I no longer feel like a woman primarily controlled by the deaths of her pasts. There is no question in me of "is this right?" or "is this wrong?" because it is simply what it is.
In less than two months, Zach will have been gone from my life, physically, for a year. It's maddening how quickly all that pain and horror passed by, because it felt like years. Every week felt like a year of my life. And here I am, almost 52 weeks away from that fateful September day, and I am NOT nearly 52 years older. No, instead, I am nearly one.
I feel, as a person, as a Juliana Marie Smith who is continuing on in her ever stretching before her life, much more calm. Maybe emotionally dead (is that stoic?). But whenever I admit that aloud, my eyes prick with shame, embarrassment, guilt, fear, regret, and denial. So in truth, I am still emotional. I'm just more in control. Or. More decisive about showing it. Or less likely to greet emotion with alacrity.
Life is strange. Often, I have to force myself away from realizing what a sham life can seem like. How it's all just a covering up, or a tacking on, of who I really am. My house and my cats, my material objects, my job, my roommates, even my little brother living with me, and my companion, my friends, all these things feel so "meh". So fake. So. not passionate. So not really me. Kind of like when you're watching a movie, and you suddenly realize how everyone's an actor/actress, and everything's a set, that's how I feel about my life these days. Sometimes.
But I trudge on. Eyes sternly focused on the horizon, feet moving towards whatever goal awaits my end. Push forward towards my unknown destination.
Self Actualization. That's something that's been brought up to me quite often lately. By my "companion." I apologize, I don't know what else to call him. "Boyfriend" is gaudy, "Significant other" without feeling. "PIC"? seems too cavalier. "Lover" seems too one tracked. I guess I'm still figuring that part out. For now, companion will do. Maybe even "mentor" could fit, too.
Either way, I'm continually self-actualizing. Figuring myself out. This whole blog began because I wanted to figure myself out, "return to myself," whatever that means. I feel now that there is no true 180, there is no returning to myself, my past self, that is. Scars cannot be undone, they always burden, in a way, the skin they touch. I worked through my emotions, my anger with life, my bitterness, my adoration and appreciation for Zach, my eventual satisfaction with who I was. And then life tipped me over and poured me out again. The whole cycle started over.
This one has been dark. This cycle, I mean. I have picked my pieces back out of the world and put them back together, with my eyes closed. It was easy to move without seeing. Feeling felt fully functional, fully feasible, fully the bare minimum of action necessary to figure myself out. But I wonder..well, I wonder quite often if maybe this was unwise. My eyes are opening again, I'm feeling more comfortable with seeing the truth. I'm feeling more confident. More, here's the term again, "myself", whoever that is. But I'm also looking around me and what I've built from my pieces lolling in the ocean of life, and I'm noticing that I'm not 100% sure I like what I've done. That I feel what I am is right. Or what my life is is right. But I'm comfortable, so I deny the doubt. And trudge on.
Which I guess..in a way, is continuing to move forward with my eyes closed.
But sometimes, everything feels so right. So perfect. So exactly what I need.
And other times, something feels off. Awkward. Uncomfortable. Irritating. What I MIGHT have needed, but maybe not what I'll always, or right now, need.
I keep waiting for a "refresher" to happen. For someone to open my eyes. For clarity, so that I can see my big picture, discover what's wrong, and find the courage to right it.
I question myself. And everyone around me questions me, too. Where can I find the answers?
Sometimes I feel the only answer is to leave Charleston. Everything here is not as simple as it seems. Relationships are not as malleable as I expect. Or maybe they are, but I don't see them that way. I yearn for freedom from my bonds. A desire to roam to some far off land that doesn't know me, so that I can start from scratch. Not start from ruins.
I'm not unhappy. Don't get me wrong. I'm just not sure how long this setting and cast will keep me happy. I have little faith in it. I need something stronger. A stronger love for my surroundings, not a half hearted hurrah. A stronger, purer, less tainted tie to my people. Something built from curiosity, joy, jokes, respect. Not something forced to form from devastation, desperation. And that isn't ungrateful. I'm not ungrateful. I'm just tired of the weight everything here carries. I'm ready for something fresh. I'm ready to stop allowing my past to rule my future. To stop openly tying myself to so much sadness. I can never forget my loves ever ever ever. I can never stop carrying them with me, and I don't even want to stop. But I do want to be independent of the stain their droppings created. I want to be free of the reminders, people, places, or things. The obligations i feel to said reminders, people, places, or things. I'm ready to be ME in a world that's ready to see ME for ME.
If that makes any sense.
It feels hard to self-actualize when I feel like so much of my here'n'now doesn't want to see me be anything different than what I once was or what I might still be. It feels hard to move forward when I feel bonds preventing me from taking further steps. It is natural, for me, to be mercurial, i believe. I shall never stop being who I am, but I will change in that I'll add life experiences to ma "am". Ma am will grow. And I don't want anyone hindering ma am from the ability to do so. "Yes, ma'am, be free to change," that's what I'd like to hear from my peers, my mentors, my family, my friends.
Life fire changes and reshapes metal. Life changes and reshapes me. metallic, liquid, mercury. my wings say so much more now than I could have ever foreseen.
I cannot allow the charred remains of extinguished fires to put my own fire out, but I will allow them to change my composition, but not so much I lose my original material. I cannot allow my past to stop my life, but I can allow it to be a part of me, not so much so that I lose me.
Ma am shall change, like mercury. My flaming life will continue to mold me. And when my own fire is extinguished, maybe only then will I truly be self-actualized. Maybe only then will I be totally permanent, unchanging, my mercury hardened into it's final form, so that the world left behind will be able to know just exactly who I was.
Maybe. And this is all coming to me as I type it, but maybe self-actualization isn't so necessary for life. Maybe all I need is a confidence, or a knowledge, that what I'm doing is what I want, what I feel is good. Maybe...well maybe THAT'S Self actualization. that knowledge.
I'm losing my purpose right here.
But, it feels good just writing it out. I don't want your restraints, current life. I don't want your expectations. I want your bonds, but I don't want them to hold me back. I don't want your demands, because you are not my life, not in the long run. For now, yes, you are a rung to my climb to happiness. but you are not my happiness. I am happy, but I have not yet reached the pure, blissful happy I may have once felt when all was good and life had not yet taught me pain.
I will perceiver because I am strong. And determined. And wild. And independent. Like the wind that hits this town, I too will pick up scents of my life and carry them forward on into the world. I will not be stopped, obstacles will be overpassed.
And I spose that's that. I am free! I am brave! I am life! I am woman! I am fearless! I am strong! I am Juliana Marie SMITH! And these will never change.
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