Don't Let Bitterness Become You

It's been a bit of a weird time recently.

I am very very happy. Things have been very very good. I am so in love with this world, and so grateful for everything in it.

At the same time, I am struggling. I am a bit all over the place, and it's been difficult. This week, some of the most intense anxiety stuff that I face has been around, which has been exhausting. It is exhausting, just bouncing between good and bad. Life is exhausting.

I'm hoping that this is just a mix of tiredness, change and more of a natural reaction to happiness. I am taking a lot of strength from knowing that I am mostly happy, and that I do still feel hopeful and in love and full of the positive things, a lot of the time. But I'm also trying to deal with all of the negative stuff.

I don't think any of this is making sense. I am not really making sense of it, to be honest.

Mostly, what I want to do at the moment is curl up and hide from the world. And that does not make sense, because things are so wonderful and enjoyable at the moment- why on earth would I want to hide from all of it?! And yet, for some reason, I do.

So I'm making myself do things. The whole thought of this weekend is filling me with dread, but I know it will be okay. More than that, I know it will be good, and I know I will really enjoy it. I've just got to force myself to start things. The rest will come.

I'm trying to focus on self-care. I'm wearing nice clothes and spending time on my eyeliner and washing my hair more than it needs, because all of those things make me feel a bit more taken care of and a little less like an exhausted mess. I'm making myself eat and drink water. I'm trying to get better at sleeping. I'm walking the long way home from sixth form, because then I can go through the field, and trying to make myself notice all the beautiful things that this world wants us to notice. I'm trying to make myself reach out a bit more.

I think mostly I need to sleep. That should help a lot.

I think it's going to be okay. I don't know. What I do know is that I'm going to fight against this- because it's still tempting to fall back into it, you know? Because the sadness and the darkness is familiar, and everything else takes energy, and that is not really something I have at the moment. But I am not going to let myself do that. I am going to fight. And I am going to smile. I am not going to let bitterness become me. Not today, Malvolio.