stay and fight the room that i'm in now feels like a room my fifteen year old self dreamt of. there is a sunporch filled with plants, shelves full of books and writing instruments, a piano, more plants. three cats sauntering around. of course, there are boxes everywhere still. we haven't fully unpacked. still finding our feet, planting roots, feeling out the soil. the secondhand couch won't stay, it's an acceptable approximate for now. there was a vision i had for myself a long time ago: that one day i would be an artist, i would be in love, i would be part of a family. my brain and heart have been so overwhelmed with realizing all of these goals that the gut response has been fear, the fear of fucking it up, losing everything, ending up right back where i was. but so much more has happened than what i originally envisioned. i have words for the ways i never felt like i fit in with the people i was supposed to. i look like myself on the outside (almost). i have been broken and healed so many different ways, so many times that this new self is unrecognizable from the self that wrote about wistful dreams. but not so unrecognizable that the dreams changed. the hardest thing in this moment is internalizing the realization that i am not who i was, that i am not where i was, that this moment in my life is wholly different. finding love, sharing my life with them and their child, our home together, the success my art has seen in the last few years, all of this is the result of constant, persistant effort. it's not an accident, it didn't happen in spite of the things i struggled through. i've been working toward the same goals all along. i'm trying to tell my heart that it's okay to be vulnerable, that this is real and solid, that i don't need to hold on so tightly or push it away when old hurts bubble to the surface. i didn't choose this relationship and this space that we're building from a place of trauma, i chose it because it feels nourishing, uplifting, and good, in a way that is immediate, not stored in potentials. there is a future here that is worth fighting for, worth banishing my fear for. |