Sitting With It
Some things are really for the private journal but I started writing about this and wanted to finish it here. Maybe someone can relate. Or, at least, I won’t feel so alone.
Live Journal for the modern age, I said.
I want to sit here and pretend that all is well. But transitional periods are rarely smooth. They come packed with anxiety, confusion, grief, and a quiet, aching longing.
I’m anxious about what will come of my time in this new place. Confused because I can’t seem to get anywhere without my GPS. I only have a couple of friends here. And I feel the grief and longing for the person I was not even a month ago.
The last time I wrote, it was about my era of having nice things. But this is also my era of shadow work—a season of getting real with myself and what I want out of my life.
The truth is, I’m scared. I’m insecure. I feel brittle. I listen to the same sad album every day because it holds every second of every hour, counting the time with me. I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m not even sure I understand what my professors are teaching. Sometimes I wonder if I should even be here.
I’ve barely been in New Mexico for four weeks, and already I worry my new therapist might hate me because I shared too much too soon, spilling pieces of myself before I could stop them. I miss someone I shouldn’t, someone who still lingers in my thoughts even as I try to move forward. I deleted the dating apps because I can’t keep pretending I’m ready for that kind of noise. I’m stumbling, one unsure step after another, hoping the path will make sense later.
I keep telling myself it’s grief, but it feels like something more confusing than that. She comes to me faceless and daunting, a presence I can’t quite name. I think she might be my shadow—the part of me I keep trying to outrun. It’s unsettling to realize that what scares me most is just me.
Sometimes I write out of fear.
I once wrote about wanting nice things, about someone who couldn’t give me that. I’m not even sure what I meant. Maybe “nice things” wasn’t about material comfort at all. Maybe it was the idea of feeling safe in my own skin, of not having to fight so hard to be understood. Maybe it was the fantasy of someone arriving with certainty when I feel anything but certain.
Something keeps emerging from the path I’ve left, and I’m still trying to figure out what it’s trying to tell me. It feels like walking through a house where the furniture has been rearranged in the dark. I bump into old habits, old hurts, and new responsibilities. I bruise myself on memories I thought I’d packed away.
Yet here I am, still moving. Still showing up for class even when I feel lost. Still opening the door to my therapist even when I’m afraid of being too much. Still writing, even when the words come from fear more than clarity. There’s a kind of courage in that—small, quiet, but real.
Ask me again in a year what is going on. Maybe by then I’ll have a clearer answer. For now, all I can do is stay with myself long enough to find out.