to trust again.

 

after all this time of feeling deeply betrayed, I feel it in my heart to trust again. to trust my decisions, intuition and dreams to live a life that brims and glimmers and somehow lives.

for six years, I strayed away from everyone who resembled my father with a deep distrust to every single character trait he had. I stuck to those who were so aggressively his opposite in an attempt to calm my inner child. it was mostly like fighting for survival, trying to replace my haunting memories of anything like him.

it even hurts me that I chose a lover who was totally what he was not, and forgot who I truly wanted from love. it hurts so much that even that deeply he caved in, controlling my most intimate decisions, thinking it was me.

and it hurts me to even think I tried to be less of my father in every way possible. excessively kind, sparing all my time for others, holding no boundaries to save space for myself. and when it was just me in my room, I’d be haunted by a crippling emptiness, an inability to feel my shame, and would stick to the things I did best— working incessantly.

somewhere along the line of what will happen next, I need to accept the fact that I might meet people who are a little bit like my father. that I might even love people with a little bit of charm, confidence and spirit. they might even be the people who push me forwards. even worse, I might even be like my father in some ways. those past few months, I realised that I have it in me to be dominant, to control and that I even own an authoritative voice. all these things distressed me in dangerous ways. I’m starting to wonder if it’s okay to have a space for both compassion and firmness, authority and lenience, calmness and rage— and everything in between.

I wonder what it’s like to be whole.

I wonder what it would be like to be proud of myself, just as my father excessively was. I wonder if it’s okay to accept compliments and need validation. I wonder what it’s like to hold my head up high and live with confidence, just as he did, but from a safer, more grounded place. I wonder if it’s okay to even be a little selfish at times.

all these things just point me to how much I need to trust myself and the world again. not everything has to be linked to him. not everything is him. for so many years, the only thing I knew was him, and I had to base all my decisions on his acceptance. it won’t be like that now. 

my intuition is calling and I’m not really afraid. I just want to remind myself to trust it again.