling to, nothing to help me move forward, nothing to get my creativity, my thoughts, my feelings out there. It's creative starvation. I am so hungry for some good writing and I am left here starving.

Hell, I am being so dramatic about this, but that is just how I feel. And I am a writer. Why the hell would I not be dramatic? It's okay and nice and fun to be dramatic. I like being dramatic. I am reclaiming being dramatic for myself. I am a dramatic writer that can't write by themself anymore because right now I can only do shared meals and no one is eating with me at this time. Poor poor me.

Now I am laughing at myself. This is so silly. But that is also okay. I can be silly as much as I can be dramatic. It's just part of life, part of me. I'd rather laugh then keep feeling so frustrated. I'd rather write this than write nothing at all. It's okay. I am okay. And I will write again. And it will all be good. It will be.

March 2024: I feel like I have tried to find some sort of balance all my life. There was a time where I thought I kind of had it, where I felt like I was a pretty balanced person, but that was when I was still in school and school came mostly easy to me. During school most things regarding keeping myself alive were being taken care of for me. All I had to do was go to school, do some learning, have pretty good grades and that was it. I know I struggled back then too. I was tired a lot then too. I tried to have some sort of schedule and routine and order then too. I thought I needed more discipline then too.

This is something that has always been on my mind. Probably not as a child, but as soon as it felt like there were things I needed to achieve and things I really wanted to do, things I felt really invested in and wanted to work on. I remember writing myself so many plans and trying to follow them and they never really worked, not in the long run. I always ended up feeling kind of restricted by them, like I was more forcing myself to do things instead of actually wanting to do them, things became work and stopped being fun, so I wasn't in the mood to do them anymore at all. But at the same time when I stopped following those plans, those schedules I felt like I wasn't able to get anything at all done anymore.

So the answer here is balance, isn't it? Balance between planning and scheduling some things and just going with the flow, letting my mood carry me with other things. I seem to be unable to find that balance. It's all or nothing for me. Or at least it feels like that's the only two phases I can really be in. I either want to do all the things and try to make a plan, try to schedule or at least make a list or I will feel like not doing anything and everything is overwhelming and I am just not in the mood to do any of the things I otherwise would like to do and my brain will be in avoidance mode constantly, just pushing everything off again and again and again.

I hate it. I hate it so much. It's the most annoying and frustrating thing ever to me. Especially since whenever I am in a phase where I want to do all the things and it feels like I can if I just really put my mind to it and then I actually get some things done and everything seems to be good, I feel like I was being an idiot before in the phase where nothing seemed appealing and nothing worked and I got nothing done. In the phase where I can actually do things, it feels way more easy, way more effortless and that in turn makes me feel like before I was just being overly dramatic and lazy and all I had to do was just push myself a little bit more.

I know that's not true. I know when I am in the bad phase things really are hard for me and everything is tiring and draining and even the smallest tasks are requiring so much from me. Hell, even in the good phase many things are still a lot for me. Even in the good phase I struggle with doing things that seem very big and overbearing to me. Even in the good phase there are things I can't just simply do, things I keep avoiding and not just those, even things that I enjoy and would actually like to do I will still keep pushing off because I am just not quite feeling it.

How would balance actually help me with that? And what balance? Where even is that balance and how could I possibly reach it? And even if I did, would it really make me as happy, as stable, as put together as I think it would? Or is that just me idealizing this supposed solution to something that seems like I will struggle with it all my life?

Of course this comes down again to me possibly having ADHD and/or being autistic. Sounds likely in this context, doesn't it? The constant struggle of trying to do things, the fact that everything feels draining and overwhelming, the intense excitement, the want to do things but the failure in execution, the procrastination, the inability to prioritize important things over easy things that bring me some form of joy, some form of dopamine, the wish for balance, discipline, some form of order that would magically fix everything or at least make it easier.

And if that is what it is, if it is just part of how my brain works, what is the solution then? Is there even one? Should I even be looking for a solution? Well, at least I would like to have something that helps. That would already be something. And I do think balance is part of that somewhere, somehow. Isn't everything in life about balance at the end of the day? Balance, being able to do enough of everything, to be enough, not too much and not too little but just right. Ah, kind of sounds like perfectionism too, doesn't it? Huh.

