I came to write.

That’s why I always come, you know. I come to hopefully make some sense out of the mess inside my head. But sometimes…words aren’t enough. Sometimes words aren’t enough to fix what’s been broken. But you know me. If I don’t have words, what do I have? Sometimes it felt like I had nothing. But that feeling of being defeated is finally gone.

I guess I always put so much importance on saying the right thing. So much so that it started to cost me. And now I stare at this beautiful life I have, filled with so much more than my tiny existence deserves, and I have no words left. So for now I’ll breathe it in instead. I can’t explain how I’ve betrayed myself for so many years. All I can do is be grateful that’s gone now. Now I let all the good and the bad and the light and the dark soak deep into my soul. And being on the other side of this is my life’s greatest accomplishment. Not the times when I struggled with outside forces and overcame them, but the times I struggled with the things that are mine, the things that belong to me, and overcame them.

I always thought that my greatest victories would come on the heels of the times I met things greater than I, and won. Times like Costa Rica. I lived in a country I didn’t know, I lived with people I didn’t know. I felt so small, like a grain of sand on the biggest beach in the world. And when I did it, when I conquered my fears, I felt so big. I thought that would be the single proudest moment I’d ever have.

But then came this season. All of this? All of this around me? It’s mine. I know this city, I know these people, I know this school. They belong to me. When something is yours, you trust it. When a person is yours, you trust them. But what about when the things you trust start to fall around you? What about when all of the things you thought you knew suddenly start to look they’re not yours? I got my heart back, but it didn’t look like mine anymore. I thought I had an idea of what my future would be, but I never really did. I had a picture of what these four years would be to me, but that picture started to fade. I guess what I mean is that all this time, I assumed my greatest accomplishment would be fighting something else and winning. But that’s not the grandeur of life. You see the grandeur of life when you fight yourself and win. This fight with myself, this struggle with my OCD, these trials with my future, this pressure I’ve thrived off of…these are my biggest victories.

So I guess I should write myself a thank you card. If I had never betrayed myself…I would have never been as proud of myself as I am in this moment. I would have never fed my faith and let my fears starve to death.