#265

Hi. I am currently writing in Microsoft Word, somehow I can’t go online due to some poor connection problems, so I’m writing here in hope of transferring this to my blog later. Let’s see how it goes.

It’s the end of the first weekend in 2023. It’s 2246H on Sunday as of now, and I am already feeling the Monday blues creeping into my backbone.

But. That wasn’t what I wanted to write about. The first week of January 2023 taught me something and I wanted to put it here so that I would be able to read it again in the future, in hope that I would be able to remember the exact emotions that I am currently feeling.

Nothing much happened to me in this first week, but I saw how some people around me experienced some big changes in their life back in 2022 and early 2023. And it made me reflect on myself, and unfortunately I started comparing things. So this is just a post about me giving myself a pep talk.

I have talked a lot about 2022 in here. Personally, 2022 has been quite a growth from me. I grew in many ways and I came out of it feeling a little better about myself. But when I looked back, I could see that I was trying so hard to chase after some sense of happiness and a little bit of mental health that I stopped looking around. Of course, I still believe that what matters the most to me is myself, my health and my happiness. But at the same time I didn’t see how some people out there, being the same age as me or even younger, are struggling in their life in ways that I couldn’t even comprehend myself being in.

And hence, I started comparing myself. I felt that I was grateful for everything that God let me experience and feel in 2022, but I forgot to see how people around me are doing. I was busy trying to survive myself that I didn’t even realize that there are people who might need my help out there. Of course, I am one person, what kind of things do I think I would be able to do to offer help? Will it make the world a better place? Nope. But I just feel bad. Like my bubble was just burst and then only I saw that it’s not only me who’s struggling, everyone is struggling and some even struggled more than myself.

And that’s why I wanted to give myself a reminder.

 

Dear Narshiela Saad, no matter what, the struggles that you went through are uniquely yours and are incomparable. Everyone is facing their own battles, and no one battle is harder than the other. We are being tested based on our own strength and we all handle them differently. I am proud of myself for being healthier mentally, though not all the time. I am proud of myself for going out of my comfort zones, though not all the time. I am proud of myself for connecting with people first, when I never did that before. I am proud of myself for breaking down and not holding everything in and admitting that I am facing a hard time. I am proud to be enjoying little things in life that I used to take for granted before.

And so I hope I will continue to be myself. There are many ways that people do to cope with their own life and problems. I sometimes feel bad to be sharing a lot of things on Instagram / Facebook or even here, but then I want to be okay with doing it. That’s just how I cope. My coping mechanism hasn’t always been healthy. I used to escape and run away and hide in my figurative cave more frequent previously, though I still do that sometimes, I do believe that I’m healing better. 

Someone said, “I was able to love myself by distancing myself from the thought of loving myself.” I have yet to understand what this really means. Maybe one day when I am finally able to truly love myself, I will be able to know what this actually means.