I’ve left my blog for roughly two years now.

I’ve come and gone as we do when we’re confused about what to do next.

It’s wild how connected I once felt to these weekly writings only to abandon them years later. I feel like a shell of the person I used to be.

While I used to dwell on that, I don’t anymore. I know I needed time away from it all. I’m a different person than I was at 21. I can’t expect myself to stay the same solely to please the voice inside my head.

 

I’ve spent the majority of the past two years honestly miserable.

 

I decided to start working two jobs because I was tired of never feeling financially fulfilled, but over a year later, I can’t imagine how people do this all their lives.

You feel the financial fulfillment, but at what cost?

My sleep, social life, and overall well-being have been hurting for months. I can honestly say the only reason I’m writing is I’m tired of keeping this all in my head. I pay for this platform every month only to let it sit here for nostalgia. I cancelled my first blog because I abandoned it and while I don’t regret that, I miss the writings. I wish I could look back on where I was in 2016.

That year held so much change for me. I went vegan, my spiritual side opened up, and it was the starting point for every decision I’ve made since.

I’m nowhere near perfect nor aware of every little thing that occurs in this universe. I think that’s why I’ve strayed from writing – imposter syndrome. Who am I to say what’s right or wrong in this world? Who am I to say how you should feel?

I’m not one to step on any toes. If anything, I let people stampede over me. Not as bad as I once was, but god, I wish I could let this side of me go.

It’s the reason I stay stagnant for so long. It’s the reason I struggle establishing any meaningful relationships. I find myself trying to please those around me with only a sliver of peace left for myself. It’s draining. All I want is to hole up in my room for weeks and leave the outside world. I’m tired. I’ve never been so tired.

I’ve been through lower-lows, but I feel stuck where I am. Every week is like the last. Every relationship like before. I try to pretend I don’t care, but god, I do. I wish I could understand why I am the way I am. I’m so confused by her yet I’m scared to dive deeper. I almost envy who I was in 2017. I didn’t care how much I offended myself. I dove and dove and dove. I wanted to understand every aspect of a problem I was dealing with. I wanted the truth. I wanted the beginning, middle, and eventual end of it all.

 

Now, I see an issue and I run. Either to escape it and hope it’ll figure itself out or I’m afraid of what comes after I shed light on the thing hurting me.

 

I don’t want to get too personal on here, but I just ended my 1.5 year relationship. No details to share as to respect him, but it was time. I needed to be alone again as did he. Sometimes you grow as much as you can in a relationship and you have to accept that. I didn’t want to for a long time but eventually you’re forced to face what’s right in front of you.

It’s been a week and I’m doing okay. Life feels weird, but then again, life felt weird before this. I forgot what it was like to be on my own and do my own thing. I forgot what it was like to answer to myself and only myself. I forgot what it was like to wake up and not know what the day would hold. I’ve been living in a perpetual schedule for months and I didn’t realize how unhappy I truly was.

 

The fact I sat here and wrote all of this out in the span of 15 minutes when I haven’t publicly written in months tells me something.

 

I was holding myself back.

It wasn’t the relationship’s fault. I could’ve written at any moment. I truly just had no drive to. Nothing felt worth writing about anymore. I took every ounce of self-care I had and threw it out the window. I focused solely on trying to create the perfect relationship and demeaned myself if it was anything less.

I abandoned friendships. I left passions behind. I focused so heavily on being someone who could handle being in a relationship that I didn’t stop to think if I even enjoyed being in one.

Again, it wasn’t my partner’s fault. I know that it wasn’t. He cared for me ten times over the past two years.

I realized how constricted I felt though. I haven’t felt like myself in a long time and this week has been the closest I’ve felt to that in a while. I don’t know what that means necessarily but the fact I’m writing tells me this is good.

I don’t feel forced to write either.

I spent months sitting here – writing and erasing, writing and erasing.

Nothing felt authentic anymore. You’ve seen me say that multiple times over the past two years.

I felt so comfortable writing when I had no one. When it was just me and my cat. I was new to where I live, kept to myself, and stayed there. I let my social anxiety keep me alone. I’d develop crushes and hang with them, only to feel naked when I realized how much I bared online. I spent every corner of my day at work or alone, so to try dating someone else only made me feel like a fraud. I felt uninteresting for a lack of a better word. Lonely. Lost.

 

The first two years of my writing only showcase the tale of a girl who didn’t have anyone else, only her words.

