Looking Up

This was a post I made approximately two years ago, some time during 2013. I know only this as Tumblr has this funny way of not telling me the date that I posted something. Thanks, Tumblr.

“I have come to a realization. I will wake up every day for the rest of my life being me. There’s no way that can possibly change, in fact it’s the only one thing you can be certain about in life. You will wake up and be you. You will wake up and maybe the way you think, the way you dress, the way you act will have changed but YOU WILL NOT CHANGE. You can’t be someone else, it’s physically impossible.

 So I’ve come to a decision. 

 I don’t have to love myself, or even like myself. I don’t have to love the bald patches in my hair and the gaps in my lashes, I don’t have to adore the little too much leg fat or belly fat, I don’t have to cherish my bumpy nose or my round chin or my too-big gums. But I have to deal with them. There’s no point being unhappy with something you can’t change. And, if you think about it, there’s no point in being unhappy about the things you CAN change either. If you are unhappy about something that you can change – change it.

If you are unhappy, you’re going through a hard time, you hate who you are or what you look like, I’m sorry but you can’t change that. So you might as well stop worrying, because everyone is thinking the same.

There is no point in being upset about who you are. You can’t change. So love it, be proud of it. That thing you’re good at, you might not have been so good at it if that thing hadn’t happened, or you hadn’t looked or felt or thought that way. 

The only thing you need to change is your outlook. As soon as you decide that no, fuck this, I don’t have to feel this way, everything will get one million times better. I promise. 

Sure, you might have bad days, who doesn’t? A bad day doesn’t mean a bad life, and I can’t stress that enough. 

If you are stressed, upset, angry, depressed, suicidal, feeling anything bad at all, even just a little annoyed: you don’t have to be. 

You were happy once, it can happen again. I promise you. I love you.”

I found this looking back through my other blog, at a time when I was really struggling. The words I said as a 15 year old are exactly the same as the type of thing I try to continue to enforce to myself, and other people, today. It was, as you can see, very optimistic. And naive. I know that, and past me knew it too. But it’s the right sentiment, right? It’s not unreachable? The happiness I was trying (am still trying) (and probably will continue for a while) to reach? It’s attainable. I hope.

From the point at which that post was written, I’ve done a million and one new things and met a million and one new people that have taught me things about myself and about life that I had no idea about. And I know that two years from now (hopefully I’ll be in university at this point) there’ll be an infinite amount of other things that I’ll have learnt. I’ll never stop learning. At least, that’s the #lifegoal.

But my original point that I was trying to make over 700 days ago (wow) will always stand. I’m me and I’m not gonna change unless I do it myself. I’m working on some changes at the moment, and to be honest, I’m fairly excited. Because every change means I’m closer to finding the end result where I’m a thirty, forty, fifty-something woman who’s doing whatever the hell she wants, and is happy.

I’m not in the same place as I was then. And I’m not where I want to be. Not even close. I don’t even really know where I want to be. But I’m getting there.