lists

we all make so many lists. things we want in someone else. things we would like in our families, in our friends. but the truth is- we dont have much of a choice. we love who we love. our hearts and minds dont forget about that. we don’t know what we want until its right in front of us. like a scene out of a movie. it can be like that sometimes. 

i make so many lists. lists and lists and lists and theyre never ending. 

its so weird because lately everything amazing i have found has been so far from what i thought id want. and in the moments that i previously wouldve been so bold, so bold that it could hurt others- for some reason i havent been able to be that way. in the most trivial moments- i used to be able to speak my mind. tell someone i liked them. tell them i loved them. tell them i never wanted to see them again and why. and although my feelings arent as drastic as a teenagers are anymore- i have lately been unable to say them out loud in the moments that i wish i would have. why does it get harder as i get older? 

the girl who would speak her truth without thinking twice can no longer do that. i still haven’t decided if thats a good thing or a bad thing. maybe its better sometimes that people dont know how i feel. sometimes, lately i feel like its of no use. maybe ive just grown up. because let me tell you- wasted energy on telling someone your feelings for them to be invalidated is one of the worst ways ive ever wasted my energy. what if things don’t change? what if i mess up a friendship? over things that i can now classify as trivial. what if i tell someone how i feel and they dont feel the same way? i think thats more embarrassing. having to explain my feelings to people who will never understand my point of view is something i know very well. its one of those things that makes your heart(and your head) hurt. 

its the way that i’ve felt a lot of things one-sidedly. that’s the scary part. its the what if im misreading and they don’t actually like me? what do i do then? im not good at pretending things are okay when they aren’t anymore. i no longer live in a state of panic where i have to do that anymore. lately i feel loopy. i used to crave a life that was stable. its all i wanted. but now im not sure if it was just in my head. maybe i invented it because i wanted it so badly. but now i really just want a simple one. it doesn’t have to be stable. i don’t think in this world or system i can have that. i dont think anyone can give me that either. i can no longer make lists of things i want to do in 5 years or things i want in someone else. because the things ive actually ended up wanting are so different from what I imagined myself wanting right now.

i can no longer pretend or hope that the right move or the right choice will get me some sort of recognition from people i once deeply cared about. i surprisingly don’t need that anymore. i have found so much more in the family i have now. i have the support system i would’ve only dreamed about back then. at this point im trying not to care about the fact that i find out about important life events over an instagram post. i guess if i was different- i would care more. but hey- i love my life now. as unpredictable as it is sometimes. 

i love my family. the one that i found without making lists. i found them without looking. and i know without a doubt that these are the people that i will carry in my heart for the rest of my life. 

i guess what im trying to say is that sometimes i want to throw out all the lists i have in my head. and the ones i’ve written down too. i know they’re necessary for some things. but they can also limit us in other ways. most times we find the things we need without even asking. 

i don’t think my friends were necessarily asking for a girl who cries over the smallest things and likes to be alone a lot. but yet here we are. yellow by coldplay is one of my favorite songs in this world. do you want to know why? because of how it says that the stars shine for this person and everything that they do. i guess writing it down- it doesn’t necessarily sound like it did in my head. but what i’m trying to say is that we all deserve people who will see us shine in the best ways possible. who will notice the little details. they see you shine and they see you happy and they can’t help but love you and everything that you are. and that is the most beautiful thing of all.

i was talking to one of my best friends a few nights ago. she called me because she wanted to tell me all the thoughts she had in her brain. and for some reason i thought it was such a pretty thing to say. to have someone care about you enough that they want to tell you all the things they’re thinking even if they don’t make sense sometimes. and the prettiest part is that i wanted to hear all of them. 

at the end of the day, we all want people around us who will listen to us and all our crazy ideas- and to be able to listen to them as well. human interaction can be the most beautiful thing if we just let it be. 

i no longer have lists about what i want in people. rather than having lists- i have values. and if i feel like you can respect me and i can respect and trust you in the ways we both need, then that’s all i really need. respect, trust and boundaries. those are three very important things to me. and i can no longer sacrifice those things just because i love someone. other things are always needed in order to make a relationship work. 

