| Honesty and Vulnerability |
I’m currently procrastinating from reading
for class so I thought I might as well make something out of it. I’ve been
sitting on the idea of making this entry for about two weeks, I think, simply
because I’m not sure how much of it I want to talk about. But we’ll start from
the beginning.
February was a lot for me to handle and I’m
still processing some things in my head so pardon me if I’m not making too much
sense in this one. Part of the reason why February was almost overwhelming, in
a sense, is because I was home a lot due to the sudden break we had. And being
home hasn’t always been easy. Or to say the least being home for a long period
of time isn’t. I don’t go out almost at all, I lock myself up in my room and I don’t
have friends I can talk to face to face among other reasons.
Lately, being home made me think a lot
about my family situation and it brought me to a dark place in my head and I
hated that. But I’m not going to go into the details because frankly, I shouldn’t.
It’s none of anybody’s business and I won’t be helping anyone and definitely not
myself and my family by talking about it here.
But I will talk shit about myself. That’s what
this blog is for.
Awhile back, I talked about how my father’s
death (yes, we’re still on that, but hopefully not for much longer) had
affected me and the dynamic between me and my family and to be very honest with
you, I put a lot of blame on that. I’m not denying that the death did and
still do have a massive effect on every single one of us, but I am ashamed
to say that I put too much blame on my poor father’s grave. A lot of that comes
from the narrative that I created for myself as the kid who lost her father at
6.
I am smart enough of a person that I
managed to use these little pieces of information I had strung up together and
came up with misleading excuses on how I looked at myself. And I am also that dumbass
who believed in that false narrative where I was the main character and I was
the victim of circumstances.
I didn’t realize how much everybody else in
my family is hurting. I didn’t know how much they were sheltering me
while I was busy throwing myself a fucking pity party. I didn’t recognize the
fact that right now, we need each other more than ever before. And of course,
the realization didn’t come from me and my dumbass brain. I don’t deserve the
credit. It came from talking to my family and relatives and then the realization
that I’ve been fucking up.
I know a lot of these things I’m saying
probably won’t even make any sense because it’s very personal and I’m not being
explicit about it. And I know that some of you may disagree and think I shouldn’t
talk about it at all because, well, it’s personal. But this isn’t about being
sad and angry at myself because I learned that it gets me nowhere. That’s not
the title of this entry.
Being honest and vulnerable with myself is the
first step. I have to swallow the truth that I had been selfish for the longest
time when in reality I don’t have a single right to be. I made a stupid mistake
and I’m paying the price now with guilt. But guilt has no value if it doesn’t
inspire an action. I’m turning 20 this year, very much an adult (we’ll debate that
later lol) and I have all the willpower in me to help heal myself and my
family. Maybe not of all things, but I can at least spare them the pain of
having a prick at home.
What I’m trying to say is sometimes we have
to be brutally honest with ourselves to see that we are in the wrong, be vulnerable
enough to break ourselves apart and be responsible enough to pick ourselves right
back up because we have some redemption to do. Right now, we need each other,
so be kind to each other.
I just watched a video by Shannon Boodram
where she talks about her growing past her mistakes in relationships. Now I
know this sounds like it has nothing to do with this but Shannon said something
very interesting; Criticism and Constructive Criticism are two different
things. It is not enough to criticize ourselves with the result of making us
feel bad about ourselves. It should also be constructive, meaning that
we should recognize the power of rising above that criticism and now do what is
right. That’s what I promised myself to do.
That’s enough for today, I supposed. This
is quite a heavy topic and I’ll end it with a simple note;
“Don’t be a prick.”
-Nik.
Nik Fateen. An introvert trying to find home in a foreign space.