atlas hands

    "So, 2021, hopefully, a year of personal enlightenment to become someone better and less high strung in terms of worrying and trying too hard.  I want to try to be as carefree as I was on my twentieth birthday, but with more alcohol and less trying to cloak my own insecurities by funneling any form of kindness or care into those who love me.  I know I am loved, and I hope that one day, I can move myself from the backburner and stand equal with the love that I know I share every day with the people in my world. "

captured on new years eve, 2021

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        I've been through some character development since the last time I wrote like this.  You could say that I've welcomed my main character energy with open arms.  (I made a playlist for said energy so I think I've grown exponentially.)  The diary entry shared with you during the early days of January 2021 was one of vulnerability, fear, and was riddled with my lack of self-care.  Previously, I declared my need for constant validation and the acknowledgment of my savior complex, which I can truthfully say now that I have never felt more carefree and confident than I have in a long time.  The year 2021 was the equivalent of a rock resting on my shoulders, its jagged edges pricking my skin when I least expected it.  The pain began to lessen early on, with many setbacks, but now, at the beginning of 2022, I hope that the weight will be lifted from my Atlas hands completely.

        The weight began to feel lighter on my twenty-first birthday when my hair was a few shades darker with rosy cheeks to match.   It was a few months of smooth breathing until March and then the weight pushed deeper.  I can't specifically explain why March was the turning point for my emotions but if you've read "Brain Matter," then that should be explanation enough.  By the middle of March, my hair was shorter, so obviously, I was coping well.  My hair was pink by July.  Fortunately for me, those negative feelings were transitory ― like the colors of my hair ― because the phantom rock had moved and my shoulders began to sit straighter than I wasn't. (I came out this year, too!)  By the time the air became crisp like the apples in cider, and the leaves were sent back to the Earth, my hair was brown again and I was the happiest I have ever been during my time alive.  

        A lot of my happiness in 2021 can be attributed to the friends I've made and have the opportunity to love with my whole heart, and in return, they have helped me become this ball of light and confidence and taught me the best way to live: shamelessly, loud, and spontaneous.  I also spent time alone, which normally would make me sad, again, but in my moments of solitude, I've sat in silence and learned to love myself again, making the effort to bring myself from the backburner and really put my needs first.  My worst fears of abandonment and infinitesimal validation don't feel as scary anymore, more so sacred because these friends that I have, the family that they have become, are there to reassure and solidify the love I know I deserve, and I cannot be more grateful to be able to exist with them.

        In the brief pauses of hair colors and the learning of self-love and dissolution of my most toxic traits, I've accomplished so much.  The small little poems that I write in my bedroom surrounded by potent incense, have magnified into magazine articles seen all over the country.  The drafts of book manuscripts grow larger every day and the pain that left me winded is now scribbled in piles of notebooks.  My dreams are more clear and the motivation I lost in 2020 and ignited again in 2021 is a vibrant shade of yellow, to match my favorite water bottle.  I have written more and experienced life more and cried more and sang more, but it has only made me a better person, an unapologetic person, a positively selfish person ― as the ball drops and I'm five wine coolers in with a shiny paper hat on my head.  

        I bid farewell to the character that 2021 was, and I forgive her for damaging her hair so much in the span of a year.  So, 2022, hopefully, a year of continuous character development and yellow dreams.  I am so eager to keep evolving and relearning how to love myself as I get older and the possibilities of changing my hair again.  My mental health is becoming a bigger priority in the coming year, mainly due to the absolute disservice I did in taking care of my psyche and emotions prior.  I know I am so loved, and I can happily say that I feel like the main character in the story I've been writing for almost twenty-two years, and I absolutely cannot wait to see how the year treats me.  Or maybe I jinxed it just now, but who knows?  I sang my way into this year and I just hope the melody stays on key for as long as I will let it.  Happy New Year.