There is definitely insecurity here for me, a lot of it. I do think others that “have it more together” are better than me, are able to live a better life, maybe even have it easier, at least in this aspect. I don't feel like I am able to be who I want to be, who I think I could be if only... If only.

If only I had that balance. If only I could do the more difficult things more easily. If only they didn't even feel that difficult. If only things were easier. If only everything wasn't so draining. If only my mind didn't feel like such a mess all the time. If only I wasn't so focused on constantly having and doing something that brings me joy. If only I was better. If only I was more. If only I could reach my true potential.

April 2024: Is it just excitement? Is it just a dream, an illusion? Is it just make belief, something I tell myself to feel better about myself? Is it just my motivation, what is driving and pushing me, what is keeping my passion, my fire alive?

What is potential even? What is untapped potential? My “true” potential? Is it everything I could do, everything I think about doing? How can I actually use it? Or am I already using it?

So many questions and no real answers, only the answers I give myself. And what are those really if not my beliefs? How could they be facts or even universal facts? They can only ever be what I think they are. If they are facts to me, they are facts to me. If there is doubt, uncertainty, they will never be facts, only ideas, only theories.

Is that my “true” potential? Does that lie in recognizing that I can make things facts for me if I only believe in them? Is all I have to do belief in my true potential being realized? Well, I still have to put in work of course. Believing is only the first step, one of many puzzle pieces, a fracture of the whole picture.

Potential, true potential, achieving that is a complex thing because of course it is. Everything is complex at the end of the day, isn't it? There are so many facets, so many elements, so many aspects and sides to everything. A good mixture makes a good thing. Potential or call it talent isn't the only thing needed. It never was and it never will be.

Maybe that is the true issue for me. I keep going back to what potential I think I might have, what might be hidden deep inside of me, without ever considering the other elements. Maybe it's not potential that I am lacking, that I still need to tap into, because I can in fact feel it, I know it is there. Maybe what I have to actually consider are the other aspects.

Aspects like... discipline which I am terrible at. Routines I am okay at. So that's a way I could become more disciplined. That is something I have to and can work on, something practical, something tangible.

I used to have the routine of writing in the evening at some point. One thousand words a day – that was my goal for a long long time and I managed to do that during that time for the most part. Simply because I wanted to, almost because I had to. The routine became so much a part of me, I always felt an urge to writing during the time of my writing routine. It became somewhat inescapable and I got sad when I couldn't do my writing routine. Whenever that happened, something was missing, something was off, my day, I, was incomplete.

Then eventually my goal became 500 words a day. Be it lack of energy, lack of focus or so many other things like responsibilities, studies, work and so on and so forth, whatever it was exactly and it was probably a mix of things I realized one thousand words a day was just not that achievable for me anymore. That was okay. That still is okay. Hell, now a part of me thinks I should maybe dial it back even more. Writing 500 words every day can feel a lot like chore.

Writing is not a chore though, it never is. Writing is a creative process. It's not even the writing that is a routine. It can't be. It's a passion. It's art. It's a creative flow. You can't set the clock for that. That's not how it works and it never will. Taking the time to write – that is the routine. Feeling that urge at that time shows, even proofs that the routine is working, even if the actual writing can't really happen sometimes. You are not a machine. Your writing is not an automated process that you just have to start and then after a while of doing it a product will be spit out. Technically you could see it that way, but it simply does not actually work like that and that is okay, that is good even, that makes it real and human and something done out of creative passion.

I write all the time and I love it and sometimes I have to remind myself of that when I have a day where I don't really feel like it. I guess I felt like writing this entry though, so that is for sure something! I am happy I went with my gut feeling and just wrote this because I felt like it, because I had the urge to. I am doing that a lot recently – listening to my gut, following my urges, trying to understand what my body is telling me when it comes to going to sleep for example. It's interesting. I think I should keep it up.