PERS ; DARKNESS IS A STRANGER IN OUR LONELY LONE.

sometimes i like being left alone. i don't want to talk to you, don't want to answer your nosy questions or try to salvage a dead conversation. i don't want to spill my secrets, don't want to open up & trust you - or anyone, for that matter. sometimes i want to stay at home all day & night, surrounded only by the voices leaking out of my itunes & characters on movie screens. sometimes i like walking alone, leaving myself to wander in my own thoughts. & sometimes, yes sometimes, i can't stand being around you for more than a few hours. i need me, just me, no one else - not you.

but then there are those days i wake up from a blast of chilliness breezing through the window. i curl up inside my blanket but it's not enough. my eyes squint at the time & it's too late, already afternoon, the day half gone. i unwillingly crawl out of bed & throw myself a mix of foods salvaged from the refrigerator & shove it down. i check my phone, my email, facebook, & there's nothing new. the world around me seems to be chattering away, talking & interacting with each other, leaving me behind to observe. i crack & break, sutures slowly unwinding as i feel this facade of embracing loneliness is becoming a lie, a lie.

i am someone who tries to embrace (& does succeed at) being alone. i wouldn't bitch & whine about being alone the entire weekend, finding company in books & movies & my own thoughts. i could learn to eat alone & cook alone, experimenting all kinds of dishes & being the sole tester. & i know how to love alone, not a flighty crush but loving myself, embracing every one of my flaws that i have dug up & found. i am not scared of myself. i don't fear knowing about what hidden subconscious nightmares i have inside, knowing i have perused & trashed every single one of them. i take personality quizzes with a half heart, knowing what i'll get since i know myself best.

so it's when i crawl out of my cave & see society's expectations of finding company in everything. maybe it's just america or the world at large, but we all try to be extroverts in every way possible. chattering on is not necessarily good but at least better than not talking & shying away in the background. meals must be had with friends or family, never alone. you see that old man at the restaurant saying table for one? everyone looks at him in pity, as if he has no one else, no company whatsoever who will eat with him. to society, to everyone, being alone is a bad, bad thing. & so we embrace love, finding company in a special someone, & we endorse marriage, being tied to someone else for the rest of your life. being alone, walking alone, watching movies alone, doing anything alone (except maybe going to the bathroom) is frowned upon.

& i hate that. don't you think we should embrace a little more of ourselves before running off to anyone else? i'm not talking about narcissism or vanity, but just the experience of being comfortable with ourselves & only ourselves. to spend several days doing everything on your own, knowing independence at its greatest - no depending whatsoever on any other human, but finding your own food, entertainment, & warmth...all alone. discovering what happiness is like on your own - not through loving someone else, not through great friendships - but anything that you can uncover yourself, through yourself.

i say this time & time again but we could all learn to embrace introspection a little more. knowing yourself before than & more than anyone else is one of the most powerful things we as humans can do. because just like you might be laughing at us introverts for loving to be alone, i laugh at you for not knowing about the one thing you've been stuck with the longest - all your life, even. because the only thing you can be sure of, the only thing life can promise is that you'll be with you for as long as you live. like the never-ending clingy bitch you are, you will never let go of you. you are never going to lose you, no matter how hard you may try. you will always be stuck with you.

so do you want to live & die in the arms of a stranger, or in the arms of your best friend?

playing | "sleep alone" - bat for lashes

photo | zuru1024 ; flickr

PERS ; NON, RIEN DE RIEN.

i've been going under, barely staying afloat in my own head full of negativity. sometimes letting myself sink into the jet black thoughts of "i can't do it, so what's the point", other times giving a measly half-assed kick just to say, just to prove "see, i knew i couldn't do it."

i remember reading an article in our high school newspaper about those kids in high school (note: i am one of these very people) who would say after every test, no matter what, that they "think they failed" & after they get their test back that clearly has a fat red A on it, they reiterate that they "really thought they were going to fail." apparently it has an actual name, impostor syndrome, & being the unchanging boring blogger that i am, i wrote about this exact thing two and a half years ago.

funny thing is, back then i think my naive (?) high school self didn't really get what impostor syndrome was beyond preparing one's self for bad results (i.e. telling yourself you can't do anything even though deep down inside you know you're going to come out fine). it really pales in comparison to how i've become now, how severe this...problem has been getting of feeling like an impostor, like i don't deserve to be here, even more so every day because i just haven't been trying.

it goes something like this. in high school, i was surrounded by people who had known me for 10+ years. these people knew i grew up as a quiet bookworm, they knew i did well in school, they expected results from me, and being the teenager i was, i cared about their opinions a lot more than my parents'. but moving on to college, here you are surrounded by so many people who have no idea what kind of person you are or were, who don't know if you're as 'smart' as they are or how you got into this school, really, & your parents are miles & miles away with their only power being nagging you through the phone, & you just start to lose perspective. you stop trying, but more than that you stop worrying.

because believe me, i have tried, but in such a half-hearted "here i am sitting at the library staring at my notes" kind of attempt that you could barely call it an effort. it's when the worrying & the guilt sinks in that i really sit down, concentrate, & don't look back. & that's what i've been missing all along.

beyond just school examples & metaphors, the negativity has infected everything. knocking everything down because it just "seems like a bad idea, "that i might "get hurt," all of these preconceived judgments & outcomes before i ever really do get hurt. not even feeling regret because i didn't even try to care in the first place. so again, making a life of days strung along by doing duties you "know" you have to do but see absolutely no reason as to why.

but all it takes is just one person, one person beyond your usual scope of nagging parents bickering about your grades, your life. all it takes is just one person to show you that you can & should rise up to the challenge every time, no questions asked. & so i relax, naturally floating up to the brim (much easier than i thought), pushing & kicking myself out of the black - finally being taught to swim.

car ma vie car mes joies

aujourd'hui, ça commence avec toi

(because my life, my joys

from today all begin with you)

playing | "non, je ne regrette rien" - edith piaf

photo | bonjour, lucia ; flickr