Keep believing

Now that I’m feeling better — at least, I believe I have a little more energy than what I usually had the past week — I kinda want to let my feelings be written down somewhere as well. I don’t know where the energy came from, it’s nice to be able to feel it, it’s nice to wake up in the morning and have the feeling that I’ve slept enough, that it was a better sleep, even though it’s not the best one, it’s still one that made me feel fresh. It’s just the feeling of wanting to laugh instead of crying all the time, or instead of being numb and worked out, like you’re in a good mood. I don’t wanna call it a happy day, I don’t wanna jinx it again. But today was definitely a better day than those of the previous week already. 

The thing is, I don’t know why I’m in a good mood today. Like, it is supposed to be the day that I feel the excitement of being in university, of finally studying, achieving something, it was supposed to be that day to me. Maybe my psyche had prepared myself for this day for way too long already, that when this day comes, it will decide to be happy anyways. At least happier. Because I’m obviously not so happy that it’s too much happiness to bear. I kind of just feel content. Like today wasn’t a bad day, unlike days before. I could move faster, I didn’t just sit down contemplating my life’s decisions too much, I did something, I achieved something. It’s either this feeling of achievement only hit me now, or that it is really finally something I’m achieving. Because, of course, the days before I also did things I could’ve mentioned as achievements, but I didn’t feel it as much. I still have as many problems as before, my own room is a mess, my internet hasn’t worked yet, I still haven’t got the approval for my study-break, so many things I don’t know yet, so many insecurities, but it kind of feels all manageable for now. Like my nerves don’t just jump out and scream for emergency, like things will be alright and like I actually believe it will be.

Sure, I’m also quite sad at the moment. Mostly I’m sad due to my own perfectionistic manners. I thought I were finally gonna be a real student starting from today. I thought I would’ve been somewhere else and not in the psychiatry, I thought I could finally kicked off my real life (as if this life wasn’t real at all yet), but you know what I mean. I thought by now I was gonna be somebody. But apparently until now at this moment I’m still figuring out how to see myself differently. I’m still trying to learn about who I really am, and my fellows, they’re now starting to move on to the next chapters, and many of them are even already coming to the finish line, soon enough they’ll be the real somebody, they will get a job, get a husband or a wife or stay single, earn their own money, build their own house, and live happily ever after, just like what they imagined. But I’m making baby steps towards the future and I don’t know when I will even get to the start line. I don’t know when I’m capable enough to be somebody, just like them. 

I always ask myself, “what am I?“. I sadly never really know the answer to that hard question. I can only say I am me. I am who I am, and I am mostly not what you think I was. I am not as simple as your description of what a perfect example of success is. I thought I was that, but if you count psychiatry stays, depression, medications, mental breakdowns, self-harm, and all into that, I think I’ll clearly fulfil what you mean with that. I am definitely not what you consider a good example. But I can teach you one thing or two about myself. I am not okay. That’s the first lesson, and that is always so hard to learn for so many people. To be able to say that out loud, to be able to get help, to reach out, to feel like you need other people, to be vulnerable enough to other people, to be able to admit that you have problems and you’re not alright, it is the biggest lesson I have learned after so long. I am not okay. But I’m not ashamed to not be okay. 

Though sometimes it sucks to not be okay, or pretend to be okay when you’re not okay. Which most people have mastered to do as they’ve been doing that for the rest of their lives. But I am done being fake to myself, constantly lying and telling myself things I am not. I have never been so close to living in my own skin and feeling myself as much as I am now, so if it counts, it’s safe to say that I have acquired my own success this way. I have never been the type of person that is in touch with her feelings and able to express what she feels, but I guess now I am much better in that. I have learned so much about myself and to me, I am my own world, so therefore I have also learned so much about the world by learning deeper about who I am.

In the end, it only counts what you define as a success. I might not fulfil the criteria of a classic image of success, but I definitely have achieved some of the rarer kind of successes, I am indeed not yet a master in what I am doing, and will probably need so many more years to be able to overcome everything and to reach peace with myself, but it is what I am and what I am working on. Working on myself counts as a job, it is even more important than working for others or for something. In the end, money won’t buy you the happiness. Because happiness comes from within, and happiness doesn’t need money to be created, happiness is in you, in me, in every one of us. It might not seem like happiness is there in our radar at some moments in life, it probably just needs more efforts and distance to be reached, but it is still there in the horizon. If you’re ever feeling like you’re too tired, or too worked up, or too weary, or too sad; take time. That’s what you have if you don’t have yourself for the moment. Give yourself that for the less good moments. The sky will clear up eventually. You may not always know how to predict your own weather, but if you know how to enjoy the rain, or enjoy the sun, or be prepared before the storm, any weather will be an okay weather. That peace, if you can find it with yourself, you’ve won in life. That serenity, that harmony, that’s my goal in life for now. Then, soon enough you’ll be able to inspire others through your journey and you can light up the fire that’s going low, and it won’t exhaust you, it’ll strengthen you instead. It’s still a long way, but it is never impossible to be that person. You will be that person, one day, eventually. Keep believing.