I’m Taking Down The Walls I’ve Built

I look in the mirror and find a part of me missing.

I sit amidst a little park surrounded by tall buildings, hair swinging in the wind, blocking my perspective from my screen, chuckles of young souls frolicking in the backdrop and Another Love playing quietly, so only I can hear it. And even when I’m just here by myself, I’m unable to find what has changed.

What has separated me from myself? Who am I now? And more importantly, do I like this person?

As a cold breeze passes, sending shivers down my spine, my eyes wander far, as if looking for the mysteries that I must unravel within my heart. I look around, there are many souls around me; do they know who they are? The man who walks with his child, the mother who watches her child play, the girl with the gym bag or the girl who sits with her laptop inside a coffee shop, looking inadvertently at the window.

Do all of these people know who they are? Where they are going?

Just the mere thought fills me with a strange alienation, as if I’m destined to be a troubled and lost soul forever.

As if my own happiness is slipping away from my hands and I’m here with a glass half empty that is cracking from the pressure of me holding on so closely.

Letting go hasn’t been my strongest quality.

Coping with change and instability follow suit. Playing victim is my comfort zone, and truth be told, strong and independent are no longer the adjectives I’d use to describe myself.

The ones who know me closely have seen me go from standing tall to crumbling down. This dissatisfaction in my life has been nothing but past experience that I never accepted as lessons, but blows to my self-esteem, self-acceptance and self-love.

I’ve build four walls around myself, adorned with my both beautiful and breaking past. It bears the memories of those loved and tokens of those lost.

The walls that I’ve built don’t have doors, but tiny openings that allow me to have new interactions. Hell, sometimes I even bring these interactions in my world. They light up my space, but sooner or later, the darkness gets to me.

My tainted memories within these walls override all the new experiences. I should probably leave these walls, but they’re home, they’ve all I’ve known for as long as I can remember. The only way out is building a door, marching through it and breaking all boundaries I’ve ever known.

I want my life back.

I want that carefree girl who could take chances, whose dreams were out of this world, who knew when to give her heart and when to lock it away, who conquered storms and withered heart ache. She could smile through her pain and let no one worry about her. Her love was her strength and not her weakness.

I lost that part of me behind the walls I put up and it’s time to step outside and start looking.