Lying in my bed I inhale the neighbors cigarette smoke that drifts inside my bedroom window.
His patio just on the other side of my wall. It's too hot to close the window, so I let the smoke slither in. the soft burning in my nose, I remember the time when I used to smoke.
That smoke would bellow my frustrations to the world. It would linger in my throat so tightly as if grabbing on and shaking it. My anger reverberating into my lungs and then back out my mouth. I loved smoking. I loved that it would comfort me and validate my feelings of inadequacy.
I would walk down the street, my breath short, and dragging my cigarette. I felt like the lone ranger. I felt like I was strong. I felt like my cigarette was my best friend.
The smoke I smell now is the lamentations of my best friend. Almost like a prayer of disparity.
My disparity that is. The feeling of not knowing anything about where I am going. How do I know I'm going somewhere? Because the anxiety to not be is greater than the not knowing.
I'm afraid of standing still. Of being left behind. The fear of finding out what I already believe to be true is that I am not needed. For anything. I lack of any importance or real meaning. If you wanna talk about fears, well this one is the bell ringer.
This fear longs to push people away, to protect myself from the inevitable. Why don't I just let it come? To accept that I am unwanted? Good question.
Because my hope keeps grabbing on. Like a small child that doesn't want to let go of her balloon.
But like each child that loses her balloon, she will throw a fit. Cries and screams, maybe even kicks and yells. This is how I feel in that moment of losing what I have been hoping for for so long. The hope which is always the branch that keeps me from my fall. When in actuality, what I need is to fall.
To be seen and heard is what everyone wants.
Its okay to want these things. This is the validation that I look for. Realizing that everything I feel is neither good nor bad. that everything I feel is okay and no one can tell me differently. Nor do I need to change my feelings for someone else so that they may avoid being uncomfortable.
My feelings are my feelings and exactly that.
I know in Psychology there is always that phrase, "change your thoughts change your feelings."
But I believe a lot of our feelings are automatic. Not to say they were not inspired by thoughts first, but the process that I believe is needed is to not shame our feelings but validate them and then look at that thought and decide if that is something we would like to believe in or not.
What I believe my greatest struggle is, is when I have an uncomfortable feeling, the first thing I want to do is figure out how to get rid of it. But for me what I am finding is that if I honor my feelings and allow them to be present with me, then the struggle isn't there.
Now I can hear what it is the Universe was trying to teach me.
