I have a hard time choosing me. It’s always been difficult because I’m always wondering about how my decisions will affect other people. Sometimes I do it out of fear, and other times I do it out of empathy and really caring about how people feel. Lately, I’ve reached an impasse, and haven’t been really sure about what to do. Frankly, I’m sure people would want me to be successful and prosperous, but I’ve been so unhappy lately, that I’m not sure that I can ignore it any longer. I’m also not going to get into specifics, so just bear with me. 

Last week, I got really sick. Like for real. I haven’t been sick like this in a long time. I went to urgent care one morning because I was literally feeling like I was gonna die. The attending doctor does her little tests for the common things, and it turns out, I had strep throat AND the flu. The first thing I did was curse kids and parents for being in the school environment knowing they were sick. It had me super weak, and I got hella drugs to deal with it, but all I could do was sleep. The second thing I did is compliment myself on that gag reflex situation. Not even a flinch. (Good for you, sis.) I went to work on Friday and spent all of 5 hours there before I was sent home because I was sweating so profusely. Apparently, no one else was hot. *heavy eye roll* I immediately came home, got in the bed and rested for the remainder of the day and for majority of the weekend. In reality, I was sick and needed more recovery time, but I was also carrying stress, which was contributing to the length of the sickness. Carrying the weight of work stress is already unhealthy, but when it begins to disrupt your sleep and interfere with your health, it’s a serious problem. A second contributor was a recent jarring trigger that jolted me back to childhood, that I was definitely not prepared to see. Since seeing it, I’ve had a hard time snapping back and wanting to engage with those memories again. A picture of my abusers, around the time everything happened, popped up on social media and I freaked out like shit. Reliving traumatic memories plays a toll on your body and mind. Trauma and drama surrounding work always drains me, but metaphorically, it was like the strep and flu living in my body together, harmoniously, disrupting everything I had going on. The only way to feel any better was to get rid of it all.

This isn’t a new thing. I do grapple with decisions in very dramatic ways. My biggest fear is that people will think I’m selfish. Yeah, I still care about what certain people think. We not that far along, girl. There are people that I hold in high regard and I care what they think of me. It’s not a long list of people, but that list exists, and the people who are most important to me are on it. It just always comes off selfish when I have to talk about me or what I need. I encourage people to go after what they want, but it’s different when it comes to me. It’s very much a “I’ll wait until the right time,” or “I’m just not ready right now.” Mary and I are going to talk about it next Friday, so I can work through the problems and why I’m so afraid to make a decision for me. On one hand, choosing you can be a bit lonely. It may absolutely mean shutting myself off from people and things that haven’t been the most supportive towards my journey. The last one I made for myself didn’t turn out too bad for me. Maybe it’s time for me to be selfish again. We’ll see.

Just needed to rant today. You hoes keep healing. I don’t know what this part of the journey is called, but shit, I apparently need it, so.. Keep Healing Bitch. All 2019.