As of Tuesday, we’ll be eight months into the year. This means I only have to wait a month before decorating my bedroom with artificial leaves, cobwebs, and pumpkins and I’m so excited. When I think back to last autumn, I was dealing with the repercussions of something that had happened to me over the summer. To put it simply, I was unbearably unhappy, so much so that I feared I’d never enjoy the season again. My mum gave me a necklace with the word ‘lucky’ on it, even though I felt very unlucky at the time. Despite this, wearing the necklace made me feel empowered. Looking at my hardships and bad decisions in a different light meant telling myself that I was merely growing and that the emotions I'm constantly experiencing meant that I was a person who cared. I wore the necklace every day, never taking it off until it completely rusted.
The last eight months have been so, so hard, especially the last three. May was probably the hardest month of my entire life. I experience a wave of guilt admitting that because I know people have gone through far worse, but never before had the want to disappear consumed me so greatly. So many awful things happened all at once and I don’t know whether I’d have survived without my parents. My relationship with my mum and dad has improved so much in the last year. With my brother and sister away at university, I’ve gotten to be an only child. I loved every second of it, and in retrospect, I needed their attention and love - my job was destroying my life. I don’t think anyone can comprehend how awful my working situation was; my friends don't exactly enjoy their jobs either, and I didn't want them to think I was making our hardships a competition. My parents saved my life - I’m so, so lucky to have received my mum’s reassuring texts and my dad’s loving phone calls.
I am lucky to feel the emotions I feel. I am lucky to have experienced loneliness, for I value my loved ones and every second I spend with them. My bedroom is practically a shrine; I have photographs of my friends and family on every bookshelf, a noticeboard of their cards and notes and items they’ve gifted me in every corner. I am lucky that when I know I’ve hurt someone I love, I experience guilt that consumes me so tightly that I can’t sleep at night or focus on the day. The guilt lies next to me in bed at night and is sitting next to me as I write this. Sometimes it grabs me by the throat as I queue to buy coffee and I can just about hold the tears in, tears that I’m lucky to cry. The guilt makes me a better person, with a better understanding of those who make decisions with their head and not their heart. I’m lucky because unlike so many, I can forgive my parents for the times they’ve hurt me and I can forgive my friends for misunderstanding me. I’m lucky to have experienced sadness so overwhelming that I could barely get out of bed and to have gone through periods where starving my body was the remedy to my dysmorphia because I know how to help people and what to say to anyone who experiences the same struggle.
I’m lucky because when relationships in my life end, I experience true grief; finality and relief never run through me. I mourn no longer having a person there to run to or call and I journal the words I didn’t get to say for months on end. This gives me a great capacity for love, for I have no reluctance in telling a person how much I love them and what they mean to me. I’m lucky that this capacity has space for how my loved one’s take their coffee, what their family members’ names are, what their favourite clothing lines are and the last show they watched from beginning to end on Netflix. And I’m lucky that people know me as the hugger.
I’m one of the lucky ones because I have a heart and I have empathy and I have compassion and I utilise them in everything I do.
I hope July has been as healing for you as it has been for me. I wrote part of this piece earlier in the year but I figured it was time to update it.
If anyone is reading this and having a rough time: I love you and I want you to be okay and safe. <3
Lots of love,
Karisma 🌻🌻🌻