it has been a while since i wrote here - i am doing well. i have also realized that i’ve had this tumblr since the age of 15 or so, and for those of you that have watched me grow and learn for the eight years that followed, i thank you.

an update on life: for the past year, since graduating unversity, I have been adulting somewhat successfully. and i am very much in love. it’s a healthy love that grows every day, in which i have learned to feel safe and at home. this is in part due to my self-esteem repairing itself and in part due to my lad finally giving me much needed reassurances and making the effort to adjust some of what were learned behaviors of his (i.e. no more lying, even small, and more dependable), without which i never would have felt secure. i did not love him less before, but it is easier to love him when i am not in panic mode all the time. 

i have everything i always wanted. everything i wanted when i started this tumblr so long ago, alone in my room - a Rapunzel in the making. suffocating under the weight of a dysfunctional family and oppressive adult forces that made me want to melt or scratch myself out of my skin. i managed to get here and i am okay. better than okay most of the time. 

i don’t have to answer to anyone. i am free.

i am still terrified frequently, about different things. being forced into an anxious state early on makes it difficult to unlearn that mental state. i am constantly thinking about aging and death, both of which frighten me (i can elaborate as to why, but i dont have the energy right now). and even more persistently scared of anything happening to the man i love, because i have never been this happy and he brings me such indescribable joy and, at times, a peace i have never consciously had in what has been an extremely stressful life until now. and i adore him so. the most beautiful soul i have ever known. 

i will continue trying.

8hy:

me? overreacting? probably 

there is such a romanticization of young, sad girls that is exhausting for me. the 17-20 year old girl, frail and wide eyed, who takes impossibly large bong hits, gorges on pizza & tequila, is depressed - but admired for her seemingly effortless beauty and life modeled after a Halsey song. 

I lived that lifestyle, and from the inside it is not so fun. it makes you feel empty. but now at 22, that fear of irrelevancy is starting to creep in. i am already too old to be of fascination