When I was a teenager, I became obsessed with the idea of travelling; of adventures, wild beaches, exotic locations, bustling markets and boundless freedom. It consumed my every thought. I bought a huge map and studied the continents, memorising where every country was and its capital city. I wanted to be totally familiar with the world when I finally got to be a part of it. I had checked out of my life completely and wanted the new one to begin so badly. Life didn't go as smoothly as I hoped it might, but I did get out into the world, many, many times and I really did have adventures. Not always good ones, but I appreciate them all; they are my stories and the things I hoped to gain from travelling most of all. Not because I wanted to show off, but because life itself is a story and we have control of how it plays out, so I always wanted mine to be different.
Depression though, has a way of warping the past; the cruel whispers don't recall all the courage and joy of our experiences, they point out only the mistakes. Of course there are mistakes- we all make them, its the only way to grow and learn. I scrutinize my life choices constantly, wondering what I could have done differently and honestly, I did whatever I could to cope in a world that often felt very alien to me. I didn't know my place so I would return to my travels, create more stories and see new places. It would remind me why I was where I was; rootless because there was too much to see and I could not resist the lure of the world. I think I created a lot of problems for myself, when I decided I did not deserve the life I had. I felt guilty that I was able to travel and explore, despite funding it myself and making sacrifices to enable it. The guilt set in and made me question myself. I think travelling does that for a lot of people, being exposed to poverty and the injustice of the world is hard to witness; I felt totally selfish for being there and being largely, unable to help. I did volunteer, I tried my best to support local people but it never felt enough, I never felt enough. I didn't know how to feel anymore. Being a traveller was my identity and when I felt I didn't deserve it, I took the bit of me I had chosen to create and crushed it into a ball. I wondered if my life was worth anything at all or if I was wasting time and had been all along. I still travelled but a heaviness took over, the excitement was marred by the feeling of having to explain myself and what I was doing. To have a bigger plan and reason. I had no such thing, I just wanted to see the world. That was a valid reason, I see that now. I'm highly critical of myself, I find it hard to see anything good in me and my mind likes to look at my past and point out where I went wrong. Depending on the day, I can view everything as wrong, my whole past a huge big mess precisely because I was present in it. It's a dangerous road to go down; when you invalidate your past you erase yourself. Regretting things you cared about at the time makes your existence irrelevant and a waste of time. You dissolve into nothingness. You just cant do that, you have to find some pride and accept that the past is the past. It might seem embarrassing or stupid or wrong now but it wasn't then, to you. Similarly, when you make every personal 'bad' experience your fault, you become the villain in every situation. There is a big difference between taking responsibility for your part in said situation and being responsible for it all. Don't believe all the stories your mind tells you, you know what's the truth, hold on to that. Even if you're feeling lost or are struggling right now, that still does not erase the times when you felt good, valid, happy and fulfilled. They still existed despite how you feel now. Those feelings will come back. Don't give the past more power than the present. On a good day, with a clear mindset, i'm able to be proud of my stories and proud of the person I was then. I won't allow myself to render parts of my life obsolete. Remind yourself of the good stories, tell them as if you were telling a child. Leave the judgement aside and tell your story the way it happened, without editing your negative feelings into it. Don't taint your past. An anxious, overly-critical mind has a sneaky way of invading memories and warping them into something entirely different than the reality. Your past deserves to be told with truth. You can do nothing about the past, its gone and will never come back. Move forward at your own pace, find the route you want to take, but just move forward. It's the only path we have.
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LittlebirdJenna. Free spirit, flower enthusiast, seeker of truths. Archives
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