A friend asked if I had any interest in helping with the school’s garden. I said maybe, but only if it doesn’t cost me too much time and energy. That’s the trade I make with almost everything – guard the energy, spend it on my priorities, and let the rest go. It’s hard-won wisdom, but I still find I grieve the cost. Saying no does not fulfill the need of being wanted.
Have I been healing or taking?
It surfaced mid-conversation, not while I was alone with my own pages. That’s when it always happens – I don’t feel most of my emotions when I’m by myself. For a second, I wondered if I’ve spent years using other people’s presence to access what I couldn’t reach alone, like I’d been quietly extracting something that was never mine to take. Or maybe there was never anything to access on my own. Maybe I was never taught how to reach it alone in the first place.
I don’t understand surrender
My whole life keeps bringing me the same message. Surrender. It comes through my body, through loss, through circumstances I can’t control no matter how hard I grip. I understand the concept. I even feel the pull of it sometimes. But surrender feels like releasing the only thing standing between me and chaos. I’m not trying to refuse it, but I just don’t know how to let go.
I frankly wish I wasn’t this way
I can see the pattern clearly. I name it. I write about it. I publish it. And then I do it again. Awareness doesn’t always change behavior and sometimes that’s just the truth. I frankly wish I wasn’t this way. But wishing hasn’t changed it either.
Caution is sometimes just distrust in disguise
I made myself prove I deserved the real thing before I let myself have it. I called it being responsible. But what I was really saying was: you’re not worth it yet. Earn it first. You aren’t allowed to want what you actually want.
The boundary and the pain are the same thing
I protect my peace now. I don’t choose to participate. I haven’t resolved this. I still feel the sting of all the unresolved emotions when I think about seeing them. You can love people and still refuse to shrink for them.
The shame isn’t about the spending
I don’t accept my spending habits as okay. I carry shame about how I like to spend money. But the shame was never about the money. It was about the gap between who I am and who I thought I’d be by now.
“Not good enough,” is a feeling, not a fact
I caught myself mid-entry: I don’t think the things I create are good enough. That belief exposed a lie I’ve accepted as fact. The work exists. The feeling was the only thing saying it doesn’t.