Look after yourself

lifeworks

PartI

When I was growing up, people told me intermittedly to look out for myself. To look after myself. That I was strong. That I was proud. They told me that I was beautiful.

What happened to me? Why did I start withdrawing into my shell? WHere was I on those long nights out and those easy nights in ? I was somewhere, somewhere lost over the distance of who I believed myself to be internally and who I was. Who my friends saw me to be. What my life had shaped me as and what my life was shaped to.

Something happened. I don't know how it happened. It wasn't anybody's fault, but I began to shape my life by what it looked like from the outside, instead of what it felt like to be in. What it felt to me.

Somedays I caught great glimpses of my soul. She was cheeky. Fierce. Some days she was shy. But more and more, she was quiet. She stayed in bed when I was outside, she spent longer and longer looking out the window, joining me where I was from time to time.

How does one fix that? How does one live a life from the inside? A life that feels right.

It's a hard question. Maybe it's one of the hardest. A life where your soul is alight. Is that cliche? Let's say it this way. A life where she's there, present. Through the good and the bad. Loving it, every hard step of it. Where was that.

I don't know. I haven't answered it myself. It's hard. It's hard work. It's something to do with saying no to the things that hurt you. The things that don't move you. The things that draw you into tiny pieces of yourself so you feel your power slipping out the door. It's something to do with the people in your life who make you feel small, you show them the door.

But I haven't yet quite found that true answer. That right hook. One thing I did do that seemed to help, is that I took a little care. I took a little care of myself. I had my own back. I looked after my hair. I put night cream under my eyes. I said no to people who were bullying me. I researched how to look after sensitive skin (because trust me I have this). I slept right. I told my friends what was hurting me so that they could be my guards and guardians. Better than before. Because I wasn't worried anymore. About what it all looked like.

I wore nice PJs and I slept in good sheets. I drank lots of tea. I had my own back. It was hard. Letting the wrong ones out. Letting them go. Letting go of all those things that were shaping my life into something that looked right. But it's working now.

What's left. I don't know. There's so much hard work, sometimes I just run myself a bath and sigh. But then, so do you. We all do. All of us trying hard to live properly this life. Live a true life. Or just be okay, really, they're both the same.

I haven't met you but I probably do love you. Because you care, and that's all we can really do, really, in the end.