In My Feelings

I’m going through a rather intense transformation right now. It’s that kind of transformation where you pull all your insides out and search for the cancerous bits to cut away. I don’t remember the last time I’ve examined myself this closely, this ruthlessly. 

There's been many tears in the last month and they've been all good tears. I realize I'm putting the work in towards bettering myself, and that's a real painful process. Our society offers so many ways to numb ourselves, it's unreal. We, in turn, become unreal: some sort of doped up, Netflix addicted, feeling-avoidant cyborg who pretends to have it all together but is really falling apart inside. Good thing they have a pill for everything, right? 

When going through pain I've been learning (finally) to not avoid it, but to really feel it. Let it burn with the fire of 1,000 suns until it's shooting out of your fingertips. Let anxiety and sadness take their hold on you because, goddammit, you're human and this is what's it all about! Instead of ordering myself to (wo)man up, I've been paying homage to these feelings and figuring out what's caused them, and why I feel that way. I need less validation from situations/people that have hurt me; instead, I just need validation from myself to feel the feels. 

YOU'RE ALLOWED TO FEEL AND YOUR FEELINGS ARE VALID. << put on repeat >>

Okay, so it's not like I'm some guru who is so enlightened and never turns to red, red wine when emotional. But I think it's about not turning to red, red wine all the time. To leave some days for being brutally honest with yourself. I'm learning to do more of that, and I'm liking the woman I'm seeing emerge from it. I'm really, really liking her. 

Writing Makes It So I Don't Lose Myself

This morning I didn't allow myself to hop straight onto instagram. They make that little app as addictive as can be, goddammit, and sometimes I default to looking at it first thing. *

Instead, I let my mind do its own wandering. I immediately had a flashback to when I was 19.

I was enrolled in Creative Writing 101, the kind of class that makes you write cringe worthy poems and short stories (all of mine were TERRIBLE). However, one assignment stood out from the rest: create a blog and write every damn day to get some good practice in.

That's how this blog came to fruition. It was the first time I made myself write every day, and I fucking loved it. I'd wake up in my sorority house, and after grabbing coffee downstairs, I'd survey my surroundings to see that no one else was awake (hard to come by in a house of 22)--it was time to write. My fingers were BRIMMING with thoughts and stories I had to let out. There were days I would publish 2 or 3 posts because I couldn't contain myself!

Today, remembering 19-year-old Ashley furiously typing away on her desktop computer first thing in the morning put a MAJOR smile on my face. It reminded me of the natural creative flow that still resides in me, that still resides in all of us.

The question I pose to you and to myself is: how are you blocking that flow? What would you do first thing in the morning if nothing was distracting you? If you didn't have obligations and busy lives to fill up your day, so much so that you feel suffocated and thus retreat to easy outlets like instagram and podcasts? Yes, there is a place for both, but are you also leaving a place for yourself?

Writing makes it so I don't lose myself. I remembered that today.

*This is not the first time I've brought up instagram, and as you can see, I have a complicated relationship with that app. I'm aware of the addiction, and the way it both inspires me/cages me. I'm trying to make a place for my own thoughts again, without the sneaky advertising that social media apps implant in us, which is so very dangerous.