between worlds

It has been a very strange period of time - a surfeit of waxes with just as many wanes.

Each progress I make brings me back to the drawing board but at least I’ve got one foot out the door.

I’m riddled with as much fear as I have optimism, so I find myself doing a stupid little mental dance daily. Overcoming my discombobulated mental barriers is as burdensome as I thought it would be, but every second thought I give helps me internalise how ridiculous they truly are - The cage door is wide open yet I’ve been sitting on the perch and twiddling my thumbs…

My heart races every time I ponder about my plans and think of a far future that I hope to project myself into and before I know it, the exhilaration has turned into anxiety. If you look closely enough at anything, you will inevitably start to notice all the flaws.

I’ve learnt that the brain is an intelligent creature that strives to achieve its all important purpose of self-preservation and that’s how comfort zones are birthed. Every little variable added to the equation is a potentially threatening deviation from safety so why would we venture into the unknown?

I have to admit that it was nice for a while, being a jellyfish just cruising with the currents. Now, the idea of a ‘comfort zone’ just seems like a fallacy because there’s nothing comfortable about it.

It is awfully stifling.

My fears don’t stem from the thought of change but rather, that nothing would change - That I’ll find myself at the end of the road but right where I started, that nothing would have materialised and that this is all I’ll ever know. That frightens me more than I’ve ever been able to verbalise.

Those fears are as absurd as they are valid which leaves me no choice but to take a step off the precipice and pray the plunge catapults me into another world, a new world.

I don’t want to be stuck here forever.

X

get to the root

I sieved through a bunch of my old journals today, entries I had written from 2017 to 2021.

It felt good to relive the person that I was and to realise, I’m no longer her anymore. It was an arduous growth and as I scanned the pages I wish I could give those many versions of me a hug.

I ran through so many cycles of plummeting and trying to get back up again. It was almost… pitiful. There were countless moments in the past year when I basked in regret and thought to myself that I did not try hard enough. Today made me realise that I truly did, in the best of what I knew and could do then, I really fought to keep my head above the water.

This journey of retrospect further iterated a point that has been bouncing about in my mind for the past few months - get to the root of the problem.

My life before 2017 saw me constantly pushing forward with a fiery determination to leave the past behind. I wasn’t getting over things like I thought then but simply distracting myself with the next best thing. I’ve learnt the very hard way that unless you cut right to the core, the problem keeps coming back.

The lessons will wear different faces but they will pay you a visit nonetheless.

At many points I threw the towel in, absolutely beaten down by both the past and the present. There was no solace to be found in the physical circumstances nor the prison that was my mind. When the layers to work through are so thick and the knots so tangled, it takes times. A lot of it.

You simply can’t undo decades of damage in the blink of an eye, not when it has been so deeply rooted into the fibre of your very being.

I can’t say that I’ve struck the crux yet, but I know I’m cutting it real close. That, is more than enough. I’m just thankful to feel the way that I do now, a feeling I never knew could exist for someone like me. It’s so simple and yet, so ineffable.

Revisited an entry I discovered a month ago, it made me bawl my eyes out then but today, it made me smile.

“And most importantly, I hope you remember the Audrey who is writing this.

Because she is always rooting for you and with all of her heart, she believes in you.

Ride the waves as you must & always remember to have fun.”

This was part of a letter I had written to my future self on the last pages of a journal in 2020. I had clean forgotten about it and found it most serendipitously, in a moment of shift when all the words finally resonate.

Bemusing, but in the best way.

x

starting over

The past few years have been nothing short of tumultuous. A tenacious kind of tumultuous. There were pockets of moments when I drew short breaths before the waves started to ceaselessly crash down upon me again. It was exhausting.

I took many steps forward only to find myself down meandering paths in anything but the right direction. With each misstep, the faith I had in myself dwindled until I could trust myself no more.

The perils of doubt - everything is an option but nothing seems like a good plan.

So there I was stuck in limbo, trapped in a mental prison. It sounds figurative but it felt literal as my disorders fervently escalated to dizzying heights. Precarious coping mechanisms I had long ditched became the only things to keep me afloat.

I’m not sure when the tides turned, but it did.

Slowly and surely, the tangled knots unravelled. The scars remain but I make an effort to paint over them every day, even if just a little.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, I started to feel happiness again.

Not the pleasures I sought to spar with my pain, nor the conscious appreciation I practised but genuine bubbles of joy. Little pops of serotonin that come out of nowhere and flood my mind in the most nondescript of moments.

I was barely ten when I last had moments like these and I’ve spent the entirety of the rest of my years chasing a feeling I no longer even remembered.

Nothing is right and yet, everything is perfect. Just being able to embrace the present as it is without fuss over the past or future has been a true gift.

For all that I’ve lost just to gain what I have now, it was all worth it.

Here’s to starting over again. x