Coming to terms (advice to myself because I can)

Obsessively re-reading my past posts since the age of 14 and man I've changed so much in the past 5 years.

I still remember how I once took the train and eavesdropped on two girls talking about their blogs. They talked about how they cringed when they read what their teenager selves had written. So teenager me decided then that I would never write something that would make me cringe years later.

I'm not sure I've lived up to that though. There was a phase where
I kept
breaking up
my lines
like this

and being all terse and non-effusive about it. And then I had another phase where I listed the things I wanted to write about:
1. Like this
2. Chocolate

Then I settled into long lengthy monologues and reflection which came somewhere around the end of my sixteenth year haha I sound like a regular Victorian. But it's true I suppose, some day I'll be 64 and the internet will have moved to chips in our brains and I'll read through my archived blog posts and think to myself how silly I was before I turned 20 and maybe how silly I was after I turned 20.

I mean I look at the tumblr blogs of 15/16 year olds and there they are posting pictures of beautiful people and filtered photos and lyrical quotes about love and passion and life in general. Like this:

"April was too lonely a month to spend alone. In April, everyone around me looked happy. People would throw their coats off and enjoy each other’s company in the sunshine—talking, playing catch, holding hands. But I was always by myself." ---Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami

She identifies with freaking Murakami! And there 16 year old me was staring at the pages in bewilderment, wondering what the heck Murakami was talking about, why everybody loved him, and if it was possible that there was no point to the story. I learnt to talk about my reading experience as "bizzare". Use a quirky, big enough, under-used word, frown a little, and people treat you like Intelligence personified, then they talk about other things. Whew. #lifehacks

But then again, I am my own person. Maybe it's envy I feel? In how sixteen years of living have equipped another girl with knowledge on the mechanics of meeting people and what it is to love them and break up and then come to terms with loneliness. Sometimes I have this feeling where I'm literally hungering to know things. And my head just screams feed me, stuff me full! There are things I don't need to know, but I want them anyway. I want to clutch useless pieces of knowledge to me and hoard them and let them take root in the recesses of my brain and stew in dormancy. And then I almost understand how Adam and Eve felt when they ate from the Tree of Knowledge.

One bite, and the world is yours.

But it's never enough is it? It's never enough to know that we are made from the splitting burning ashes of stars or that our brains can process more than we think we can. And all the while you're chasing and hungering to know what makes you tick so that you'll never be afraid because you have the knowledge to deal with the situation. You can sew and cook and you know that birds are descendants of the illustrious terrible lizard line of dinosaurs and you can tell someone that if they ask. You needn't be afraid of that tear in your shirt because you can sew or that you'll ever be lost because you know the language, you have the map. You know and know and know but all it does is hide your fear. Shovel your sparking fears under the great pile of books you have next to you; bury them alive. Let them stay hidden. Show no one. Never bring your fears to the surface because once they do, they catch and spread like wildfire. And if you hide that part of yourself away, you'll have nothing to fear, but fear itself.

I am learning to come to terms with myself now. I am learning how to be honest. It seems like the catchword nowadays is "authentic". The post-modernists all say nothing can ever be authentic because the idea of authenticity is constantly being revised and built upon. But I think there is such a thing as authenticity and honesty and truth. And even if they can't see that, I can, and it's my onus to be as honest with myself and others as I possibly can. Which basically means to stop hiding behind excuses like I always do. I've become so adept at it that sometimes I catch myself coming up with an excuse even before I've thought of telling the other person the truth, and it scares me, this person I'm becoming.

I've thought about it, and it seems like the one thing that scares me the most, is being trapped and therefore vulnerable. It's probably some psychological childhood issue hahaha but I've figured that I'm terrified when I'm at a loss for what to do. Roller-coasters terrify me because I have no control over the way my body reacts to heights, to the feeling of falling and not being able to stop myself, and having to trust a bloody man-made machine to stop me before I crash and die. And I hate getting sick and germs because I cannot control my body's reaction to it. I cannot control the cells that mutate and die or stop my nose from running. I have to see a doctor who knows what's wrong with me before I know what's wrong with me. And this is probably the root of all my insecurity? The not-knowing, and me hiding the not-knowing until it becomes this persistent knot of fear that my world will burn because I know nothing.

And I'm learning to let go of that by being honest with myself in that there are many things I cannot know. I cannot know what the person is thinking when s/he talks to me, so fear not condemnation. I cannot know where my decisions will take me; have an inkling of the direction but it might not always turn out the way I want it, fear not anyway. I cannot hide who I am, so hide not. The people who love you best, have seen the worst and love you anyway.

There are things though, that you can take control of, so take charge. Take charge of your exercise, of what you eat, of how you spend, of when you sleep. Take charge of your prayer life, "let your religion be less of a theory and more of a love affair" as Chesterton says. Loving God takes as much work as any relationship you have. And above all, don't beat yourself up when you fail to be structured about it.

Cheer up love, you're gonna be great.