all is full of love

some people think our past is something like a chain that holds us back from what we're running toward. that the things that have hurt us or frightened us are clinging to us, and they won't let us move forward. they're springing up from the ground and wrapping around our ankles like thick, evil roots, and pulling us into the ground so we keep running, but we just never move.

for a very long time i have ascribed to this belief. i have become frustrated to the point of tears at my inability to cut the threads of my past. sad stories, broken hearts, childhood memories that look like childhood abuse, and mean-spirited boys have been holding me back for such a long time. i start feeling like my wounds are visible and bleeding, like maybe my past is holding onto me so tightly that everyone else can see it.

but i've been thinking. what if it turns out not to be so much a chain, but more like a trail of breadcrumbs. is it really so bad to stay connected with your past? why is that viewed as wrong, anyway? i believe that if anyone tells you that they have left their past behind, they are either lying or didn't have anything interesting happen to them in their whole goddamn life. our past has all the little pieces that made us whole now, and if we didn't have it then we'd be these weird holey-people without all the spaces filled in. if it is a chain, what are we without it? a ship without an anchor? i think our past, all the ugly parts and everything, have to be connected to us or else we can't ever find our way back to the parts of our life that made it worth getting to where we are now.

in other words, i'm finished listening to the voices in my head. the voices that have always told me "it's not healthy if you cry when you're alone" and "you shouldn't always be in a relationship" and "you should never let things get to you that happened over a year ago." these are just things that my mother told me, or maybe my friend told me, or maybe i read it in a book or who knows where. the point is, who decided this? these strange "absolute truths" about life that i'm supposed to believe work for everyone. i'm different from every single other person in the whole, wide world. and i think i get my own set of rules.

i get sad if i'm alone late at night. for no reason, usually.
i cry at movies.
i still get bothered by things that happened in my past.
i like attention.
i like to be called pretty.
i like having a boyfriend.
i have sex.
i enjoy it.

and i am completely okay with all of these things.
unless of course, oprah said they were bad.

but she's on my side.

<3gen