My eyes peeled themselves open to the voices of my parents softly chatting downstairs. I almost forgot that I'm back home, visiting family and friends. My therapist mentioned that I am brave to have visited during such a critical time in my life. Revisiting square one when I'm feeling aimless, as if to face myself and see what I have become since moving to SF.
Trinkets of my past love scatter around in the wreckage of my room, notepads of my job hunt from last year sit crumbled on my desk; nothing's changed, yet I feel even more lost than before.
My childhood room, picture frames of who I once was and who I still apparently am — I speak to you now in 2025.
---
Your idea of permanence is a protective defensive mechanism — one that ultimately fails your trust every time. The loves of my life left you behind because of reasons that you keep trying to fix, but ultimately, you need to stop trying to carry the responsibility as if you're doing them a favour. It's going to be okay. The jobs you wanted and will have, they come and they go. But this moment? Stop outsourcing your sense of worth. Right now is the opportunity of a lifetime to figure out your meaning to life.
You will fail, and you will falter. The things that broke your heart and soul, they won't kill you. You will try everything — therapy, silence, prayer, loving again.
But eventually, you're gonna write.
You're gonna write so goddamn much that you'll feel as though the blank canvas where you type your stream of consciousness understands you better than any person ever will in your life. And people will read it, man. Strangers around the world will read your work and save it in silence, tucking it into their browsers like it means something. Though we may not know what part of me spoke to them, it still did.
And that vague weight you carry still exists today, but in an entirely divergent form than what you were originally worried about. So just keep moving forward. All that's happening is life upping the ante, so don't fold yet. You'll make it someday.
"I made some bad decisions last night" used to mean a lot of things back then but now it just means procrastinating on sleep while the things you do that lead to me creep into the corners of your mind. You lied to everyone about becoming a better person than the day before, and now you lie to yourself. This is what happens when no one taught you how to grow up. So now, you’ll have to teach it to yourself.
You want to be like me? I want you to be better.
You wake up every day knowing the weight of discipline is heavy. With who I am now, the hate I have for being mediocre burns heavier. Buddha, if you can't hear my prayers anymore, please do witness me instead. Let this be a sermon covered in my sweat and tears.
Keep your eyes open and head up. Today is not yet the day, for me and for you. But one day will be. And that’s enough.
Eventually, you’ll meet the version of me who wrote this. And when you do, I hope you'll be more than I ever am.
To reply you need to sign in.