Writing Piece 1: A Note To The Beautiful Soul Reading This.
Can you feel the pain radiating off my flawed skin? Dripping from the tips of my broken finger nails? Reflected in my sensitive and slightly crooked smile? Swimming in the depths of my eyes? It seeps through every minuscule pore casing my body. I spend every minute, every second, fabricating joy into my personality. A smile plastered onto my face. My constellation of freckles contorting to align with this counterfeit bliss. It does not surprise me that you have not noticed the falsity of my carefully constructed deceit. The truth lies in the deepest corners of my mind. Suppressed to the point that even I do not recognize it.
I have learned though that this is dangerous to my mind, body, and soul. They fight relentlessly for me to face what circumstances I have lived through. One day, they will win, and the longer I run from it, the harder it will hit me. I am attempting to change my future by accepting my past. Reliving the memories is torture, but I need to get through them all to manifest the strongest me I can be.
I am just like you, and you are just like me. In the sense that everyone locks up certain parts of their past that damaged them. Your history may have damaged you, but the fact that you are still here tells me that it strengthened you more then it damaged you. The pain of your past does not define you, but it creates you. Well, how you respond creates you. You can shove it to the lowest part of your abdomen and still end up throwing it up. Avoiding it makes you sick. My advice to you is to let the pain come. Feel the pain. Let it pierce your heart and deflate it. Once you have felt the effects in full, you can release it. Name your pain. Confront your pain. It needs to be etched into your memory. It needs to be accessed when desired and dismissed when unwanted. I know this is hard, but you cannot let your pain name you. That gives the past power over the present. Trapping you in the state of mind you were in when you weathered the storm.
Just like you cannot see my pain, I cannot see yours. Unless we disperse the memories with the ones we love, or the ones that would be benefited by our stories. Your pain can be used as a survival guide in someones story. I can pass you on the street and not see your hidden pain unless you decide to let me see the vulnerability of your mind. Letting the past settle in the dusty files of your mind does you no good. This means you are ignoring its presence, thus ignoring what it has done to shape you.
Neither should you let your past consume who you are right now. The consistent and intrusive memories is another way of your mind and soul telling you that you have not dealt with it enough. It's telling you that you have not learned what was meant to be taught from your trauma. I adore you. I do not want to witness your past destroy the beautiful soul you have or your gleaming future. Accept the past, use it as a map of how you want to walk the rest of your life. You are not a victim of circumstances. You are a survivor.
-Brooke Ford
