May 31, 2023

Nothing’s felt real recently. I am stuck in a continuous loop of adjacent change. It’s like…things aren’t happening to me, but around me. My mom just lost her brother. I have friends who are making major life changes or trying to figure out how. It’s a lot. Everyone is going through a lot, yet here I am. I’m the same as I’ve been since we moved in January. For once, the world seems to have stopped throwing things at me.

Pride month starts tomorrow. Before you know it, 3 weeks will pass and I will be 24. I couldn’t tell you where this past year of living has gone. All of this has really made me pensive about life and had me consider things.

Is this what stability feels like? Is this perhaps survival mode or hypervigilance attempting to “prepare” my body for things that will never come? I could not tell you.

Do I use these months to finally rest? Do I keep pushing forward?

I almost wonder if it’s my turn to be the reliable and stable one for once in my existence. But it is exhausting. It feels as if I have nobody to voice any of my thoughts to, positive or negative. Everyone is too busy and experiencing too much to have anything left for me, yet I am always expected to make time and energy for them.

Am I selfish for thinking that? For wanting to lean on people still despite having no real reason to? Am I just using them?

I don’t know.

But what I do know is that I want to be more intentional going forward. I do not want to spend my life as part of one giant capitalist machine. I don’t want to live to work for someone else’s business. I want to inspire through my love. I want to create things that have meaning and substance to others. Then again, that seems to be everyone’s goal. That is why it is such a hard, complicated, and tireless thing to get into if you’re trying to make a living.

You know, getting back to stasis: Is it possible to achieve any growth this way? Is there a difference between growth for survival and growth for thriving’s sake? How does someone do the latter?

I’m so used to having to adapt or being pulled in so many different directions that I don’t even know how to just be. What is stillness? Is stillness beneficial? Am I okay? I don’t know. But maybe 24 will bring the answers when it comes to place 23 to rest.