Pavements

Dear Diary,

I may have been chasing pavements. The thing is - you can't really escape the past until you let it go. Acceptance, facing hard truths, scaring yourself a little in the midst of revealing the whole of your own psyche to prevent future injuries of the mental kind; it all works to move you forward. Just shoving the tough things down and running towards the easy stuff will cause a bubbling up of weird problems to resurface whenever a stress or trigger faces you mano a mano again. Life is up and life is down, and however we face the down is intensely important in achieving the purpose we seek out in our lives. Moving across the country with a new whirlwind love, away from family dramas or toxic friendships or the peers you grew up with to witness your awkward phases, it's so romantic. Let's be honest, it's awesome when people make the jump to do stuff like that. Is it cowardice or is it brave? To say goodbye to physical reminders of your past and witness an entirely new surrounding. It's something I've always wanted. My whole life through, I wanted to move away from everything I've ever known and make it for myself by my own bootstraps, away from judgements from family and able to craft an entirely new life. But then I grew up, and suddenly I find myself having great care on being present around them as they age and desire my attention. I find that they like me. But growing up, I was full of angst, confusion, cynical, sarcastic, angry. I was rebellious, pissed off, unchallenged in ways I found morally upright, judged, and felt alone. I alone decided to learn about myself, my psychology and the psychology of people around me, with helpful life advice from my older brother. He's nice to me, and has been for a lot of my life. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a period of time where he contributed to the list of unhappy-ailments that I felt growing up. In fact, he wasn't around for a lot of it. It worked out in my favor, most of it. I graduated from a top university in the world, without ever receiving a piece of advice from a father, with a mother always working and frustrated by her bipolar disorder and compassion at home, with a brother who has always sought after his own happiness and freedom through his chronic depression and avoidant personality. I did it, I sat by myself at Starbucks for hours everyday, desperate for an escape from my life, funneling everything into becoming an academic person. I would be something, regardless of what people would say, I had to or I would die in the emotional hell that I was born into at home.
I read books angrily, with fury to get it. I melted away emotions and would get it done. If it wasn't how teachers liked it, I would fix it. I'm not angry at them, I would think, I'm dying for change. 365 days of high school for four years, 365 days of community college twice over, it was hell. I prayed to God I would be a generative and generous person if I could live until adulthood. I knew that some kids had it worse, and pondered if they would like to change lives with me, for maybe they were born with the right set of skills and cognitive functions for this to be a breeze, and I could switch for them for them to have the opportunities obviously set in front of me, and I would take over their hell, war, or otherwise. There are hellholes that people report being born in, and then there is personal hell. The reach out of hell isn't for the faint of heart, or anybody really, but I'll be damned if I can't make something of myself reaching out of it towards the good that Plato idealizes and paint my life with meaning in every thought and action through existentialist beliefs.

There's nowhere out here but up,

That Girl