01.02.03 | 5:43pm
Acceptance of sorts
Everyday is so wonderful. Then suddenly, it's hard to breathe. Now and then I get insecure, from all the pain. I’m so ashamed.
But I am beautiful, no matter what they say. Words can't bring me down. I am beautiful, in every single way. Words can’t bring me down. So don’t you bring me down today.
Christina Aguilera, Beautiful.
I missed Justin a lot today. I thought about him a lot, that’s why. And while I believe I should feel this overbearing force of regret and self-depreciation, I don’t. I feel loss and I feel longing. Today I’ve just been numb. Which tells me that my body and mind are in shock. Shock from what? I have no idea. Just, shock. Maybe the shock of finally realising the faults of our relationship. My faults in the relationship. I think I feel sadness as well. Sad that I wasn’t right for Justin, sad that things had to end this way and sad that… well that we’re not together I guess. Sad that he’s found someone better than me. Someone he can love more than me. Sad that I don’t deserve him. Sad that I hurt him, sad that I brought him down. Sad because of the person I was and of the person I am trying not to be. Sad because Justin doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.
I’ve gone through such an enormous revolution of sorts, in mind and body. I have learnt so many things about myself mainly, but about others as well. So many things that I would have never readily accepted had it not been forced upon me. And like I keep saying, while it hurt at the time, I don’t think I’d change things if I could. I am accepting myself for who I am, faults and all. And by doing that I can look to render my faults. It’s not easy to accept your own faults. It takes a lot of maturity and an open mind. Neither of which I never used to have much of. It takes a lot of maturity to be able to step back and see yourself from other people’s points of view. To realise, you’re not perfect but that’s okay because perfection isn’t what you want. What’s important is realising that you need to try and change the things about yourself that hurt other people or that hurt yourself. Like stubbornness for example. Being stubborn can sometimes be a good thing. But often it can put a lot of stress on two people in a relationship. It can cause a lot of arguments, each person always thinking they’re right. And really, being stubborn can be linked to narrow mindedness and immaturity. The bigger person will be able to step back and realise how immature both people are being and sensibly try to reach a compromise, or accept that they might not be as right as they wish to believe. A good example of this was the arguments Melissa from Cicerello’s and I had. Melissa had the prerogative to step back and say, hey we’re being really immature about this, don’t you think? And I had to agree. So we talked and we reconciled which I felt good about. I was proud of myself for being able to [finally] be mature about it and I held an admiration for Melissa for being able to do the same.
But Justin is very set on the fact that he has done absolutely nothing wrong in our relationship and in our break up. There are very few things he has done wrong, most of which aren’t even that big a deal. The majority of the problem on his side was his lack of communication, the way in which he carried things out and his seemingly inability to always tell the complete truth. He has placed a lot of the blame onto me. And when people point fingers at others, I see that as a sign of weakness. They are too weak to accept their own share of faults, so they pass it off easily to other people. I told Justin that there is no blame to place. If anything, we were both wrong in many things we did and that led to the eventual break up. I don’t blame Justin for anything. But that doesn’t mean that I agree with everything he’s said or done or that I don’t hold anger for him at the present moment. I have been able to accept my share of faults, as an individual and as one half of a very close and intimate relationship. And had it not been for the break up, it would have been a little while longer before I could do that on my own. But Justin can’t do that, even now. He isn’t mature enough to be able to do that for some reason. He vehemently and honest to God believes that if there is an issue, it’s better off to bury it alive, but make sure you bury it deep enough so that it never comes back. And to then place a large boulder on top to ensure the security. That’s one of Justin’s weaknesses, a dislike for confrontation. I don’t half blame him, because who does like confrontation? But as he once told me, you don’t always get what you want. Sometimes you have to do what’s right or what’s necessary. Justin moves on from everything straight away and never looks back, whether the issue/problem has been addressed or not. And then he wonders why I bring it up 6 months later. You can’t bury something alive and expect it never to resurface. Even if you spend months or years trying to kill it and keep it down, eventually its ghosts will come back to haunt you as they did in our relationship. Its only logical, and its naïve, immature and stubborn to think of it any other way. I really do feel very sympathetic for Justin and for Casey because of the way he sees life in that respect.
