All These People I Know
An era of steady medium.
The number of people you know is not indicative of value or confidence, but rather a testament to how much you value your own space; how careful you are with who you let into it.
My relationships are ever changing and evolving, for the first time by way of nature, not force or pressure or fear. It’s just in time for the beginning of a new year. I’ve never been in a position where I feel comfortable letting conflict and uncertainty take its course, because if something is not making me feel elated, I want to be rid of it. At the risk of sounding too chronically online, I’ve become a little too skilled at ‘protecting my peace’ since college. But I feel myself more inclined now to allow discomfort to nudge me out of my cosy little sphere, even when it comes to things I swore I’d never do again; just a part time job that makes me feel small at the worst of times, but when it’s over, leaves me feeling stronger than I could’ve been at 19. And it’s because my relationships outside of it are so healthy that I feel I have a soft place to land on a shitty day.
Back then I was making the mistake of pushing through the darkness with the objective of reaching an even darker situation. There wasn’t any incentive behind it other than proving to my peers that I could do everything they could do even if it left me purposeless… I’m so grateful to be at an age, or just a new level of mentality, where my own self belief and drive is enough of a reason to leap into something without the background noise and unnecessary opinion of somebody I owe nothing too.
However, with that said, I’m trying to (once again) reach a happy medium and not zip from one end of the spectrum to another. Just as it’s important not to let other people’s judgement cloud you’re own, it’s concurrently clear that I couldn’t and wouldn’t have made most of the positive changes I’ve made lately without the best people in my life. All these people I know, and have chosen to maintain relationships with for their own individual flares, further my thinking and understanding of myself and life with each passing day. All of them are incredibly strong in themselves, whether they know it or not, and in a moment where I forget how to tell somebody ‘no’, I channel that same energy they would in that situation. Even after 20 years of knowing them, there are problems my parents seem to crack without fail every time that I still can’t manage to grasp, but simultaneously, there are things they perhaps can’t understand that I am more accustomed to dealing with.
All these people I know, they balance me out.
