— Ursula K. Le Guin (The Left Hand of Darkness)
2019 is here and i am (at most) where i was 10 years ago. realistically i am much worse. i don’t know what needs to happen for me to finally step away from myself and begin to create an image that i can be proud of, but time has a tendency to quicken. when i wake up tomorrow, another ten years may have passed and i’ll have nothing to show for it. but who am i trying to impress? whose standards am i trying to live by?
there are very precise measurements needed for stability, and somewhere within my mind there is a loose brick that skews the rest. even when i’m among others, that mindset/mental noise is a permanent weight. i realized long ago there are certain thoughts that will never leave. they only lessen in frequency and emotional impact.
i’ve been tossed around in these negative feedback loops for long enough to feel like they are my home. i realize the trap i’m leading myself into - that same one which leads to crippling regret in the later decades. but i can’t remember the last time i didn’t feel like this. even my childhood felt like a segue-way into this… paralysis.
is it my environment? is it me? it has to be both, but i’ve tried moving across the country, i’ve tried to stop abusing my body and my mind, i’ve tried cutting off all forms of toxic “family” members and “friends”, but i remain fundamentally flawed. i am at the bottom of the staircase, and i know i can move onto the next step, but i am absolutely drowning in apathy and… something else. something dark and electric and filled with whispers, telling me how hollow and rotten i am.
i know there is an answer to this. i know there is a solution, a lasting solution. but i can’t see it. i’ve been poisoned by my own thoughts as much as i have been motivated by them. i am someone who cancels themselves out in all regards and remains a thing to be glanced over and forgotten. just another year.
