Last weekend, my past caught up with my presence. I was having a fever, and my mind felt restless. Just then, I started questioning every bits of changes I have gone through till now:
Am I truly transforming, or am I just finding another way to cope?
Have I truly moved on, or am I still healing?
Many of the changes I went through are somewhat permanent. I sure will never rush into friendships and relationships the same way I did in the past. Self-care and self-compassion will continue being top of my priorities.
However, I realized as much as I was writing to help others, the process offered me a space to reflect for my own healing. And many other things turned out to serve the same purpose.
I thought taking it slow meant growth
You know, taking things slows became a big thing during the last period in my life. We can see it in all aspects:
I hang out with fewer friends. I see each of them once a month. I don’t date, or use the apps. I stay home most of the week. When I go out, I make sure I’m home before 11 PM. And many more.
“I have really grown as an adult now” — That’s what I thought.
I mean sure, I was definitely making progress. I became more comfortable just spending time with myself, something I avoided at all costs in the past.
I used to despise the feeling of boredom. I stacked up my weeks with plans: coffee with friend A, dinner date with Bumble guy B, catch-up call with this guy on LinkedIn C.
The only time I had with myself was when I sleep, go to the bathroom, or commuting in between any of the mentioned activities. Thank god I was unconscious when sleeping and didn’t have to face my own thoughts.
The last two activities were just filled with Instagram scrolling or blasting music in my headphones. I was surprised I hadn’t gone deaf yet. Given this, enjoying my own company was an achievement.
I was happy, wrote a lot about it even — you guys would know. I thought being a homebody is part of my personality now. I rejected invites to hang out with people. I considered going to the gym every 2 days an “outdoorsy” routine.
I wore sunscreen, but my face never really saw the sun. I woke up at 11, watched Netflix, wrote, eat, and went to sleep. I truly and finally became a sloth: if I meet people for 1 day, I feel like I deserve 1 week to rest.
Turns out I just needed the space to heal
Last Saturday marked the 69th day of my break — the break I scheduled for myself between the last corporate soul-draining job and the next one (hopefully with fewer assholes this time around).
I felt the result for slothing in the last 2 months in my bones. Lying on my bed, I felt like hundreds of little ants were crawling up my neck. My bones felt sticky as if they were melted to the mattress.
That’s it. The last 2 months and the last 2 years — all the time I gave myself a wide space to rest and heal came to the end. I needed to stop taking it slow to the extreme: staying in my comfort zone and locked myself within it.
The inertia reminded me of who I am: I love cafe-hopping, sunbathing by the pool, eating good food with friends, going to the movies, and meeting cute guys (I know it’s superficial, it’s nice for the eyes though).
I am not disregarding my growth. In the past, I was only fun-loving, at the expenses of many other things. Now, I am fun-loving and self-loving, with the latter prioritized if times ever call for it.
The moral of the story is
I was just a bit dramatic, here and there: not everything has to be a lesson and not every change has to be “growth”. Sometimes we just need to take a break from the chaos and heal the wounds once cut so deep.
I’m glad that I don’t need it anymore. If you have read my story on pain and exhaustion, you know how I used to need rest after every 10 minutes spending time with people. Even white LED made my head ache.
Now, I take care of my niece and my dad for days when the whole family is sick. The only thing I need is a good sleep and some good journaling session to recover.
So yeah, it feels strange to change it up but maybe I should stop whining and start doing.
That said, I am glad to have been able to share the real lessons, and the ones that turn out to be more temporal, with you all.
It takes years, even decades, for people to look back and truly see things for what they are. I would be making a fool of myself to say that I have truly understood everything for what they are.
I haven’t. I have yet become the perfect adult. And I’m not sure if we ever will. But maybe that’s the beauty of it: we keep learning and evolving.
Let’s go on this journey and figure this out together :)
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