Smells Like Heaven

I'm sure people wonder why I'm so open and honest in my posts and feel I share too much. But sometimes it takes the struggle of another person to find your strength. When you can relate to someones pain it helps you realize you're not alone and that you can overcome whatever you're going through, even if they did not. Sometimes other people can string together you're own thoughts better than even you can. I find a beautiful connection to certain artist, writers, poets, etc. because through their work they portray the reality that is my head and I am so grateful for that. So if I can do that for even one person, it's worth it to me.

Lana Del Rey, Silvia Plath, and Kurt Cobain are just some of the artists I feel this connection to. (Not that I'm comparing myself to them by ANY means) I am inspired by their seemingly far out thoughts that somehow so gracefully find themselves a home in my soul. Lana's song Ride, for example, made my stomach drop the first time I heard it. 

"I had a chameleon soul, no moral compass pointing due north, no fixed personality; just an inner indecisiveness that was as wide and as wavering as the ocean..."

Listening to someone like Lana who you identify with so much and so deeply to the point you feel sick is so unbelievably comforting. It doesn't seem like it makes sense, but it does when you feel like a stranger. You realize there are other strangers out there and if there are others, are we really that strange?

The war in my mind is a constant and consistent battle between the person I was meant to be, and the person I am settling for because it's a hell of a lot easier then facing my most authentic self. It terrifies me to think I am not living up to my potential to the point that I somehow allowed myself to sleep through the past two years of my life.

"Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I've taken for granted."

I'm beginning to wake up, but my eyes are still adjusting to the intense self realization that gradually, but effectively flipped my whole perspective of life upside down. That being said, I may need some extra blinks to help me through the day, and still some days I won't be able to open them at all. Don't confuse this with a lack of effort, or me giving up, because it's impossible to change overnight. And at times when it seems as if I'm not trying, just know that I am. It may not have been genuine a year ago, but it is now. So please be patient with me.

"The outside world is pretty foreign to me"

It also terrifies me how slowly, but eventually, your mindset changes. The day to day things you told yourself were okay just this time, just in the circumstance, become routine. And that routine becomes a hell inside you disguised as paradise and smelling like heaven. The little demons in you that don't seem problematic individually, begin to accumulate and swallow you. They tangle the cords in your head and cover your eyes so that you're blind to what they truly are and ignorant to the destruction they've caused. Eventually all that is left is a mess of emotions wedged in your deepest, darkest crevices, squishing you like the spider you are, as you struggle to be set free. When the wad of sticky, bad touch, too much to handle, feelings that you've been suppressing for so long finally manage to escape the fall out is doomed from the start. You are no longer, or most likely never were able to handle your emotions in a healthy way, so now it's your job to teach yourself and motivate yourself everyday until you believe it is possible. Once you believe in the possibility of change and want it bad enough that your fear of heights is a small price to pay for the miraculous view ahead, and only then, will you soar high enough to forget any of the worries you had.

One day you wake up and the demons have transformed into angels, guiding you towards the light, towards self acceptance, towards positive change.

I am no longer struggling, I'm flourishing.