I am not myself when I am alone.

Part 2.

In the wake of a shared experience between friends, one person finds themselves ousted by their own slew of thoughts. It comes in many forms: self sabotage, insecurities, deflective humour. And when the ball drops, the proverbial other shoe, there’s a deafening silence, it sifts through the air and clouds perception, making you wonder if you were ever real at all.

It gets so foggy at times, that notion that you mustn’t just survive, you must thrive fully. That you must juggle multiple parts of yourself to say that you have lived.

Making friends, eating good food, having sex, communicating boundaries, forming healthy relationships, all of that shit takes it out of you. Draws your skin back and asks you to look at yourself. Really, look. And what you find is relief because you are in fact, capable of those things. You are not broken, you are not unlikeable. You are simply difficult. An equation built for the select few. Love is hard but loving is even harder. Do you even know what that means? To love? To pursue the work and inner workings of others? 

On a scale, there’s too much to measure here, too many lives being stuffed into boxes and dirt for love to be long lasting. How do you deal with the fear that your heart could shatter at any given moment? That who you are and what you bring is not fully formed until you experience the worst growing pains? “Character development” perhaps, but in the end there isn’t much character to develop. Only soiled belongings and a need to prove that you are not alone. That you shine brightly around others. 

Maybe that’s true. Or, maybe all it is is an attempt to understand the self. How it forms and how often it must break down to earn its new, shiny parts.