Somedays you go out for rejection. And that’s just how it is.

I took two steps back from their unnerving breath and I was called a prude. I was only setting my boundaries, asking to respect my personal space. 

To her,

My love wasn’t enough to move mountains. I hope yours will.

In this marathon towards boundless uncertainty, here are the few things I constantly remind myself of; it’s okay to be uncertain, it’s also okay to be scared, it’s okay to not know where your journey is headed. It’s okay to just ‘be’. Get that pressure off yourself for not reaching your goals or falling a little behind. Because life works in mysterious ways and the best we can do at times is sit back and have a little faith.

I can’t deem myself invaluable or disposal for being less than ideal by my own expectations. Expectations that are influenced by people who do not even matter. Remind yourself that this pace is for you, and there’s nothing wrong with going a little slow or taking each day at a time. The big picture isn’t always necessary, sometimes survival is more trivial.

When life deals you a hand you weren’t prepared for at all, you adjust to it, no matter how hard it seems. We have no other choice. There’s no point in fighting the odds. Not everything is in our control.

It’s very easy to spiral into the void of self-loathing and hopelessness even with the mildest inconvenience, that’s because the fight has been never-ending and exhausting. But view every fight objectively, and know it’s a different fight each time. That’s life. If you’re tired, rest. But don’t stop.

I can’t help but spiral into devastation and shift blame towards me for everything that goes wrong. That’s also because we are fed that we make our own lives and we feel responsible for our failures and shortcomings. But sometimes, things are a bit out of our hands and we shouldn’t feel less for the incapability or the lack of control.

I am so terrified of change. Change that has forced me out of my comfort zone and all the things I am used to. It’s been incredibly hard to come to terms with, let alone convince myself that it’s okay. But that also does not mean I am less. It just means this is what life has dealt for me for now, and I’ll play this hand the best I can.

Several factors help us stay afloat, including the company we keep and the support that we incur. Often we do not have enough people rooting for us genuinely. A little support, a little push here and there is all we need. And that’s what’s lacking for me. So I have to become my support, the voice in my head that tells me to not give up. Because we know, we are all we have. We are all that matters, we are only as important as we make ourselves to be. No one is going to treat us better than we treat our selves.

The only way to get to your certainty, the big picture and all the answers is to keep going. And right now, that’s all I can do. And that’s what I will do. No matter how hard it gets, that I must.

I just need someone to tell me that it’s going to be okay, and mean it. I need someone to reassure me and tell me this isn’t all it’ll ever be and this isn’t all that I’ll ever be. But I’m all alone, with no one who even remotely understands how difficult this is for me. Words don’t do justice to the remoteness I’m feeling. I guess I miss security. I miss being safe. When the music stops, you’re all you have. And that’s so terrifying, and it’s exhausting carrying yourself on your back when you feel so out of your own body. Moving through the winds trying to find my place to call home. I know I’ve done this on my own for so long, but right now it feels too much. I’m tired of taking care of myself. Right now I feel like a commitment I can’t seem to get rid of.

But that being said, I’m still not giving up. Maybe I’m not even close to. Because even when it feels impossible, I get out of bed and do what I have to do, even though none of it is for me. I used to think by now the devil would have no more cards to play, but oh it does. The hand is dealt and I’m going to have to bluff my way through this round, hoping this is the last time I will have to move mountains. Life is a series of falling, getting back up, and then falling even lower. And here is where it feels like I just can’t do this anymore. But I remind myself that I have to. I keep hurting myself with the expectations I have set for myself, and when things fall apart it feels like the lowest point of life all over again. If I could graph it out I’d say the older you are the harder you fall with life’s inconveniences. The bouncing back process is a hundred times harder than it used to be. As we live in this economy, trying to make ends meet, you realise how eerie the whole tunnel is. I’m going to stop torturing myself with the expectations, convince myself that it’s okay to win a little late if it means your survival is at stake. I just hope I’m a slingshot that’s pulling back right now. And it’s not always going to be this way.

“I’m doing okay, I miss you too. I just realized that if we get used to doing what we do, me being with other people and you being happy in your life, what’s the point of us? We are past being a fling and you’re never going to get out of your marriage or make any proper space in your life for me, so what’s the point at all. I have nothing against you, I just don’t want to keep going over this for the hundredth time. I need someone who’s going to be available to me, who’ll actually be there for me and add value to my life. And what you can offer me is just not enough at this point. I hope I’m not overreacting. I’m back and mom’s shit and everything keeps falling apart and nothing is working out and I’m miserable in so many ways and I just want to be happy but I don’t want to keep finding happiness in temporary highs and temporary arms.”