I welcome my demons with open arms now. It’s like one of the methods of living through panic attacks that I learnt. It’s actually easier to just accept the panic attack and let it run its course, that fighting to control it and keep it under. Even though the fear sweeps through you and you feel like you might faint or worse, it’s easier than trying to resist it. And accepting that is part of what leads to your healing.
I am becoming a better person, no matter what Justin says. What does he know about me now? For once, not an awful lot. There are setbacks, of course, when I say or do something immature that I regret later. Setbacks are a natural part of the progression. But setbacks mean that you are getting better in the first place. And I’m so comforted by that thought. Finally this is something I’m doing for me. I am becoming a better person. Someone that Justin will probably never get to know properly. Which is also sad. Justin always seems happy. He has a great energy for life; he is always enthusiastic and loves to be happy and smiling. As far as he’s concerned, he doesn’t have any issues. And that’s an issue in itself – denial. I don’t think Justin likes to look at himself. He doesn’t like to confront himself. Maybe he’s just not ready for that right now. He’s happy living his life as the happy-go-lucky person he appears to be. And I guess that’s ok. It’s nothing to do with me. I sure as hell know I wasn’t ready for it when it hit me. Difference was, I didn’t have a choice. And like I said, looking back now I’m glad that things have turned out the way that they have. I just feel sad for Justin, I wish that he could go through what I’m going, I wish he could see himself the way I see myself now because he would be such a better person for it. I know it’s nothing to do with me, but I just felt that I had to say it. He doesn’t listen to anything I say these days anyway, but one of the things I loved about the beginning of Justin’s and my relationship was that I could touch him
When we first met he was, or he appeared as, a person who had been hurt a lot in the past (which he had), someone with a low self esteem and who wasn’t going to trust the world again anytime soon, let alone trust another girl with his heart. But I changed that, he told me I brought out the best in him, I made him see and I changed his outlook on life. It made me so happy to be able to do that; it’s really the most amazing and fulfilling feeling. He saw such beauty in me, in my mind and body. And he thought, if someone that beautiful sees all these good things inside me, then they must be true. And he started to believe me. He started to see things from how I saw him. He started to see the good in himself and he became even more of a beautiful person. He trusted me, he believed in me, he listened to me. He really listened to what I had to say and he thought about it and he would believe me and seek to make himself a better person. And it was so wonderful to see that and be a part of that. But that love and that trust… it’s gone now. It’s gone the opposite way. Because for a while I started to believe all the bad things Justin had to say about me, just the same way he believed all the good things I said about him. Whatever I write, whenever I write, I always try and write so that Justin would understand what I’m saying. I wish that he would try and at least see things from my point of view. And if he disagreed with something he could just tell me, not yell at me about it. And we’d talk about it and then both realise what was right, or right for each individual person and both accept it. Just to be able to touch him again. Touch his mind. Really get his thoughts going. Stir his intelligence and his morality and make him question what he thinks is right and wrong.
And it’s just sad. I wish, I wish that Justin could look inside himself for once. Accept himself for once. And become a better person. Not for me. But for mostly importantly him and Casey. Not to mention his friends and family. Because I know. Like I said to Melissa when we were talking about suicide. It’s one thing to stand in one pair of shoes and try and imagine yourself in the other pair. But it’s quite another to say you’ve physically stood in both pairs of shoes. I’ve found many things in my life are becoming like that. I’ve stood in all the bad shoes before. And now I’m finally walking around in all the opposite shoes. And while it’s been good and it’s been bad, it’s been really good and really bad, I’ve got that experience of both sides. So I know exactly what I’m talking about because I really have been there and done that. I just wish that everyone else could be able to say that about themselves. Especially the people in my life I see as the most beautiful. Not that Justin is really in my life right now, but he is the most beautiful person I know.
I think tonight has been good. I feel good about being able to say all that. And I almost know that Justin will agree with or believe very little that I’ve written about tonight. But that’s okay. I can accept that now. Because the important thing is that I’m becoming a better person. It may not always seem like it to Justin, but I know. And there is nothing in the world that can top that.
Apart from being able to finish… with a smile :)