April 2022

I woke up this morning with a notification on my phone saying 'Blog'.

And I sat up in bed. Because was it already the end of April? Really?

This week someone asked me if I knew what I would write about yet, and I didn't really have an answer.

One of my intentions for this month had been to be more present and aware— that went a little bit out of the window. I'm getting used to feeling normal again. Which, somehow, I thought would be a lot easier than it is. I've been living inside a foggy brain for the last couple of months, and a lot of it has lifted lately. I'm feeling everything again. And it makes me want to cry happy tears, but also feels overwhelming.

I think this month has been a lot of me trying to settle back into the here and now.

I'm astounded every morning when I just... wake up before 7 of my own accord, like I always used to do. Me? An early bird? All my life, with the exception of the last two years. I was able to sleep 12 hours straight, and would spend the day groggily getting things done. Waking up and getting out of bed without playing mental tug-of-war with myself is different. It feels new.

For the last 4 years now, I've felt like I've been pushing and shoving my life away from the path it was on. Away from the toxicity and the brokenness and the bad habits, and into something better. I've been working at it with all my might, going at it tooth and nail, clawing my way through the dirt as I desperately tried to dig myself out of my own grave. Little by little, things started to change. I started to change. The people around me started to change. My heart healed and a lot got scabbed over, and by now you can barely see all the hurt that was there to begin with, that I carried and fed for 20 years.

And recently, things just clicked. This month, there was a moment where I took a look around and realized I'd made it. This is it. Out of the woods. Out in open water. My chute just opened, and I'm landing gracefully. I stopped pushing and looked at where I was, and realized my life had officially 180-ed. And how weird is that. It's gonna take some getting used to. I'm certainly not done waking up and going, Wow. But for every wtf is this really my life moment, there's also amazement at how normal things can be. And I like it. I am living the life I had daydreamed the heck out of since I could remember.

Somehow, younger me always knew this day would come. How a four-year-old went to bed telling herself, maybe tomorrow it'll be better, without anyone having ever taught her how to cope, I'll never fully understand. How an eight-year-old little girl had the wherewithal to say No, I will do better, I'll never fully understand either. How an eighteen-year-old could say enough and go her own way, and do it all herself, still amazes me.

If she could have seen me then as I am now. But she didn't need to. She knew.