Lately

Lately, I’m scaring myself. Lately, the corners of me that saw only the good in people, my optimistic lens is fading fast. My positivity, the inner tidbits that used to make people roll their eyes at what they called naïve now feel foreign to me, as if I can identify with my criticizers quicker than I can identify with myself. A thousand tiny little hurts that I’ve for some reason decided are worthy of space in my heart are starting to take their toll. As much as I love my internship, working with this population is harder than I imagined. People I trusted keep letting me down. I’m impossibly hard on myself. I want to believe in love and commitment, in kindness and humanity, but it’s hard. I’m afraid, lonely, tired and I miss my best friend. I’m jealous, insecure and vulnerable. And I’m admitting all of these things out loud on the internet.

A lot of the people in my real life don’t understand blogging (well let’s say they don’t understand PERSONAL blogging) and a few have even called it quite narcissistic. They don’t understand why I feel the need to post my inner feelings for strangers to read. But for me, blogging isn’t just about me sharing my thoughts, it’s about reading the thoughts from others that make me feel a lot less alone. I’m in a sad place today- shit, I cried before I had my morning coffee. And all these thoughts keep running through my head- “Happiness is a choice!” “Snap out of it!” “Think about Japan right now, you selfish bitch” “I think it’s time to go back to therapy”. And these thoughts and this sadness could have (normally WOULD have) easily taken over my day had it not been for blogging. Had it not been for turning on my computer and finding inspiration from the likes of amazing, strong, awe-worthy women. Words that make it easier to smile and motivate me to genuinely be better.

I have all sorts of pretty pictures of drunken times in Chicago I could post here today. I could gush about macaroni and cheese pizza, my new obsession with Goose Island 312 or how wonderful it was to spend time with MC’s brother and his fiancé. And all of those things truly are gush-worthy, but they aren’t who I am today. So I’ll save that for tomorrow and today just focus on taking each hour at a time, finally bucking up and emailing Molly already, and being thankful for little things, like you know, THE INTERNET.

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