Lately, my life has been full of contradictions. Wanting to create art but not doing anything, eating when I'm not hungry, staying inside when I want to be outside, staying awake when I want to be asleep, the list goes on and the end result is: I am absolutely exhausted. It's not like my goal was to end up this way, which is to say extremely tired and somewhat depressed, in fact, I've been trying to prioritize my own happiness more often! Unfortunately though, I find myself going down a rabbit hole that I can be found lazily sleeping in a ball at the end of. I have so much to do but nothing gets done and I have no one to blame for this but myself, and yet, I can't seem to force myself to complete what needs to get done. Sometimes it feels like there's a wall between what I need to accomplish and myself or a weight pushing down on top of me as I lay in my bed, holding me in place. I've allowed that weight to hinder me in every way possible, forcing myself into this dangerous cycle. I've cracked the code to time travel, it's a monotonous life. Before I've even be able to take the time to realize it, months have slipped by. Memories that seemed close I come to realize are so far in the past that calling it a "recent" memory has become a way to grasp onto time as it slips through my fingers. I feel like sometime in January I took a nap and I'm just now waking up, looking at my calendar, seeing that it's April and thinking, "Oh, where did the time go!" Even suggesting that question puts a sour taste in my mouth, no matter how I go about my life, I'm always left feeling as though I am avoiding living my life to the extent I should be. Where did the time go? I wish my answer for that question could be something I'm slightly more proud of. It went down the drain, into my computer, into my dreams, my room's energy has become heavy because of how much time I've killed within its walls. I don't know when it happened, but sometime down the line I got myself mixed up. I started living for the distraction, to kill time, rather than living with the intention of living. To live with the intention that each day is precious and a gift to be treasured is but a pipe dream to me currently.
   Over the last year, I've gone through some traumatic things, which have caused me to sit back and look at my life in a different way. I've changed and acknowledging this change is difficult for someone like me, who dislikes the idea of who I am as a person changing. I worked so hard to get to where I am at currently with myself, why would I want to change? I am not an object without emotions though, I am a human being and I react to the way I am treated. No matter how much I don't want myself or my outlook on the world, my friends, my life, and whatever else to change, but the universe doesn't care what we want, only what is best for us. I'm less trusting and less quick to allow people into my life, which seems like it could be isolating or harmful to me, but instead it has taught me that boundaries are incredibly healthy and pushing myself past a point where I'm comfortable for others sake is not worth it. I've been trying to be more myself lately and I've felt like recently my shoes fit better. The person I see in the mirror is in fact the person I feel when I reach up and touch my face. The feeling of disconnect is still there, but it no longer holds me back from being myself. I don't think I'll ever fix my small stutter, though.
   All of this is to say, I feel like I have come to a standstill in my life. Worst of all, I'm most comfortable with things this way, so I've slowly begun to melt into my bed. Even though I say I'm comfortable, I still feel uneasy. Hence why I have become a walking contradiction. I can't easily explain what I'm feeling inside because I can't fully grasp it myself. This is probably due to not allowing myself to experience my emotions to their fullest. For some reason, that I don't want to get into explaining, it's become a habit of mine to repress my emotions, positive or negative. I'm sure this change might not be obvious to those I've talked to through text or in person, as the way that I feel doesn't have the largest impact on how I act in social situations. A lot of my behavior in those situations is forced, I almost feel like I'm playing a part in a play. There are a few instances I can recall with a past relationship where I didn't allow it to show on my face how happy I was and purposefully acted unaffected, I'm not entirely sure why I did that. Looking back, I'm sure I knew something was off in the relationship and that I should not allow the vulnerable parts of myself to be shown, but other than that it's easy for me to act happy when I need to. Obviously, this act breaks sometimes, as I'm only human and because of the way I am, I'm unfortunately more sensitive that I wish I was. Regardless of the wall I've tried to build around myself, I still maintain soft at my center and things penetrate my defenses more than I'd like. Each day I'm learning to more comfortably live in the body I've been given though, so I try not to beat myself up over it too much. I've gone off track.. but I've felt suffocated by myself lately. Suffocated by the many things I need to do but can't seem to complete. Suffocated by the weight of my future and my past.