Lost

I need to write to free myself but my mind won't flow and my fingers won't work. To receive self-validation I need to create and think and inspire but its not happening.
I have so many thoughts but can't tussle with their transient threads.
I can't think of words or topics or opinion.
I feel trapped and the only vice to escape this entrapment is the one I am trapped from.
How do I get out this funk?

The Go-Between

I think this is my favourite book. Ever.
But then I think about Kent Haruf and his Plainsong Triology and then my mind wanders to the ever cliched Great Gatsby and wonder if maybe they are actually my favourite books.
But, either way, this one is a piece of literary magic.
I have studied it for my English coursework and still, when my mind glides over the epilogue, I shiver and tears form in my eyes.
I don't know what it is.
Maybe the utter fragility and vulnerability of innocence that is manipulated in the most deceitful way.
Maybe the sensuousness of the language; the metaphors, the imagery, the symbols. Its rich and abundant but still raw with the pain of realisation.
It is defined by the exploration of sexuality, identity and gender within the confines of Victorian mortality but presents destruction of self in the most tender manner.
Its warm and luxurious, being set in the heatwave of 1900, but so heartfelt.
It is a text, unlike any other I've studied, that gets better with analysis. The exploration and confusion is so much more apparent and Hartley's true skill portrays.
I remember reading this book in the beating sun of 2016, in the month it was set and it gave it all the vibrancy and life it deserves.
But every time I open the epilogue and I read "during my breakdown I was like a train going through a series of tunnels, sometimes in the daylight; sometimes in the dark, sometimes knowing who and where I was, sometimes not knowing" my heart aches for Leo's youth and destroyed innocence.

This book is remembered only by its opening line:
"the past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
but its so much more .
Its raw and its pure and its corrupt and its innocent and its damaged and it feels like its Hartley's mind, life and in someways survival poured into 300 pages of perfection.

Self-worth

Learning to love yourself at times when it feels like the last thing on earth.
Words to quieten the storm of chaos.

"I am learning everyday to allow the space between where I want to be and where I am to inspire me and not terrify me"

"On days like this my whole existence felt like the crumpled paper that missed its shot of being targeted into the trash can and survived. It also felt like the words crossed with black ink, that were cruelly rejected by the hand that wrote them. On days like this, my existence questioned the existence of my existence. On days like this, I had no answers"

"I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in darkness, the astonishing light of your being"

"The option is mine, in every moment, to choose peace over panic"

"What we don't need in the midst of struggle is shame for being human"

"Life is tricky baby. Stay in your magic"

"My whole life I've been telling myself "don't be afraid".
And its only now that I am realising how stupid that is. Don't be afraid. Like saying "don't move out of the way when someone tries to punch you" or "don't flinch at the heat of a fire"  or "don't blink". Don't be human.
I'm afraid and your afraid and we're all always going to be afraid, because that's the point.
What I should be telling myself is "be afraid but do it anyway."
Live anyway"

Learning to love yourself feels impossible, sometimes I wonder whether it is.
But I will embark on the journey because I currently feel on the cliff of an existential crisis. And some self-love would really help right now.
My narcissism makes me want to vomit, every time I write 'I' in a post it makes my stomach crawl.
But again, maybe thats part of learning to love oneself-allowing attention, time and value.
And as reassurance (to myself) its a whole lot harder than it seems imprinted in beautiful lyrics. Staying in your magic and not being terrified and living in peace. But we can do it.

***
everything is from pinterest and I am actually fine just being melodramatic about life (I think)