 

You can see it clearly from my first posts on Lust for Growth. I transferred to a new location at a job I held since I moved away from my hometown. I wanted change, but change I could control. It’s no wonder I only lasted eight more months with the company.

I was alone and trying to find solace in a place I’d outgrown only perpetuated that feeling. It’s evident as my 2017 posts go on.

Which confuses the hell out of me why I romanticize that part of my life.

2018 was the year I started to trickle out of writing and in to finding my place in the world. I was tired of writing sessions alone in my room. I wanted to live. I wanted friends. I wanted a relationship. I felt so stuck where I was, so when I found a new job and all these doors opened for me, I got sucked in. I said fuck it to everything I had been doing and fully committed myself to being a twenty-something.

I had the shitty drunk nights. I’ve had some of the shittiest relationship stories since. I let whatever I wanted to unfold, unfold, no matter how much it hurt me. I just wanted real-life experience. I was tired of this fantasy world I was living in through self-help books. I said fuck it, let’s see what happens.

While I’ve had some of the best memories due to this, I can’t deny how lost I’ve felt in my sense of self since. I used to define myself by my hobbies, my writing. It became one the things people knew about me. I was vegan and I wrote. I worked at a coffee shop at the time. You bet I used all three of those things as a corny Tinder bio.

Life was so different when it was just me and I think that’s why my relationship ending felt so scary. I’d built this whole new life for myself and in the span of a week, I’ve seen it dissipate. I feel just like that naive 21-year-old who didn’t have a clue, only a little drunker.

I’m not sure what comes next for me, but I’m on my own again and that feels good. As I decided three years ago, I’d always be on a lust for growth. A journey for the next adventure. I’m surprised at how well the name has stuck for me.

Even though I haven’t written, I’ve left my blog in all of social media bio’s. I’m still proud of it no matter how long it’s been. It takes a lot of courage to post how you feel to the world. I used to be embarrassed of it, but nowadays if someone brought this post up to me, I know I’d be willing to talk about it.

I used to write publicly but wanted no feedback. I wanted no one to acknowledge what I was doing even though this site clearly took up a lot of my time. Thoughts and emotions are a lot to unpack for any human being and while I was sharing mine to the world, I didn’t want to discuss them.

 

I wanted my posts to be my little essays people would notice but ignore.

 

That’s not how the worlds works and I see that more than ever now. If I want to write again, I have to be okay with criticism. I have to be willing to defend myself or even discuss what I write. I have a paper journal a few feet from me. If I don’t want to share something, there’s pages upon pages to unload in there.

Lust for Growth was my passion child and now that we’re a little older, maybe more rough around the edges, I can dive back in to her.

In the way I want. Nobody else’s.

I’m tired of answering to other people.

2020 was a shit show of a year, but I’m glad it brought me to where I am. I’m proud of the person I became this year despite every difficult hand life threw at me. I’m sure I’ll unpack more in the future, but for now, we’ll leave it there.

I missed this blog. I missed blogging in general.

Something about an Instagram story or Facebook meme doesn’t truly incapsulate what I have to say. I needed the break, but God I’m ready to speak again. We’ll be 25 next year.

Time has kept going, but the things I’ve loved never really truly left me. Only blossomed in to what they are now.

If 2020 taught us anything, stop planning for the future. I can tell myself a million times that I want to start writing again, but I’ve seen how long that story can go on. Either you act or you don’t.

 

Time doesn’t care. It’ll pass nonetheless.

 

In full honesty, I’ll be back on here soon. No more empty promises. Not just to y’all, but to myself.

Taking care of ourselves can’t be something we brush past. I tell myself I have all the tools in the world or I do enough self-care things (a.k.a. make my bed in the morning or possibly drink a kombucha) when my emotions tell me otherwise.

Logically I know I’m in control. I’ve always been in control of my own life. My head and heart can’t seem to align on that though. There’s been a short fuse for a while and I’m looking to repair it.

I shouldn’t wake up everyday expecting what unfolds. I should wake up looking forward to the possibilities.

Corny as fuck, but that’s where I’m at. I’m tired of living in a hamster wheel. I didn’t come down to this life only to get by. Neither did you. We’re here to live in any way that makes us feel something. Anything at all.

Indifference only arises when we’ve lost touch with those pieces that make us feel alive.

My hope is that writing again begins to bring some pieces back together.

I’m tired of where I’ve been, but I’m starting to feel excited of where I could go again.

And in a year full of apathy, that’s all a girl can ask.