There is new life inside of me

hello bloggers and readers and friends :)

i feel like i drone a lot on the same topics in these blogs. i find that when i read back on old diaries, and text messages, and even this blog i kind of am on loop. i've been dealing with the same couple of problems for years and i've built a home in those issues. i saw a quote in some random comment section, "you cant replace a bad habit with abstinence, you have to fill it with something good" and it just made me go holy shit yeah! i feel a lot of grief when embracing change, grieving all the people i couldn't be and all the time and effort i expended on putting myself on a path i didn't want to follow, because i was just so afraid of change. but i was never ever happy. never. cooping up in my cycles and believing life would never go on. i don't really know how to explain. i felt like i was living in the post-credits of my own life.

a pretty big thing happened to me a few days ago, in terms of growth. there's a lot of details not worth writing about but i punched someone in the face. someone i've known for nearly a decade, and someone who has hurt me in ways i could never describe, someone who has laid their hands on me in much worse ways. and something just kind of clicked in my brain. obviously i don't like condone violence. for legal reasons. but i just felt such a sense of like.. regaining myself. i would never have seen myself standing up for myself that way even a couple of months ago, and thats kind of what shocked me. every time i live through /something/ i either expect an ideal ending or a terrible one. but sometimes you just punch someone in the face and theres no crowd to clap or guards to lock you away.. life just keeps moving. and for the first time in a very long time i find comfort in that fluidity. and just being able to feel *all* of my emotions this deeply and have everything matter is actually really really great lol. i was always shamed for being a very sensitive person but fuck its just so much better to embrace. i spent all that time ruminating over this person and these stupid problems and looping my own shit over and over in my head i never took the time to just Be A Person. wanting to regain lost youth, or contemplating things that happened years ago, living in a story that already ended, instead of contending the future. my growth was so stunted because in the past nothing new will ever happen again. i blocked out all new experiences and let myself feel like i was still there, 2 months ago, a year ago, 3 years ago. never the present. i still feel very conflicted with just.. all of it. just Life. but developing the skill to just apply myself to my own life has been so fucking terrifying and anxiety inducing and im sitting in bed right now with my heart rate accelerating just thinking about how many futures i have, but im so lucky. im so fucking lucky. i want to be able to love myself now as i am, not waiting for a change or staying stagnant, but to appreciate that i am change.

what happens next, is nearly everything