volume one hundred and forty-seven
not in chronological order
📍Written from a standing desk in my temporary Naarm (Melbourne) home, while scouring through old journal entries.
I can’t stop giggling out loud alone. It keeps bursting out of me like it’s been held in for far too long and refuses to be contained anymore. It’s mid-morning in March and I feel butterflies in my chest and belly that help me fly as I leap from the stairs taking me from the kitchen to the sunken living room. The Perth sun streams in and reveals to me the dust on the window sills and books.
Finally. Finally. After far too long. I just cannot believe I am finally released from feeling responsible for someone I do not love and that I am not attracted to.
I no longer want the burden of them and I no longer feel guilt for that. Flowers was released two months ago and I still listen to it on full blast, headphones wedged into my ears, my best possible reenactment of the video.
Today I truly feel it for the first time.
How many times did I try to convince myself of this? Too many. They always needed something. I’m not giving any more. I am free to dance and laugh and fuck and breathe. Holy moly! I’m FLOATING! I AM FUCKING FREE!
I’m dancing, singing, bounding, skipping.
I am so light! I am so fucking light. Thank goodness. I take this vibrancy to the chook pen to collect my daily eggs.
I don't know when I realised it was happening but I was too far gone when I did. Somehow, somewhere I stopped being me and became an extension of you.
My plans were in consideration of yours. How I commented on things I heard or saw, what I posted on social media, what I wore, who I befriended, what I did in my spare time, what I watched on TV, the music I listened to and how I behaved at social gatherings were all your making. I’d done it again and I swore it would be different with you, and the you before you, and the one before that.
My energy was consumed in taking care of your every need and anticipating your every reaction so I could be one step ahead, ready to go along for your ride or do damage control.
I thought about you so much that I had convinced myself it was a love story waiting to unfold. Again. I had no energy left to spare so I stopped loving myself.
I never want to be there again. But I’d lied to myself before.
QUESTION: What old story are you ready to heal?
ANSWER: That I am stuck in the past. That the past defines me. That the resume of my life cannot change or evolve as I do. That my past actions dictate my future ones. That who I was is who I am.
I’m not who I was. I am who I am.
I was so starved I would have taken anything offered and you just happened to be the one who got to me first. I pounced. I lived like tomorrow it could all be taken away, that your attention dangled in front of me ready to be snatched away the moment you decided it to. So I was desperate and behaved desperately.
I wrote myself pros and cons lists for staying and then ignored them when the cons list was much longer. I ripped out that page and pretended it didn’t exist and FaceTimed you again.
Famished and hating myself. Full of an ego that told me I could be better with you. This was the ego that allowed me to stick around, refusing to leave, refusing to believe there was anything better out there, or inside of me.
When I’m not thinking about me, I know love better.
The cat gets closer to my face, loudly sniffing my tears in curiosity. The autumn rain pounds the roof louder and competes with the music. The credits roll and my fragile, tender heart aches over a fictional ending, again. And I love that.
I acknowledge the layers of what it means to feel complex confusion over the loss of a life I didn’t live out myself. A life I am only really beginning to accept, understand and embrace. I sometimes wonder if I am even truly living that life now. Am I being honest with myself about who I am? It scares me that sometimes I just haven’t been given the chance to prove I am not and the moment that happens my own betrayal will be revealed.
The credits end and Netflix recommends another world for me to get lost in and ignore my own.
I played a silly game last night and lied to my Uber driver about this being my house, my cats, having a boyfriend who had to work that’s why he wasn’t at the concert with me, and us wanting kids one day. It felt easier to answer yes to his questions than to challenge them with what I really wanted. Which is the opposite of all that. Which is what I have.
Was I scared of being judged or was I the one judging him thinking he wouldn’t accept my truth? Was it really a bit of fun or have I just gotten used to so many lies being easier than the facts? Is this me shutting myself out or is this the fear the world has instilled in people like me to protect ourselves?
If I am so sure of the life I want — and I am — then why didn’t I declare it to this perfect stranger?
Why is it always the Uber drivers who ask these questions?
QUESTION: What is your perfect relationship?
ANSWER: Excitement.
Better together, but our best on our own.
We don’t need each other, we want each other.
Laughter.
Low-pressure.
Comfort in silence.
Dancefloors.
Cooking and cleaning.
Going in similar directions but not the same.
Sleeping in and sleeping apart.
We do not compromise ourselves for the other.
One where I do not lose myself. Not one little bit.
Compromise can be found in love, compromising myself cannot.
I feel so delightfully fulfilled in my life that I don’t feel lacking or craving.
I used to feel that way. All the time. I filled the void with fantasies of love and dates and drinks and unanswered texts and selfies and posts for their attention and jealousy and only moved on from that once I had a new target.
Today I romance myself. My life and the people in it are so blissful. Anyone new I allow in must add to that because I am complete. There is no void to fill.
I need love all around me in order to love myself.
I don’t need others to love me so that I can love myself, but I need to love others so that I can love myself.
The more you love, the more you do. I love my people. I love myself.
Lovely reader, head into the comments and tell me how you learned to show yourself love.
here are three things i struggled with this week:
🏠 Honestly? Leaving the house. It is an anxiety that comes in waves and seasons and when it arrives it takes a lot. I have had a lot of support and I am grateful.
📺 Pulling myself away from the television.
🗻 Regret for the times I ignored my own dreams for others.
here are three blessings from this week:
🤠 A new hat. I used to think I couldn’t be a hat person. I just wasn’t shopping for the right hats.
☕ Community.
🗺️ Changing my mind.
here are three goals for the coming week:
🧺 More Melbourne markets.
🧶 Finding the perfect knitted jumper at an op-shop.
🪩 Kitchen dance parties.
pics or it didn’t happen:
I love you. Now I am off to enjoy a weekend I have absolutely overbooked but have done so necessarily to make sure I get out and about even if I cancel something.
13 words: I love that you love you as much as we love you Lauren x Ps. You just can't beat a good hat....As I tip my hat to you, I'll leave you with an oldie but a goodie: What did one hat say to the other? You stay here and I'll go on ahead haha :)
I love your hat. I hope you find the perfect knitted jumper. I am still learning to love myself and I found writing a daily love letter (as recommended by Liz Gilbert) really helps. I can't hide from the words on the page.