Sometimes The Only Thing You Can Do Is Walk Away

She is a constellation of sins and darkness. 

By

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Nicholas Green / Unsplash

Pain. That is all that I can feel, when I look at Her.

My throat tightens, as bile rises into my mouth and my stomach churns. I feel fingers down my throat and razor blades on my arms. I feel the air knocked out of my lungs as I feel myself hyperventilating. I feel streams of tears that gush from my eyes. I feel strangers lips on mine and feel unwanted hands on my thighs. I feel “I love you” tumble from my mouth to all the wrong people.

Looking at Her is like reliving all my sins. But that is exactly what She is. She is a constellation of sins and darkness.

She is me.. I was Her.

A mirror image stands before me: the girl that I used to be. No matter how hard I try to erase Her from my memory; someone comes along and reminds me of the girl that I hate. Of the girl that I have spent the past year running from.

But no matter how far I have come and no matter how I may see myself—the world still sees me as Her. Still sees me as the girl consumed by dark hate. And when the rest of the world sees you to be one thing- it is extremely hard to view yourself in any other way.

I could write essays and shout protests against Her but humans have the tendency to hold grudges and cling to the past… just as I do.

I cling to the past. Because every time I mess up; I see Her. It is not just others that accuse me of being Her… I accuse myself. Instead of looking behind myself and seeing how far I have come, I only look to judge where I started.

The simple truth is this: we can never rid ourselves of our past discrepancies or our reputations that we wish nothing more than to burn. But we can make a choice, a choice to leave the past. Yes we all move on- but we never choose to actually forgive ourselves for our past mistakes. No we cannot forget but we can forgive ourselves and stop seeing ourselves as those dark mirror images we hate.

Maybe it is impossible to run from Her but I guess sometimes the only thing you can do is walk away…

And that is enough. Thought Catalog Logo Mark