Compilation of Thoughts Which Freely Roam the Complex Teenage Mind

8:32 pm Friday, June 18, 2021. It’s rainy, not a typical grey skies rainy, it was ominous and foreboding. The sky was shades of pink and green with the wind picking up fragments of nearby trees and hurling them to where they will lay until the next gust plucks them up again. I was driving a straight road feeling the rain whirling underneath my tires causing my vehicle to lift momentarily off the road and then fall again in between puddles. I could feel the air conditioning causing my lips to dry and the tears streaming down my face to freeze in their place, staining my cheeks. As I watch my wipers swipe swiftly across my windshield removing any interference with my view of the road, I only feel jealousy. I wish they would do the same to my eyes as they fill to their brim with tears, clouding my vision, and release the frustrations and insecurities I hold behind them. I wish they could just swipe away the worries and doubts and fears and allow me to see the road in life I am currently on. However my eyes are eyes and the windshield wipers are rubber and plastic, and the only person to dry my eyes and release my frustration at this specific and unrepeatable moment in my life is myself.

My mind is restless, school, friends, family, boys, sports, religion, the list continues. Because in accompany with the previously listed categories is about ten subcategories with their own complex and significant aspects. I wish for a moment I could freeze time and tend to each of them with every part of my self and attention. That, however, is an unrealistic wish, and a problematic mindset to hold myself to. I’m trying my best. I’m trying to allocate the most time I possibly can to the categories in my life in which need the most of my love. I’m trying to comprehend the very significant milestones in my life that are occurring seemingly 30 years prematurely. I’m trying to comprehend why all this weight has been placed upon my shoulders at once, and why when I am 16. Despite the strong sense of compression I feel, I have managed to surround myself with people who allow me to decompress when necessary and push me when I am close to losing hope and the finish line is so near. 

Though this has been incredibly trying, I have learned immensely about myself and about others throughout my recent struggles. I have learned that it is entirely possible to deeply wound someone you love, without even understanding how you hurt them, but yet having to deal with the consequences of your actions regardless. I have learned that it is necessary to forgive someone for their transgressions against you, not only for their sake but for yours as well. I have learned that just because you forgive someone truthfully does not mean that you must go back to having the same relationship and vulnerability with them you had before. You are not held accountable for that. I have learned that the people you spend the most time with may not be those who will show up for you in your greatest times of need and the deepest trenches of your humanity. I have learned that you are not responsible for the lack of reciprocated feelings from someone and that you cannot hold someone accountable for an ideal that you strongly impressed upon them. I have learned that although humans deeply crave reciprocated affections and respect, it is not always realistic to attain those from every person in your life. In fact, those who don’t respect you are necessary to come across, not keep in your life, but simply to have around for a chapter or two to teach you to the true value of yourself. I have learned the importance of self-respect and how important being selfish every now and then is. Putting yourself first is not always negative, I strongly believe that is one of the hardest lessons in life to learn. That just because you love someone, does not mean you shouldn’t be allowed to love yourself too. Lastly, I have learned that in the end very little matters, but the little that does matter always seems to have the largest impact on our lives. 

8:55 am Thursday, October 7, 2021. It's sunny outside, but I feel quite literally the opposite on the inside. I feel empty and as I re-read the words in which I had typed above I drag myself to the conclusion... I should've listened to myself then. I should've taken my own advice. I should've just dealt with life then and faced reality, rather than pushing it off and deflecting for months which simply only led to more pain. I wish that I would've taken the words in which I was typing and applied it to my own life's circumstances. "I have learned that you are not responsible for the lack of reciprocated feelings from someone and that you cannot hold someone accountable for an ideal that you strongly impressed upon them. I have learned that although humans deeply crave reciprocated affections and respect, it is not always realistic to attain those from every person in your life." I wish I hadn't unlearned that. Someone once told me that you can never care more than someone else does. I wish I would've taken her advice, but that just doesn't seem like me. I'm the girl that cares too much for her own good. I've always been her, and the day in which I'm not her is the day in which I have lost concept of who I am.  If only I had accepted it, If only I had the strength to go, If only I- this isn't healthy. Healing isn't linear. I need to be nicer to myself. The past is the past for a reason. Move on. Get over it. Live. Happily. Heal. This just doesn't seem realistically attainable at this moment in my life. I don't understand how I can simply move on. I'm a fixer, I fix things, well, I try to. People cannot be fixed unless they want to be and I have to understand that THEY DID NOT WANT TO BE FIXED. Or maybe it was they didn't care enough? Did they not love me enough? Was the relationship in which we had not enough for them to change? To anyone dealing with similar thoughts... It wasn't you, its not your fault. You aren't responsible for this. I'm 16, is this teenage heartbreak? Is this what all those stupid songs are about? Is this how a mother should treat a daughter? Is this what I was meant from the beginning to encounter? Too many questions, not enough answers. And to be quite frank, I'm too exhausted to even look for the answers in which my heart is aching for. Everyone has flaws, everyone will disappoint you, perfection is an unattainable concept placed upon us, however knowing when enough is enough and when the buildup of flaws overcomes a person to the point in which who they 'were' (more-so the side of themselves that they allowed you to see at that time) is no longer who they are, is the point in which it is best to choose yourself. And choosing yourself is not a bad thing, so please for the Love of God never, ever, allow someone to make you believe that it is.

Fallon