let yourself feel.

for being a writer, it seems silly how much i actually think in numbers; you'd think i was an accountant or something mathematically based. but no, i am a writer. it was never a concious decision i made. i never woke up saying, "alright, today, i'm a writer." when you're a writer, you just are. you are because you have to be. because there is no other way of being. it just came naturally to me and one of the high points specifically was that it had nothing to do with numbers because, truth be told: i hate numbers. they just remind me of things i need to remember.

how much money is in my bank account, how many shots go into a grande americano, how many days i have left until my library books are due, how long i have until i have to catch the MAX line light rail, how many calories are in that apple, how many words need to be in the written copy, how many inches the curtain rod needs to be. numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers and some more numbers.

but more often than not, my thoughts of numbers turn into questions of measurement. how well can i write that paper, how quickly i can make ten beverages, how fast i can bike those seven miles. it all seems to be a cosmic reminder of how good i am not. i stand up to the miraculously large life measuring device and come up short. the problem, i've noticed, is not my failure to check off boxes with my little red pen, but with how i view the world, more succinctly, how i view myself.

as a little girl, i've constantly evaluated and re-evaluated. my room was never clean enough. my clothes were never pretty enough. my books were never straight enough. never enough. never enough. this has carried on into my adult life, but at some point, i just gave up trying. life becomes too arduous when you realize that you have a list of 100 things to do each day and you'll only ever achieve 45 of them. that's not even half, so why even try? it's pointless, really. 

but the problem with not even trying to put up a fight is that, at the end of the day, you'll still feel like a failure. so i guess part of growing up is learning the balance. productivity plus giving yourself some slack. so forget thinking in just numbers. forget thinking in just words. let's begin to think in pictures. in feelings. in memories.

and today? this picture is how i feel.

broken. shattered. torn apart.

but don't necessarily believe that to be a pessimistic viewpoint,

because for me, i need to embrace my brokenness.

i need to learn how to let myself feel.

even if that feeling is pain.

"once more with feeling" 

by get cape. wear cape. fly.

as always, love, t.