Welcome back to my little corner of the world.

I disappeared. Again. Apologies.

But also, not really. I’ve had a few hurdles thrown my way, well more than a few hurdles, maybe a few meteors came my way and blew up everything in my path.

There’s been a lot of rebuilding over the past year,

Using the typical phrase I’ve been throwing around lately, but I have never felt more like me than right now.

After years of fitting into too small shoes, feeling outgrown and uncomfortable in a life that didn’t feel quite like mine. Pushed and shoved by those around me to conform to something that didn’t feel quite like me.

I finally feel like me.

It sounds so simple, doesn’t it? To feel like yourself.

You may be wondering: ‘When have you not felt like yourself?’

I get it, I’ve been this person for twenty-seven years. But the formative years of my adulthood, after graduating during Covid, have certainly not been the usual. I went through a few traumatising periods which have altered the way I see myself and the world around me, changed who I fundamentally believed I was.

It dimmed me, to speak whimsically.

From those moments on, I’ve been moving with the shadows, not quite comfortable with myself and the life I was existing in.

As everyone knows, life is full of ups and downs. I have had plenty of downs over the past few years. Trust me, they kept me down.

There have been a lot of personal struggles. Family, finances, relationships, career. Everything felt like it was crumbling around me. Not that it was ever steady to begin with but there was some semblance of an outline of what should be there. And for the most part, I got on with it. I had to. It was the only way to survive.

To survive is to not live.

And for years, I have not been living. I’ve been a shell of the girl I was. Unable to move with the new baggage behind me.

But over the past six months, I’ve found that it’s a lot lighter to carry when I surround myself with the right people. When I finally fit into shoes designed for movement, for change and space to grow.

There were a few pivotal moments that led me here. A relationship ended which showed me that what I ask for will never be too much for the right person. I moved out and found my independence. I made a home for myself. I found love with the right person. I have created a safe sanctuary, a place that calms my soul and where I can truly be myself.

And god does it feel magical.

As much as it saddens me to admit this, I don’t think I have been truly and genuinely happy in the past five years. The last six months have shown me that I was right to feel uncomfortable in the life I was living before because it wasn’t my life. How can I be expected to adjust to a life that isn’t mine?

I think we all know when something isn’t right for us. But we push through it, we don’t want it to seem like we’ve failed again. So we continue with something that is harmful to us. Addicted to the feeling that this should feel right. But it wasn’t. Not in the slightest.

As the ever optimist, I want to say the lessons learned were valuable, and a small part of me knows they were. But honestly, I just want to take twenty-two year old me and protect her from the world and keep her safe.

I have since found myself waking up with a sense of purpose. An energy to live, to feel, to mark my place in this world.

There are still many things that I need to work through, as no one is ever a finished project, but feeling like myself seems like a pretty good place to be at.

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