Everything all at Once
The world has failed to be kind to her. She did not fail to be kind to herself when climbing out of every aftermath. She doesn’t think she can take anymore, yet every single time there is a bump in the road or a life-altering shit-show outcome, she handles it. Not once has she given up. While there are days when she can’t get out of bed to pee, she’ll take those over giving up. She is lucky. Getting to this place of comfort, where she has filed her rigidness down in vulnerability, she acknowledges that there is no controlling how others affect her. There is nothing she is more proud of now than all of the little nuances she has discovered through the people around her. She is extravagantly built up on the characteristics that her relationships have instilled. She is so lucky.
She loved to be alone as a kid because she did not have to worry about other people. On the playground, she never wanted to say the wrong thing, so she sat under the willow tree, where she did not have to worry about talking to people at all. The anxiety of being perfect as her own individual was overwhelming. It felt as though she was supposed to be extraordinary from the inside; that one day, she would wake up, and the world would have stopped waiting for her to be everything all at once. The pressure of perfection consumed her. She struggled enough in school not to need to struggle in public. She had little interest in reading buddies, science partners, or playdates. She was nine and was so scared of letting others see her fail that she never found herself letting others in. She loved her simple and independent life and had fewer variables to be anxious about. Fewer people meant fewer variables that she could not control. She loved being alone because she could control even the little things. There was no one to impress, no one waiting for her to be reliable. There was no world counting on her to be everything all at once.
She rejected help for most of her teenage years and into adulthood because she had learned the simplicity of self-sufficiency. It is easier when she does not have to deal with the reliance, emotional responsibility, and decisions of others. However, sometime within all the chaos, there has been a leak; she has learned that life is more than just that. There are also new experiences, such as laughing so hard her stomach hurts, and she is convinced if she is happy with another person, happiness is twice the serotonin than being happy alone. She found interest and passion in learning the people around her. Knowing them better than they know themselves gave her a sense of security. There was an approachability to others if she knew everything all at once. As she grew up, having others in her life became less daunting to her. She slowly learned trust and boundaries. She learned the importance of having a support system. She still grapples with understanding that she has always been allowed everything all at once. She is allowed to be trial and error, exposed to others, and allowed to make mistakes and find acceptance. The beauty of it all is being everything all at once.
She was sprawled on her friend’s couch last night, discussing relationships, simplicity, and complacency. Talking about her insecurity growing up. About all the little nuances about herself that kept her quiet and intimidated. Her friend patiently waited for her to finish before she blurted out, “But messiness is what makes life interesting.”
As she tilted her head just enough to look like she was rolling her eyes, she realized that she was not wrong. Nobody is perfect, and navigating those insecurities and difficulties is what constitutes room for loving others, unconditionally helping others, and solving problems with others. That is what makes life beautiful.
“The messy things are fun.”
The messy things are what create the things that are uniquely beautiful.
Messiness means she had something to get messy over, something to fight for, something good that allowed her to deal with messiness. If the little insecurities and habits did not exist to give room for the beauty that blossoms from them, there would be nothing to show for at the end of each day.
Understanding her relationships' full potential and extent has taken her a long time. She cannot love her life and her relationships halfway. No one gets to pick and choose what they get from others; it is inevitable that she will end up with all the good and the bad. There will be people who aren’t perfect fits, but those are the people she will learn the most from because they give her a different perspective. There will be people who are almost perfect fits, and when she loses them, it will be one of the toughest battles. Where there is love, there is heartbreak. Where there are best friends, there are ridiculously small arguments that will feel like the world is ending. But those who teach her the most will be the ones she remembers when she still looks at things from their perspectives years later. Those people who are almost perfect fits are the ones she will be lucky enough to give her a hand to hold anytime she needs it. And those best friends are the ones to pick up all the embarrassing little quirks about her that the world never needs to see. The world will never stop demanding and pushing, and the world will never stop asking that she navigate everything all at once. The world will never stop encouraging her to be everything all at once.
She no longer holds back because of the what-ifs or maybes. She doesn’t doubt herself like the world expects perfection. The beauty of it all is that there must be good and bad. She was a threat to herself by not letting herself live everything all at once. The ebb and flow of everything all at once is the composition of her life.
