Tag: self love

the act of unraveling

So much of my time is spent photographing others, writing on behalf of others, and using a different voice to portray a certain message. I have found it hard to really know myself because I focus so much on everyone else.

It is easy for me to pick someone apart by listening carefully and paying attention to their responses and the things they say and do not say. I am an expert understander.

It is not easy for me to put into words how I feel about things, maybe because I am not often asked. I am the asker.

Lately I’ve been asking myself how I can open up more and trying to mirror the vulnerability of others. I write so much, and sometimes feel so in tune with myself, but I don’t know if I have ever truly shared that with someone else. I don’t think I’ve ever voiced my deepest darkest thoughts and hopes and dreams and fears, and I don’t remember ever wanting in such a precise way before.

I have kept me close to me, worn my emotions and complexities like a tight second skin. I wrap myself around myself around myself around myself like a snake coiling and ready to strike in case someone tries to get too close.

But what am I protecting myself from? Where did I learn this behavior?

How do I put the fangs away and unravel myself, now that I want to let someone really know me?

This is what I’ve been trying to do, I am currently in the pursuit of being known by someone that I want so badly to know me. To like me for me, and isn’t that all that anybody has ever asked for?

passionately, not reasonably

Do you really love me? Much?

Passionately, not reasonably?

Virginia Woolf, letter to Vita Sackville-West
December 29, 1928

I have been working so hard to better myself this year, in just about every way. I am working toward things I don’t want to jinx by writing out.

I’m trying to stay in the present as much as possible and not focus too much on outcomes. I want to enjoy the things that are good now, and not be impatient. I am happy, now.

I am not yet where I want to be, and I believe by the end of July I will be. I think in 6 weeks I will be much better than I am now. In 9 weeks I will be even better.

By the time I’m 24 I think my life will be a lot different, with more to balance. But more is good, it means my life is fuller.

I know it because I’m working so hard towards it all. It’s inevitable, unless something that I can’t plan against happens. If you put in the work you will get the reward, and I refuse to listen to people who say otherwise.

It is both passionate and reasonable to chase after everything I want and earn it all and love the moments in between the beginning and the goal.

sonata no.14 in c-sharp minor by beethoven type of post

A person can be defined by their experiences. Their understandings of those experiences, their reactions to those experiences, the conclusions they draw from them, what they learn from them. Their thought process, the kind of relationships they maintain with others, their character, the way they speak.

I’m the melting sea caps pouring into the ocean.

Probably more closely is that I’m defrosting like a frozen chicken.

I feel really good things are on the way, are here already. I am living with high stakes and high payouts.

multitasking

Being a girl is sitting in the salon chair every two weeks crisscrossing your arms for the fill and hoping that the movement from the massage chair doesn’t move the drill and burn your nail beds while trying not to kick the nail tech scrubbing the soles of your feet with a pumice that tickles and hoping you picked the right color.

It’s wanting an iced americano but without sugar so you can be skinny and thinking about when you’ll squeeze in 45 minutes of cardio before your plans tonight and how your concealer is running out so you can only put on makeup after the gym but before plans and you need to wash your hair today and style it and you really just want to stay in and read a book and not go out at all.

But that guy you almost went on a date with but ended up being actually still married even though he’s 25 is going to be there tonight so you want to go out so he sees you even though you won’t date him because ew and either way you don’t want to date anyone but maybe one person but that’s complicated for no real reason except for some very real reasons involving the future and time and space.

Being a girl is exhausting and full of multitasking and caring about everything and never feeling like you’re caring about the right things but not being able to make yourself care any less anyway.

today I walk light

I am not here to absorb your grievances, your maladies, and try to compel myself to discover what invisible affliction has made you so full of bullshit. I will not let you try to get me to pretend your imagined issues are important. Today I walk light. I am the personification of a sunbeam and I may just strike you blind upon entering my presence. On this day, I will pirouette my entire journey around the sun in while chewing multiple sticks of bubblegum at one time until I have enough to hang you up on the Seattle gum wall where you and all of the other icky, sticky fiends belong.

reading books, listening to music

How lucky I feel, to be in my body again. How lovely I feel not to have to pretend.

Hayley Williams (Watch Me While I Bloom)

I didn’t want to work out this morning but I pushed myself to do whatever my best is today and I feel soooo good. Like my mood has been so intensely good lately!

This weekend I’m staying home, I got a few books and I think I’m just going to read them all. I know I need to go to the store at some point and meal prep all my lunches for the week or I’ll end up ordering out and feeling like a slug and right now I feel like that speedy snail from the snail mail game. I don’t want this empowering, uplifting feeling to go away.

My local bookstore is back open so I bought one book from each of my favorite authors. If you have a book recommendation please leave it in the comments or send me a DM @prattlepeach on Instagram. I neglected to read as much as I should have been earlier this year so I’m making up for it now.

The books I bought are Sellevision by Augusten Burroughs, Damned by Chuck Palahniuk, and The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.

When I was in high school I read Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs and I felt this itch to go explore the world. Not fall in love with a pedophile and live with a crooked therapist and his family, but at least go to New York and stand in the middle of Times Square.

My freshman year of high school I also emailed a fan letter to Christopher Moore and he replied and I have loved him and his work ever since. He writes how I think, or maybe I think this way because I’ve been reading his work since I was 14? I am all of books I’ve ever read, I think.

My favorite band is Panic! at the Disco, and the song Time to Dance is based off the book Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I met him a couple times and he’s the coolest person ever, and his books are so intricate and I usually have to read them a couple times each to fully understand them.

I’m definitely happiest after I’ve read a book, done some HIIT, and had an iced americano. That’s an ideal day alone with myself.

I also want to go to the beach maybe, or just take a drive on PCH and listen to music. I feel open and excited, after so many weeks of not feeling good. I think there is potential in the air, and I’m going to try and live in this moment as much as possible.