I had every intention of making this post about why I haven’t been blogging, but I mean come on. There’s a pandemic and it’s thrown everyone into a tailspin and we’re all just doing our best. I don’t know if I can say I’m doing my best, but I’m certainly trying to.
So, what are we going to talk about? I don’t really know. I wanted to be all poetic and beautifully worded, but I’m tired. I’m very tired. Maybe more tired than I’ve been before, and I know it’s deeper than because the world has felt like it’s been ending. My depression manifests itself with unwashed dishes and unfolded laundry. I finally got my kitchen cleaned and organized this weekend and it felt impossible the entire time.
It’s not a lack of motivation. It’s more an attempt to pull an elephant out of a watermelon and you only have dental floss. We hear so many times of people losing their battles with depression and anxiety and all kind of other mental illness, but what about the people fighting? Daily striving to feel something other than a crushing weight of indescribable heft just hanging from our teeth. Our chests are tight from holding in ourselves. We can’t be too emotional, we can’t show we feel, so we hold it in, and we hold it tight because no one wants to know we’re struggling.
A lot of people are saying it’s okay not to be okay, and that’s true, but the caveat is you do something about it once you realize you’re not. Self care isn’t always soft and gentle like those romanticized posts making the rounds on Instagram and Tumblr make it out to be. Yeah, it can be those small moments, but real self care, the deeper self care is ugly. It’s having moments where you tell yourself that enough is enough and you wash your dishes. You take a shower. You brush your teeth. The smallest things have the biggest significance. You fight back for yourself. You fight hard to beat back the voice that tells you you’re a failure. Because you’re not. You’re doing your best and that’s enough. You are enough.
We are stronger than what our demons call us. We can make it through this and more. I shouldn’t be here, but I am because there is some part of me that is determined to prove myself wrong. I don’t ever tell people it gets better, because it hasn’t so far for me, but it gets easier to hoist on my shoulders and carry it.
You are worth it. You are valued and you are loved most fiercely. Hold on to those words until they fit into the bits of you that are broken because you are beautiful and the world needs you.
salisbury.fake 