I don’t know how I get caught up in these romances. An innocent dance, an innocent date, sometimes even an innocent hello. When you know yourself well enough you know from the beginning till end what will and what won’t work for you. Yet somehow you slip between your words and lines and find yourself weeping in the arms of a man who will one-day become a stranger. Another relationship with an expiry date. Or maybe I’m getting ahead of myself by getting caught up in all the possibilities that may never happen. But then I also know well enough the chances of hoping this to work against reality is deluding. So here I am, once again, in the arms of a temporary man, hoping for a permanent love. Foolish is the word.

Let’s talk about it. Revenge Porn.

The pictures that have become the talk at coffee tables and gatherings, where misogynistic men show off the saved screenshots as trophies to what I don’t even know. Look, look at this woman without her clothes, and look how I have saved them in my phone, and now look at how I’m showing them to you, oh look at how great I am and how easy she is.

I just don’t see the purpose of it. Why are you adding to the problem? What do you gain? I’ve sat at tables with the very same men thinking they were good people. How could I’ve not known? How could I be so naive even after everything I’ve been through. Why do I still hope and wish that there’s good left in this world even when it continuously proves me wrong? I don’t know why I do that.

And then there are the men, who look at these pictures and come and tell me, don’t worry about it, you looked hot. And I say “Haha.” Yes, “Haha” as in haha look at the clown I am and look at me not being able to call you out on your shit.

A few weeks back I was sexually assaulted twice. One I slapped back for and the other was in my sleep which I had to yell out so they’d stop touching me. But after these two accounts within the same day, when I demanded people not invade my private space and to stand a bit further away even while standing, I was told I just thought everyone wanted to get into my pants. A woman can’t even demand decency without a man belittling her.

There’s no advice I can give to anyone who’s going through the same because it will feel like absolute shit and worse in my case, I tried to justify it saying I deserved it.

Truth is, no one deserves such. It’s just among us are animals who feel so powerless that to assert authority over people they do shitty things. Shitty things that inflate their ego. And their shitty friends who applaud them for it. And that’s their motivating factor, to become a stud among the gang by stripping off someone’s innocence forever.

These men forget they were birthed by mothers, are married to women, who then give birth to their daughters, who will one day more or less likely become victims of a mindset they set in motion.

Putting your guards back up after just letting someone freeway with you is nearly impossible. Now that they’ve gotten under your skin, it is too late. How could I think I would be fine.

I don’t know where to even begin drawing the line. From forehead kisses to endless nights. How do you not get caught up? When I’m not in control it comes out in the nastiest of ways. Bulging insecurities and dreaded conversations of all the what-ifs that may or may never happen. How do I stop? How do I protect myself without any armour?

Guarding up is almost bitching up at this point. Act like nothing gets to you even when it does. I hate it here.

Guess who came around, the boy who broke my heart. The boy who couldn’t contain the thing we called ‘love’.

Flowers in his hand, love in his eyes, regret in his breath. Holding himself back, wishing to turn back time.

I believed we were perfect, oh, we were. He was my best friend, my go-to. My lifeline. I begged him to be my last.

He left, not because there was no love, but because there was. Sometimes we get so scared of what we feel we know no way else but to sabotage it.

I wish I’d stayed where he left me, I wish I knew he just might come around. But the way I went about it, I took my shot, and I got shot. I bled, I cried, I moved along with all the broken pieces.

I felt complete with him, like there was nothing I couldn’t conquer with him by my side. He made me believe in myself. He reassured me every chance he got. He showered me with compliments every day. I was spoilt. I still am. I don’t know if I will ever find someone who’ll live up to his loving ways, maybe I won’t.

But when he left, he also broke me. My lifeline was dead. I exploded, my emotions had nowhere to go, they birthed storms inside me I couldn’t contain. I ruined myself. I was so disappointed that I was so sick of this world. I was so mad at it for letting me down when everything felt so right. How could it not work out, when we were that good together. But it didn’t. That was the reality of it. The people who love you even the most dearly sometimes end up breaking your heart. And that’s exactly why it’s so scary, when the people who love you could do that, imagine what the people who didn’t feel nearly the same can do to you. Oh, it’s scary out there.

Guess who came around, the boy I wished to stay. Guess who changed her mind, the girl who’s beyond vulnerable that she can’t ever trust someone else to take care of her heart. Because she knows, they won’t. They never do.