The Whole Wide World is Mine (2/30)
Hello. Welcome to Day 2 of my 30 Days Writing Challenge. Take a seat, make yourself comfortable :) Tea anyone? How was your day?
See, you don’t know much about me. I don’t talk a lot about myself, I am not used to it. When people get genuinely interested in me I get suspicious. It’s funny the way our brains get trained into being paranoid, isn’t it?
So I’ll tell you a little bit about me. I was born and grew up in communist Romania. As a teenager I lived in a very troubled, extremely corrupt Romania. For most of my adult life I have felt I don’t belong, and moved residence 18 times in the past 17 years, on 2 continents and 4 different countries. However, I consider myself very fortunate! (stay with me here :)) )
I have been in very shitty situations in my life that seemed staged to break down every principle that I strongly believed in: friendship, love, loyalty, safety, kindness, humanity, trust, passion. I projected different futures for myself, and they got destroyed systematically.
I wasted years of my life trying to help and “save” people, and I only ended up used and abused in various ways. However, I guess you need breaking points in life, in order to develop the strength to say “NO MORE!”.
One day I reached that point, and packed my bags, bought my plane ticket, and left my past behind. I have realised then that who I have become was not part of any futures that I have projected for myself — I never pictured myself as this broken, depressed, fearful, lost human. I was on antidepressants for over 4 years, was smoking, in terrible physical condition after I have had knee surgeries. I had frequent panic attacks, was constantly anxious and under continuous stress. In trying to not disappoint the men I chose to love, I let myself down.
I got on the plane the next day having the feeling that I can do better and determined that I WILL do better for myself. Quitting antidepressants was the first thing I did. I went cold turkey, I felt sick and nauseous for a long time, I had horrible migraines, but I stuck to it and eventually this darkness that was hovering over my brain started dissipating. It is still amazing to me, how great the difference was in the way my brain was functioning.
I started seeing a different future for myself — one that I would build independently, without needing approval from anyone. I set myself on a new path of self-discovery, and it was one of the most exciting times in my life… still is!
I think that even if you go through a lot of bad things in your life, the moment you allow negativity to rule your life, there is only one way life can go: down. One of the best decisions I have made in my life was saying “No More!” to being a victim.
Modelling your brain in such way that you fight against your own thoughts is a very difficult thing to achieve, but I think we are all capable of doing it.
I am still figuring out a way to communicate everything I have been through in such way that it turns into advice for you, so I’ll just tell little stories for now.
One year ago today I did this out of paper, during a lonely Saturday. I almost gave up making it a few times throughout the day, I cried a bit too, but I was very happy when I finished it. I glued it on my livingroom wall, smiled the whole of next Sunday and danced by myself and started believing it. Facebook reminded me of it today, and I am smiling again.
So if you ever have a need to be told you are beautiful or amazing, but haven’t heard it in years from someone else, you spend as long as you need to find a way to tell yourself that you ARE, and keep reminding yourself every day.
And if you need to tell yourself every morning a little lie in order to get up and keep going, then let that be that the whole wide world is yours, and you can achieve anything you set your mind to! It works! I must be honest and admit I am far from achieving what I have set for myself, but I’m definitely on the right path. ;)
I guess since this is a 30 day writing challenge I can continue my story tomorrow, otherwise this would turn into a little novel and I don’t want to keep you long. I’m sure your tea is over by now :)
Until tomorrow.
This piece is part of the 30 Days Writing Challenge. During the next month I will write short stories about whatever is on my mind each day! Thank you for reading them, I hope they’ll inspire you! :)
