Life Update: Wandering in a Valley

I always want to be more consistent here but I have no idea if consistency is even who I am. Just as anyone else’s life my own is filled with it’s peak and valleys. I might be wandering through a valley and it seems I have been doing so for quite sometime. I am a writer I know it in my bones, but I have convinced myself that I am not a writer. I have convinced myself that I have no original ideas and I get sucked into the world of fiction and I think “wow I could never write like that. This is brilliant.” I thought maybe I would take a writing class but still I just am not interested in writing what everyone else is writing. I am not interested in writing like everyone is writing. So I sit and I don’t write at all.

Maybe all of that is a way for me to just not write. For fear of I don’t know… taking a chance maybe. I don’t really have a fear of not being liked. I have been rejected and not liked plenty and sometimes it stings but honestly isn’t that bad.

I struggle more with feeling like a burden. The struggle is so real.

It makes it hard to ask for help and when I do I feel like absolute dog shit.

My mother has baby sat so much the past few months. She said she doesn’t mind but how could she not. Probably because I would definitely mind. Either way I am grateful for the help. I wouldn’t be this close to graduation had it not been for her and gosh the nanny and really my entire family.

That is right I have been working on my Master’s degree since the end of 2019 and at the time of writing this I am exactly 37.5 hours away from my diploma.

I have been thinking over the past year since I was not so shamelessly fired and as I mentioned before I think this past year has been a valley and a particularly hard one.

I wish I could say…yay look how far I have come. The truth is I feel like I have accomplished very little. For the most part I have quit drinking. I say for the most part because there are times I think I miss it so I have a drink and then realize I do in fact not miss it. Or ill have a temper tantrum declaring to the universe that if I want a drink i’ll fucking have one only to hate it the entire time.

If I talked to anyone from my past they would never believe it in a million years. It was who I was. It was my identity and for a long time took all of the pain away. Until it didn’t. Maybe it never did.

It took me awhile to be able to even admit that my drinking was embarrassing. A lot of grief is involved when you realize just how far off you are from your life path and purpose because you chose to make terrible decisions that do in fact live with you for the rest of your life.

I had sex with people I shouldn't, I was arrested, I had an entire friendship circle full of complete assholes who didn’t give a fuck about me and worst of all, the fact that I hated myself so much, and the fact that I thought so little of myself, kept me from chasing dreams that I wish I would have.

I would have went to medical school, I would have written books ( I still can and will) I would have travelled the world alone. (I plan on doing that with my daughter tho) I would have said NO to relationships I knew I was too good for. I thought it was all I deserved. To this day I still don’t think a boy ever loved me. I think that says more about me than it does them.

I continue to grieve over the damage I have done to my body and continue to pray (to whom I have no idea.) that no damage is irreversible.

All that pain, shame and anger that I never knew I was running from has been coming up. Sometimes I wonder if I have ever only felt joy once in my life.. when my daughter finally came out. 1.) I wanted to meet her. 2.) I was in labor for 18 hours and I really couldn’t believe she finally came out. I don’t know if that is joy or relief. Maybe it was both.

The strangest part is seeing myself and my own traits in the people that have hurt me the most. I think back on them not with rage anymore but only a broken heart that everything they did to me I was already doing to myself. This is not to justify an asshole being an asshole… nevertheless the observation has been made and ultimately I came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to carry it anymore.

I have always thought or more so hoped that I would have this Eckhart Tolle type moment ( although I do question the authenticity of his story) where I would have a very dramatic shift in how I view the world. That miraculously my former self would fade away and out would come this renewed vibrant fearless version of myself. That suddenly out of no where everything would finally make sense.

I suppose I unknowingly was trying to figure it all out, even now I am not sure why. Maybe I thought it would take the pain away. Maybe I thought finally I wouldn’t be so afraid of everything .

I think pain and fear will always be there but I can decide to not let it overrun my life.

My new found fear of death has been a real carnival. I often lie awake at night staring at my daughter paralyzed in fear that she will leave me too soon. If I am not worrying about her congenital heart defect then my brain switches to my own death and thought of leaving my daughter too soon. I find myself refraining from saying “ I’ll be home soon.” because what if I won’t. It is completely morbid and even I am uncomfortable writing about it now in fear that by admitting it out loud I will so how yield it into existence.. or somehow convince myself that the end is really near. Much sooner than I am ready for.

This whole chapter has thrown me into a deep depression. A depression that has left me fatigued, frail, and afraid.

Pair that with feeling like I am the biggest burden on the planet has made life a tad diffucult

Have I mentioned I work at a psych hospital also.

I do find myself changing though…I can’t tell if its for better or for worse. Heck maybe its neither, but either way I know that I am changing. I want for less, and the things that I do want have changed.

I believe I want authenticity and a creativity that only I can provide to the world. I look at social media at the number of dumb things that people are doing and not only that but millions upon millions are all do the SAME thing. Thats frightening. It is just something that I don’t want to be a part of.

I never felt more alone in my life.

My thoughts and preception of the world make me feel crazy and all alone.

I hear that human beings are some of the most powerful beings in the universe. only we have forgotten.

I see only evidence of how powerless I am and I can’t help but notice how I have done it all to myself.

XOXO

Brittany