[From the Diaries]
I never liked this feeling. The feeling of extreme palpitations. The bad kind of nervous, like something is dreadfully about to go wrong.
It has been happening more often lately.
At first I brushed it off. I told myself maybe I was just becoming a more anxious person. But that never used to be me. I’ve only ever been anxious when there was an actual situation in front of me. Being anxious for no reason, with nothing happening, felt very off brand.
But it’s been happening anyway.
It’s life now.
I don’t like being afraid. But I am. Constantly waiting for something to go wrong. Constantly doubting myself. Sometimes even hating myself.
The version of me that learned to love herself is also the version that learned to stand up for herself.
And I’m not who I was a year ago.
In many ways, I’m grateful for that. Because everything I became since then was an attempt to protect myself from ever going through that kind of pain again.
But the version I became is a little sketchy.
She’s not entirely good. She colors outside the lines sometimes. She bends the truth a little. Lies to herself a little.
And she makes choices the old version of me probably wouldn’t have made.
Sometimes I look at her and wonder if she’s healing, or if she’s just surviving in ways she doesn’t fully recognize yet.
Maybe that’s what happens when you rebuild yourself after being broken. You don’t come back exactly the same. You come back sharper. A little rougher around the edges. A little more guarded.
And maybe that’s not entirely a bad thing.
Because the girl I used to be would have let the world break her twice.
This version of me won’t.
She Was Sea 