When Silence is Overwhelmingly Loud

My hardest blog post yet… 4 months of silence has led to this point. I’m usually very reserved in my writing (I’m trying to be a lot more open and honest with myself), but the truth is I have not “liked” myself, and my writing, for a while. For a long while. It’s taking a lot to admit that now. Certain insecurities have a way of sneaking up on you… And if this ever gets published I think I would hide under the covers for a good few hours.

Because it’s scary to admit the truth…

When everyone expects something from you and tells you, “You are so good at […]\ You have so much […]\ You […]”, you begin to live on expectations. It was like fuel; without it I would have no energy to move. I expected more from myself, unrealistically.

Expectations have a way of slowing you down after a while though…

Too many of them and you feel like a turtle that wants to crawl back into its shell. Turtles are so lucky…

There have been many times I wanted to crawl back and hide away from everything and everyone around me. Pull up the covers and stay there. My covers are the best thing ever. If only they could hide me from my past, from my failures and heartbreaks, my pain, insecurities (lots of insecurities), my mistakes and errors, procrastination(s), from future disappointments that seem to creep ahead, waiting to appear exactly when you half expect them to…

And sometimes I just want to throw my hands up in the air and cry out really loud – “GOD HELP ME HIDE; THE COVERS ARE NOT BIG ENOUGH!”

There’s one word that keeps re-surfacing: Weary. You never understand the meaning of weary until you’re actually weary. It doesn’t come close to being tired. Especially in unsatisfying moments when [weary] doesn’t even seem like a good enough word to describe how you feel. And I think I’ve ‘wearied’ so many times that its meaning is not as powerful anymore. Kinda like when coffee loses its effect on an avid drinker.

And when you try your best and nothing changes, then equipping yourself with patience is easier said than done…

I get it. Sometimes there’s only so much you can do, and only so much you can push for. It stinks when you keep trying and nothing changes. Stuff stays the same, and being positive gets old. Hearing happy quotes as advice from happy people annoys you rather than helps you. This is huge for me. I didn’t get it when one of my friends went berserk on positivity, trashing it from every angle and raving about how it did nothing for her. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it until it hit close to home and my own ‘positive’ writing annoyed the hell out of me. And I don’t exactly know what you do at this stage. If I said I did, it’ll be a lie. All I know is that it’s just a phase. That’s all it is… A PHASE.

And if being positive is a scary thing, facing reality is not any better.

But I choose both regardless. Reality will be a lot worse without the idea of staying positive. And if you face reality head-on, you’ll be in a much better position. Silence + Honesty = Freeing Truth. Here goes… I can’t say I’ve tried my hardest. In the past few months I’ve slacked a lot more than usual. I’ve slacked, and pushed very little, and put up a front like I have it all together, and busied myself with a lot more other things. The reality is when you feel like you have no direction in life, you really don’t have any energy to COMPLETE a lot of ‘old stuff’, so you TAKE ON ‘new stuff’.

I remember thinking that I have a lot of time to figure this thing out – Life. What’s the rush to take control? It’s a lot safer when life holds the reins and all I do is watch. Watch and dream and do nothing. I don’t write this to feel sorry for myself, quite the opposite ( Mantra: Be open. Be open. Be open).

And you know what I’ve realized? It’s OK.

It’s OK to feel like you’re floating in the vast ocean, going wherever the waves take you. It’s not pretty. But it’s OK. It wont last forever. It’s not supposed to last forever. It’s a PHASE. Just go along with the flow and listen to yourself. To what you want, and be honest with yourself. And this may as well be one of the worst periods of your life. “One of…” because it may happen multiple times. But it’s OK. And with such phases comes no motivation.

But you know what else? It is OK to feel unmotivated, but please, don’t stay there long.

Accept it for as long as you can – until you become uncomfortable with it. Phases end – especially weird ones.

And trust. Trust that it will all work out. Somehow it always does.