Free at last

It’s so easy to get torn between doing what you know is best for you, and doing what you have to do to keep the peace because you’re always inevitably the bigger person. It’s a hard decision to make — do you put your foot down and honor yourself through maintaining boundaries and risk losing relationships in the process or do you accept that you’ll always have to be the bigger person when things get hard?

I’ve accepted friendships for what they were in the past, knowing they would likely never meet me in maturity or depth and that the relationship would always be surface level. It’s easy when you go in knowing that, so you can manage your expectations.

It’s a much harder burden to bear when the dynamic started out much stronger but didn’t age well. Trying to navigate that shift is an extremely emotional battle, especially when you’re the only one fighting for it.

Knowing when to stay and when to let go and walk away is so, so hard. And it’s never simple.

I’m learning that you can’t take everyone with you on your growth journey. There are limited seats on this ride and the further I get it feels more and more like a game of musical chairs.

I’m not questioning the timing of anything right now.

I have experienced so many things this year. Loss, love, grief, mistakes, growth, fear, mania, doubt, recklessness, loneliness, honesty, lies, deceit, disrespect. But that’s life, right? I have opened myself up to more lessons in the last 7 months than the last 7 years combined. And it shows.

The winding road to self-fulfillment is a lonely one, but once you make it there it’s hard to think about sharing that space with anyone else.

I’ve become so protective over my peace. I can’t afford not to be.

I think I’ve finally found my peace, and it was inside me all along. Holy shit, does it get any more cliche than that? It’s the truth, though.

My trip home was interesting, to say the least. I don’t even feel like calling that place home anymore. My trip up North, I’ll call it. It was a great source of closure for me. It was the first time I’d been back to that place and felt absolutely nothing.

Zero emotional attachments. Driving past my childhood home, my old high school; nothing. No more pain. No more fear. No more resentment.

I felt like I was on vacation, and here’s why: You know when you go on vacation, and everyone looks at you like you don’t belong because you’re clearly not from there? That’s how it felt. That’s how I felt there my entire childhood. The difference between now and then is the pain.

That place caused me so much pain when I was younger. I was treated like an alien and all I ever wanted was a sense of belonging. This time, being back there, I got treated exactly the same as I had in the past, but I welcomed it. I loved every minute of it. I was so unbelievably happy not to fit in there. I looked around, and nothing had changed. No one had changed. No growth, no evolution. Just decay. The energy was bad when I left, and it’s worse now.

But then, I got to leave. I got to pack my bags, get in my car, drive away and never look back. That’s not my life anymore. That place was never for me, and the trip confirmed that.

I don’t know if I’ll ever go back there again. I really feel no need. I have no attachments to that place, and that is an amazing feeling.

I went there looking for peace, and instead, I found freedom.