keep this a secret.
Has anyone ever felt like they were being kept a secret before? I have, and it’s terrible.
Category: Time To Get Real.
the freedom cage.
I’ve been terrible at posting. I keep thinking of all of the things that I need to say, and sometimes it just takes me a while to get my head around them enough to put my thoughts into words.
A few updates, and then a few thoughts on something that has been on my mind lately: how easy it is to become caged by freedom.
So, on dating. I will have a new post soon about someone I met recently. Yes, this person deserves their very own post. But for any consistent readers, everyone referenced in Chapter 47 is long gone. And that definitely includes Prince Eric, who turned out to be quite the asshole. I can’t say that I’m surprised, and thank god that infatuation is over.
What else is new… I got a promotion at work! I feel like quite the badass for being promoted within a year. It makes it feel so worth it to have made the move and made such a big change in my life. Onward and upward!
One of the things that I have cherished in my adult life is the ability to have the freedom to do what I want. Things like uprooting and moving to a new state and starting a new chapter, without having to answer to anyone. But sometimes, I think we can become caged by our freedom.
I think this has happened to me to an extent, and it has definitely impacted who I am. I have focused so much on being free and living a full life that I design, that I’ve subsequently kept people and relationships at arm’s length. It’s only recently that I’ve realized how imprisoning freedom can actually be. Yes, I can pick up and start over at any point, because it’s just me. But at the same time, it’s just me. Staying in the same place through life allows you to build substantial long term relationships, and I haven’t done that. I’ve moved every few years and started over.
On one hand, it’s exhilarating to be able to start anew. You can rebuild who you are. You can learn new experiences. You can challenge yourself to do things you’ve never done before. You can surprise yourself by achieving things that seem so out of reach to so many people. On the other, it’s terrifying. It causes you to isolate yourself. Trust only yourself. Feel alone and like you only have yourself to rely on.
I’m at a point now where I want to be able to really start settling in my life, and stop constantly hunting for this idea of freedom. I want to surround myself with people who challenge me, instead of just putting myself into challenging situations. I want to do the things I’ve never done before by discovering new depths within myself, instead of discovering a new area code. I want to learn to let my guard down and share my achievements with people who care about me.
I will not say that some of these things don’t already happen, because they absolutely do. I am lucky to have a few very good friends and people in my life. I just know that this is something that I can improve on. I can be a stronger, better me by learning to let myself live in a way that doesn’t require me to always seek a new challenge. That’s what is interesting about the idea of escaping the freedom cage. Maybe letting go of the idea of chasing freedom will be the most freeing thing I experience.
Until next time!
xoxo
Tempest.
time to get real, real.
Whoa, I knew I had been slacking on posting, but wow, I didn’t realize it had been quite this long. My bad.
I’m going to be really honest with the reason I haven’t posted in a while.
I’ve noticed that even though this blog is really meant to be a platform for me to be my true, fucked up self, I fail at being completely transparent. And when things get really hard, I just don’t post. I’ve decided I need to start being real with myself here.
With that said, here are the main things that are going on with my life right now, that have made it very difficult for me to put it down to be recorded forever on the interwebs:
- I feel alone. Like, really really alone. I am not discounting any of the people who ARE there for me in my life. My sister and I got into an argument about this, because she told me it hurts her when I said “I don’t have anyone” and she has always been there for me. The last thing I ever want to do is hurt my sister… she’s as much life to me as air. But what I mean when I say I don’t have anyone, is that I do feel generally alone. I have friends, and my sister, and I am so very thankful for them. Overall, though, I feel like I am floating in a vast vacuum and going through the motions of life. There are multiple contributing factors to this.
- My family, ever since my mom passed, has been disjointed at best. My grandmother, who you would think would understand how hard life can be for me without my mom, is so caught up in what people think of her on social media that she pretty much forgets I exist. Unless I post something on social media, that is. She visits my aunt 5-8 times a year, and hasn’t visited me in several years. When I called her out on it, we had a huge fight, to which she said that she asked if she could come visit me when I moved and I told her I needed to get settled. Let’s clarify this. She asked to come visit me LITERALLY the weekend that I moved. I said I hadn’t gotten settled yet because I LITERALLY did not have furniture. That was 8 months ago. She hasn’t asked since.
- Speaking of moving, when I moved, I took a real no-bullshit approach to friendships and relationships. I decided that I didn’t want to have friendships in my life that were one sided or that drained me. I started cutting people off that I felt were abusive of my time and my energy. Guess what that means? I have a whole lot less friends than I did a few years ago.
- I’m bad at dating, and have completely given it up. I do want a relationship. But I am too set in my ways and too stubborn to settle. So while everyone else is having fun with the boys, I’m sitting on the sidelines. That kinda sucks sometimes.
- I feel broken. There are a lot of things that cause me to feel insecure and/or broken, and I don’t really know how to deal with most of them. Yes, I have a therapist. Yes, she really does think I’m funny, and so did my last one. Because I am. Because I use humor as a defense mechanism to avoid showing people these true insecurities. And because over the years, I’ve gotten really damn good at it. But yeah, I don’t know how to deal with these things. I read a book that said you should take all of your insecurities, and focus on just solving one, and once you do, the rest become easy. My problem is, I have so many, and I don’t really know where to start. Wanna hear them?
