Ch 15 what’s stopping you?

-I don't know. Stopping me from what?
-From writing?
-Oh... I don't know.

I thought about this for a while. Like why would someone stop writing? Maybe life catches up on them. They get busy, find a girl (or guy), school hits hard, has their laptop stolen, whatever. Things happen. Even though I feel joy in writing, it takes a lot of effort. It's much easier to run with a dog or play video games and unless that internal intrinsic desire to write comes along, it's kind of hard to start. I mean it's not that I don't think about it because I promise you, I do. I think about writing a lot. And it inspires me to do more important things. Like recently I did my best to help my friend write again, because I genuinely believe that if the world writes more, life would be infinitely better.

I'm still not too sure why I really stopped. A few months ago I got into a conversation with an old friend. She's really sweet and asked me what was wrong.

"Why aren't you writing anymore?"

And as an excuse I said that I was afraid. I was afraid of what people might think, or maybe it's because I feel vulnerable. I mean I'm always open to being vulnerable, but I guess for a while there are a few things I was afraid to talk about. Life now. Walmart. Being with friends. I can't explain it too well... but after a while seeing everyone else progress with their lives, I guess in a weird way of comparison I feel like I purposely put my life on pause.
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I hate this. The pause. Comparing myself. I hate it all. I mean I don't know... I guess a part of me hoped that I'd be somewhere else, or with someone else, or doing something different. But I've accepted I'm here now. I'm in a pause. It's an okay pause. There's a cool dog here, and she seems sweet too.

Honestly though, I don't know. Maybe for analytical purposes we can summarize it to fear of the past, laziness, and lack of time. But I don't think that tells the whole story. A lot of days I think, I just wasn't feeling it. As incredible as writing is, at times I just felt indifferent. I'm still human. I don't know everything, that's why I have faith. I'm not perfect, that's why I love grace. And though I can't do everything, that's why I'm glad my friends are here to help me try it all out.

Ch 14 gone and moved on

Everyone makes mistakes.
Everyone has those days.

-Hannah Montana

Weird quote I know. But I stand by it! We're not perfect, none of us are. But while that statement is true, it's often a statement that's very difficult to accept. Especially for me.

And maybe it's not just me, but since I don't know their point of view, I'll only share mine. Yes, I've had my fair share of mistakes. There are a lot of things I regret in my life, but even though I do my best to seek penance or restitution, I still find myself feeling an awful lot of guilt. Often they forgave me, but still... that doubt and guilt and self-inflicted anger remains.

There are some mistakes where it's kinda natural to feel that way, like murder (cuz it's hard to reverse what happened), or extreme emotional distress, or something like that. But even on small things, I find myself laying on my bed, on a terrible terrible night, thinking and recounting all the mistakes most people probably forget about.

"You need to forgive yourself bro!" -lil bro

And he's right. Because it does eat at you for a while. But how exactly? It's easy to give advice, it's much harder to execute it and to be honest, I don't think there's a right answer. For some mistakes it could be easy while others take years of coping. And I don't want that to happen! That's a lot of baggage to carry! Some people might go direct and confront it, some might run away from whoever they hurt, others might just let it simmer until time erodes it away, and an unfortunate few won't even care.

Maybe I can't forgive myself today, sure. It's true, I probably overthink some things. Yeah I'm not perfect, but I got one hell of a story