Frozen Grapes | KSJ ✔

.forty-one.

Confidence. Loving yourself. Staying positive. It's not easy. No one said it was. Especially in this day and age where we're constantly surrounded by a number of likes, number of followers, angles, lighting, and the countless opportunities provided to compare yourself with the hundreds of people that pop up on your feed, it's easy to feel like every part of you is just another flaw. 

People tell you to not care about the opinions of others, but when you're constantly surrounded by them, how can you ignore what's right in front of you, to the left and right, and behind? People tell you to not let it get to your head, but how can you when it's all you hear? All you see? 

So as everyone gets caught up in this obsession of pleasing others, we grow oblivious to the things that others envy about us. After all, you tell yourself, what could others possibly envy about me? You get stuck in this toxic cycle of looking at yourself and telling yourself that nothing about you could possibly be desirable. Nothing about you could possibly be worthy of jealousy, praise, admiration. And as these negative thoughts continue to flood your mind, you ask yourself "is there something wrong with me? Why can't I love myself? Why can't I be happy?" 

Negative thoughts only bring up more, filling in every crevice of your mind and causing you to fall deeper down the rabbit hole, spiral further into the dark trench, until you grow so overwhelmed, you grow numb. Tears no longer fall, you no longer feel like screaming. You feel like doing nothing. You aren't tired because being tired is also doing something. You feel so...empty. Small. Nonexistent. 

Everyday is the same routine, getting up, going to school or work, filling your hours with things that no longer seem to matter, falling asleep, and continuing this monotonous cycle. You start to question if there's even a point anymore. You start to question everything. 

And sometimes, you don't question at all. Sometimes, you stare at the ceiling with a blank mind and an unfeeling heart. 

Usually, there are no tears, but occasionally, a single tear escapes and slides down your cheek. That one droplet of emotion contains all of your thoughts. The thoughts that you can't even sort through. Nothing makes sense anymore, including your own conceptions. Everything is a single, dark mess of negativity. 

You're tired of being sad. You're tired of being insecure. But you don't know how to stop. So you continue to lie there, not knowing where to go or what to do. You've been holding on for so long. You've been trying for so long. But everyone has a breaking point, and you feel like you've hit yours. Nothing is changing, so maybe you should no longer try. Maybe you should stop holding on. 

It's hard to believe that things one day truly get better. During those rare times you actually open up to someone, they tell you to continue going forward. They tell you that one day, one day, one day, things will get better. But if things were going to get better, shouldn't they have already? It seems like you've already gone through everything. It seems like things can't get worse from here. Why can't things get better now? How can someone promise you with such certainty that things will be alright?

Finding balance, happiness, confidence, is not easy. It's a process. A slow, arduous, painful process that seems to never end. But the moment you stop trying, the process pauses. Only when you pick yourself back up is the "play" button pressed. 

Perspective. How incredible is the power of perspective? It's incredible how a situation can bring a smile on someone's face and a frown to another's simply because they have different perspectives. Of course, changing your perspective isn't easy. But nothing in life comes easily. 

The only thing you're left to do is continue trying. Trying to put in that effort, frustrated that nothing is changing, but trying regardless. And one day in the future, you'll look back and realize that those small gains you never even noticed have all built up to morph you into an entirely different person. It takes time. 

Time. 

Continuing to wait is frustrating, but it will not come in a week. It won't take months. It might not even take years. But the end is always worth the journey. All those individual steps will one day collect into a marathon.

A girl stops in front of me. She's beautiful. But I can tell that more so than her physical appearance, the most contributing factor to her beauty is confidence. Every movement is backed with certainty. The aura surrounding her is positive, one to cause heads to turn and automatically draw towards her like a magnetic field. When she smiles, her happiness and contentment with her own self is clear. 

I watch as a smile lights up her face and she runs a hand through her hair. It's not that she blocked out the opinions of the world, it's not like she was immune to judgements and criticism, and surely, surely she would continue to have insecurities for the rest of her life, but she has learned how to be comfortable with the person she is. This girl was madly in love with herself.

The girl is me.