Internal monologue
The only problem with solitude, once you taste its unmatched peace, you crave it endlessly. It’s like solitude spoils you for everything else and you find yourself yearning to be alone again. Being alone never felt right, sometimes if felt good, but it never felt right. I had already found that it was not good to be alone and so made companionship with what there was around me, sometimes with the universe and sometimes with my own insignificant self.
Advice to self: Don’t worry about tomorrow, you did that yesterday.
Don’t feel guilty about needing the room to breathe. I haven’t been okay for a long time. But I got good at pretending. Showing up like everything’s fine when it fucking wasn’t. I stayed quite because I didn’t know how to explain pain that didn’t make sense to others, so I stayed quite so others wouldn’t ask. So, I just held it and hoped nobody noticed.
Nights hit the hardest. When everything slows down and it’s just me, my thoughts and the shit I tried to outrun. I thought being strong meant shutting the fuck up.
But silence doesn’t heal shit. It just makes the hurt echo louder. If you’ve been carrying everything alone, I know what that does to you. That weight changes a person. Quietly and deeply.
Some days surviving the day is enough. Healing isn’t fast. It isn’t neat. It isn’t easy.
In my solitude I work to not lose myself trying to hold everyone else together, I did that a long time.
I know I deserve room to breathe, too.
Things I have learned this year.
- Quality matters more than quantity.
- I don’t need an audience to validate my worth or confidence.
- My confidence comes from inside and not the approval of others.
- Not afraid to be alone, because I know my own strength
- I am very selective with my energy and who I let into my life.
- I walk away from drama and gossip, because I have built a peaceful life.
- I don’t need to be surrounded by people to feel complete, I am comfortable, grounded and steady.
What others should take away and understand is:
- This is not loneliness, it is discipline.
- I know peace, it is not isolation.
- I am working on self-mastery.
