Saturday, February 21, 2015

Open.

I’ve been trying to figure out what it is.
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Over the past year it feels as though I’ve done a 180, or maybe an actual 360, as it feels as if I’m still in the same place, looking at the same things, but with a completely different outlook.
I’ve been feeling more connected to other humans. I’ve always felt sort of alien to my own kind up to this point, but lately it’s as if I’m turning into the person I’d always desired to be like in my interactions with other humans. It’s as if all my life I’ve been nervously observing myself interacting with others rather than just, well, really interacting with them. I’ve also felt more connected to myself, in that there are rarely times where I feel too trapped in my own head, unable to look at myself and my life objectively in order to make changes, unable to pick myself out from emotional ruts I shouldn’t even be having.

Of course, it’s still hard to have self-discipline and self-control, it’s still hard to follow my own schedule, it’s still hard to get into the habit of doing, but for all intents and purposes I’ve reached a point where I don’t feel damaged anymore. I feel like I’m just like everyone else now, learning, trying, aiming. Not constantly trying to pat broken pieces back into cracks and holes that wouldn’t hold them. Not falling apart.

I don’t feel like escaping when I talk to people I haven’t decided I liked yet. More importantly, I don’t feel like my brain decides to even dislike anyone as much as I used to do. I’m discovering that I had unknowingly harbored a personal social environment that had more antagonism than was needed. I wasn’t really looking for fights or anything, I just didn’t really like anyone by default; I was suspicious and not trusting of other people. But now, even when I know the bad stuff, I could rise above it and make interactions as pleasant as I could muster anyway.

art my own
Is it something new I’ve learned? I ask myself. As much as I’d like to think so, as reassuring it is to think that I’ve reached some sort of magical threshold or epiphany that will push me forward without as much effort as I’ve needed to get to this point, I feel that the real answer is really a lot simpler, practical, and logical. It’s about as magical as a flower blooming after it’s gotten enough sunlight, nutrients, and time. That’s not saying it’s not an amazing thing, but rather that it’s not really extraordinary or unexpected in its magical-ness. It’s just.. natural. As magical as nature. Magical, but not unexplainable.

I just had more enough exposure and interactions with people. The threshold I reached was one of mere experience partnered with a new-found comfort in willingness to open myself. I think I spent my life being guarded because I tried to protect myself, which is also natural and normal because I must have felt weak and empty before. Maybe lately, because I’ve been letting myself love more, I’ve just been feeling that my heart has been full, nurtured, and strong enough to emotionally exert myself more in other ways. 

Maybe in letting myself go through a wider spectrum of emotion, I’ve come to know other people better too. To empathize better with more kinds of them, so stretch my understanding more than I was able to before. 


Whatever it is, I like it. I finally feel that I belong wherever I am.

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