- 99% of the time, I hate my body. I think I’m overweight. I think I’m unattractive. I think that the people I find attractive are way out of my league thus securing my fate as a spinster. I realize that some guys think I’m attractive.
- A lot of the people I’ve cared about in my life have left me or not fought for me and that makes me feel worthless.
- When I was a preteen, my mom got remarried and took on a whole new family. I went from one of two children to one of like, 500. It sucked and it made me retreat within myself because I didn’t feel like I was heard anymore.
- I don’t feel like I can be myself with most people. When I say most, I mean there are probably 4 people on this planet that I feel 100% okay being me with. The rest, I feel judged and weird.
- I feel like I don’t know how to be happy. When I really think about it, there are few times that I have felt beyond contentment. Sure, I’ve felt pleased with life from time to time. But sometimes I just think I’m missing some type of happiness gene. Examples?
- When I got engaged to my now ex-husband, I didn’t cry, I didn’t jump for joy, I didn’t shout. I felt happy…ish. But not thrilled.
- Also, when I married my ex. I was nervous more than anything. But I never felt overly happy.
- Every relationship I’ve been in… I typically feel unhappy within the first few weeks. I pick things apart. I never have a “honeymoon” period.
- I never can just sit and be completely content. There is always something nagging at my brain, making me worry, making me anxious. I look for times that I can feel that way and I strive to find them. But it’s very hard.
- Most of my happy thoughts come from thinking about escaping. I don’t know if that is good, bad, or normal.
So, there’s the truth. The real, transparent, truth.
xoxo,
Tempest.
impermanence.
Fact: nothing lasts forever. Right?
I recently watched a movie that talked about impermanence, which is essentially the fact that the only thing constant is change. This is something that everyone more or less knows to be true. It’s something we have always known our entire lives… things will always change. So how does one find happiness through the change?
self love… or the pursuit of it, anyway.
Oh love, how complex you are.
Lately, I’ve been very introspective in thinking about love. But not the normal love or the hunt for partnership that I normally bitch about on here. Love for myself.
I don’t know if I’ve really gotten into it, but I have some pretty deep rooted self esteem issues that I know I need to figure out. I guess the first step of fixing a problem is admitting it, right? Well, there it is. I constantly struggle to love myself. Luckily, my grief counselor is also a bit of an everything counselor, so it’s something that I am working on. Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen overnight, and it’s a constant battle to stay positive and to work on my self image.
the art of being weird.
Happy almost spring, everyone! I apologize for my lack of posting… it turns out that even when I’m not dating I keep myself way too damn busy. The next few weeks are going to be quite the whirlwind!
It is only a few days away from spring, and we have gotten about a foot of snow up my way. Fun times for this southern girl. Hopefully it’ll be over soon and we can get some damn sunshine.
Anyway, I’ve been having a few revelations lately and wanted to jot them down before they left me forever. I’ve been doing the no-dating thing for a couple of weeks now. So, let me just preface this, I will still go on dates, just no online dating. If I happen to meet someone organically, fair game. I am not seeking anyone or anything though. I really have tried to shift my focus to myself. I have found that when I was trying so hard to date, I was really looking for someone who could complete part of me, and make me feel whole, instead of focusing on feeling that way on my own. Now that I am looking at things through this new “I’mma do me” lens, that is glaringly obvious.
People will tell you the truth, if you listen.
happy 50 posts!
I’ve hit 50 posts! Well, 51 now. Enjoy a lovely photo from my most recent adventure!
13% success rate
My sincerest apologies for the delay in posting. I went on a cruise (yay!) and also had a really solid therapy session this week, which made me a little introspective. I didn’t want to write anything until I had polished up my thoughts and determined the direction I wanted to go with my next post.
First off, cruise was great, yay! I love water.. it gives me life, it makes me happy, and it cures everything.
On to the tough stuff, though. I don’t know how much I’ve written about this before, so if this is repetitive, I apologize. I started going to grief counseling a few months after my mom passed away in 2013. I found that counseling is very therapeutic for me, so continued going regularly. Now it’s a very real part of my life. I am not too prideful to admit that I need help, a lot sometimes. I still deal with hardships as it relates to the grieving process and missing my mom, but most of my counseling sessions nowadays center around my own self worth and growth.
impending birthday dread.
Up until 2013, I loved my birthday, and everything about it. I would make everything a huge birthday bash, and usually would have a pretty good turn out. Since 2013, I still stay very busy around my birthday.. but unfortunately, since then, the birthday excitement is also accompanied by impending birthday dread.
It’s not just the getting older. That’s life, and it kinda sucks, and I do feel a little closer to dying alone every year… but it really boils down to my mom. I’ve written about this before, but my mom made a big fuss about everything holiday and birthday related. She always went over the top for any kinds of celebrations. It was annoying sometimes, but it also made things special. Especially birthdays. It felt like someone was always celebrating you.
my therapist says im funny... 