Writing my Own Story

I've finally been managing to scrape together some time for myself! I've been working my way through a prompt I saw on Tumblr at the end of September. It's supposed to be a do it a day at a time, but I started from behind, so I'm just planning to try and complete the list before the end of the month.

Here's the prompt list:


I've been making icons the last few days, I'm through the 12th right now. I'll do a post with all of them when I'm done.

A friend posted this on FB last week and I wanted to respond, but felt it was too big to post as a comment and also wanted to share my thoughts somewhere other than FB.

"We have romanticized the idea of romance, and it is cancerous.

And when you raise children in that world, where everything points towards love and everything's perfect on the outside, when we become an adult for the first time in our late teens and our early 20s, we're so terrified.

We're so trying to be an adult that some of us will take the wrong person, the wrong jigsaw piece and just f*ing jam them into our jigsaws anyway, denying that they clearly don't fit.

I'm gonna force this f*ing person into our lives because we'd much rather have something than nothing.

People are more in love with the idea of love than the person they are with.

55% of marriages end in divorce.

90. Nine. Zero. Percent of relationships that started before they are 30 end.

If those were stats for surgery, none of us would f*ing risk it.

But because it's love and we're stupid, we just lie on the operating table like, 'Maybe this time I won't die inside.'

There's nothing wrong with being alone.

There's nothing wrong with taking time for yourself to work out who you are because how can you offer who you are if you don't know who you are?

There's nothing wrong with being selfish for a bit because you've got the rest of your life to be selfless.

If you only love yourself at 20%, that means somebody can come along and love you 30%.

You're like, 'wow, that's so much.'

It's literally less than half.

Whereas if you love yourself 100%, a person that falls in love with you has to go above and beyond the call of duty to make you feel special."

It's from comedian Daniel Sloss's stand up special that's currently on Netflix. My friend shared a post from some page that had screen caps from the actual show, but I just copied the lines.

My friend shared it with the comment, "where was this 10 years ago when I needed it?"

And that sent me into a spiral.

My life would be so different if I had heard anything like this ten years ago.

But also, it's not LOVE that's romanticized, it's relationships. We're all fed the idea that the path to happiness is college, job, marriage, kids. In that order. We're never told there's any other way or that you can have a perfectly happy life ON YOUR OWN.

On the flip side, when I was coping the lines, I saw a comment on the original post from a guy who stated that this sentiment was "old news" he heard it in his 20s and he's now in his 60s. And I reacted to that a couple different ways.

1) if that's true, your generation failed mine. Why did you not pass it down to your children? why is the message in society/the media still the same??

2) why is there nothing taught about HOW to love yourself? This is a huge emotional need that all children should be taught. I know I grew up with very little self worth and have zero knowledge of how to instill it in my daughter. So many people my age struggle with depression and anxiety because we lack the emotional skills to stand on our own. We were forced into this idea that you NEED another person to "complete" you, to "make you happy" and it's killing us.

I'm still not sure if I'm truly happy. I don't think I know what that is. I have moments of happiness, but I don't know if I could call my life overall happy. I've been in therapy for six years now and I finally have some sense of self worth and I know I'm more stable emotionally than I've ever been. But happy? I don't know.

I struggle every day with how to make sure my daughter grows up better than I did. It kills me to hear her talk about herself in a negative manner. But I have no idea how to help her. I'm trying to instill in her all the good things that are finally coming to the surface thanks to the younger end of my generation. They have such an amazing grasp on the emotional part of life and the internet has been a helpful source of much needed hope. (If you look for it) But I have no way of knowing if it's working or not.

I've considered (many times) walking away from this relationship and continuing on my own. I think if it were only me I would've left a long time ago, but I have to consider my daughter. Though there are times where I think she might be better off too. Unfortunately given the way the world is now, I can't do it. I can't support us both financially. And in the end staying here means she has one parent and if I go, she'll have none.

So instead I have chosen to continue to build myself up and I'll learn how to love myself and hopefully be able to raise my daughter to do the same.