i told my sister the other day that i was happy. and this is something she knows very well. but this time it was different. i told her i no longer felt like i needed to be in a relationship to be of some sort of value. that i was happy on my own and i would be even if i was for a long time. at the time i wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. but the moment she told me she was proud of me i knew it was good. it was good. its good. it would be a little foolish of me to keep asking for something that i’m not sure exists. i’m not sure if giving up on that part of my life is a little extreme. but i feel like in the moment that i am at right now- it makes the most sense. i don’t want to look around and feel like there’s something wrong with me and thats why i don’t have what everyone else has. that makes me feel inadequate when i very well know that i’m not. when i very well know that i have a lot to offer. i guess the easiest, the happiest thing i can do for myself is accept the fact that these things don’t happen for some people. and that its okay. i wondered sometimes growing up why all the people around me chose less than they deserved. i guess now i know the realities that come with being alone. so now i understand what i didn’t back then. what i pretty much refused to do myself. what brought me some pain but then again i accomplished everything i wanted right? right. there’s always two sides to a coin. there’s always pros and cons to every single situation. to every decision we make in this life. having been in a relationship before (a bad one at that) made me realize that i was good at relationships. maybe too much. and i’m not being conceited. i mean that i realized that i did really put so much effort in, that if only he had- it would’ve worked out. but what it also taught me was that not a lot of people are good at them. not a lot of people are willing to put in the effort that it takes to maintain one. when i was finally out of it completely, it honestly made me a better person. the fact that you can be too much for someone else wasn’t something that i wanted to be ashamed of. it was something i was quite proud of. it means i gave it my all and tried my best.

“there’ll be happiness after you- but there was happiness because of you. both of these things can be true.”

here i go with ts lyrics again- but how can i not when they sound like that? but i think they resonated with me so much because someone can give us so much happiness- but we can’t forget that we will- and we can be happy even after people leave us. both of those things are true. the fact that some of us love harder, and give our best in every situation don’t make us less. i will always prefer that over being numb to feeling any emotion. and yes- i’ve definitely left behind those emotions, but it doesn’t mean i never want to feel them again. it doesn’t mean that i don’t hope for someone to look at me like im their entire world sometimes. but i don’t feel that way so badly that i would sacrifice everything for it.

one of my favorite rupi kaur quotes is this one:

“when i walked into the coffee and saw you my body did not react like it had the first time. i waited for my heart to abandon me. for my legs to freeze up. to fall to the ground crying at your sight. nothing happened. there was no connection or movement inside when locked eyes. you looked like a regular guy with your regular clothes and regular coffee. nothing profound about you. i don’t give myself enough credit. my body must have cleansed itself of you long ago. must have gotten tired of me behaving like i’d lost the best thing to have happened. and wrung the insecurities out while i was busy wallowing in pity. that day i had no makeup on. my hair was all over the place. i was wearing my brother’s old t-shirt and pajama pants. yet i felt like a gleaming siren. a mermaid. i did a little dance in the car while driving home. even though we were both under the same roof of that coffee shop. i was still solar systems away from you.”

to be completely honest- id like to do so many things still. the older i become, the more i learn to like different things about myself that i used to hate. what once felt hard to deal with about myself- is no longer hard to deal with. i would like to be so sure of myself that someone else can see that in me. and i genuinely feel like i’m almost there. lately i’ve been working on getting rid and letting go of old feelings. feelings that i no longer want. feelings that are so heavy that i no longer want to carry them. and it feels so good. so good that i want to get rid of all of them. i want to forget how other people used to make me feel. id like to forget what it felt like to be broken up with. id like to forget what it felt to think that i couldn’t accomplish much because of how anxious i was. id like to let go of the feeling i would get when yet again, another person would leave me for no apparent reason. id like to forget it all. id like to only remember the good things now. to let all the good things fill my mind now. id like to let it all go so that i don’t carry those things anywhere else with me. so that i don’t burden someone else with them. and i know we can’t be completely clean in this world. we can’t completely rid ourselves of all our baggage. but i think, no i know that what has been helping me has been to replace all those things with all the good things that i know now. i pray to let all those bad things go, and then i do. nothing has ever and will ever work as well as that. so once i’m confident that most of those things are gone- then i can be sure i won’t give that to anyone else. so that i can give myself to someone else as the person I’ve worked so hard to be.

i used to feel that in order to be happy again- i had to get back a previous version of myself that was happy and didn’t think such bad things could happen. but i no longer feel that way. because the person i am now is the person that my friends love, its the person that i now like much more than before, its a person who is much more confident than any of those previous versions of herself. so no, i no longer want to go back to being naive. i want to be happy that i am where i am.

i am happy where i am.