I Lost Myself This Year

I’ve been putting myself out there to make friends, and I think L would be really proud of me.

It’s one of those moments where you want to pick up the phone and call someone to tell them about your life, but you can’t.

That’s okay though.

Holding the knowing that she would be proud, that she would be happy for me, is still meaningful.

To be able to believe that is meaningful.

I know I was kind of forced into this spot in my life. In a way.

So it’s not like this was some perfectly planned act of bravery or hard work that I executed flawlessly. But I’m fully aware that even with how everything unfolded, I could have chosen differently.

And I chose this.

My mind has circled a lot around what people think of me regarding the termination I went through earlier this year. I spiraled into shame. I’ve probably made up fake meetings in my head dozens of times, imagined conversations, imagined judgments. I don’t know why I do that to myself. And I don’t know why I care, because I shouldn’t.

But I do.

I want to know why I care.

Maybe that’s another thing to unpack in therapy.

I still feel like I don’t really know who I am. But I’m sure that will fade with time.

I know this is choppy. All over the place. I don’t have a lot of brain power to make it smooth or well-thought-out right now.

I keep fighting with not knowing whether I’m a bad person who thinks they’re good, or a good person who thinks they’re bad. I know it sounds strange to hold both of those thoughts at once, but it’s like this: when I feel like I’m bad, part of me hopes I’m wrong. And when I feel like I might be good, part of me doubts it.

I really lost myself this year. Like, fully lost myself.

And now I’m grappling with identity. With what my life choices say about me. With who I’ve been, and who I’m becoming. I wonder sometimes: if I died today… what would be the truth of who I am?