Tough

This year, I met the different versions of myself, half of them I despise while the other half —I learned to embrace.
I met the part of me that always wanted to feel like I belonged whether in a new hobby I disclosed or with the comfort of someone I never knew I needed until I finally had.
I met the part of me that stopped caring about what the world will say. I found myself staring at their opinions but never allowing them to come close. I stopped accepting opinions that would only lift their egos while witnessing how it crushed mine.
I met the part of me that wants to stay out from people who broke my trust not just once but a couple of times. I succumbed to the pain of longing and told myself maybe it’s the best for us.
I met the part of me that knows how to just simply disappear without giving grand reasons and up until now, it became the greatest decision I never regretted at all.
I also met the part of me that wants to reconnect to good people — too old friends who were just waiting for me to knock on their doors as they tell me they’ve been waiting for me to become finally ready to return. I found myself hating who I was because I turned my back from them when they did nothing wrong.
I also met the part of me that gets too pressured when everything around me started to sound like they’re finally settling down. And here I am, still dealing with my abandonment issues and still healing from the broken trust without leaving any tangible cracks to remind me that it was never the same thing again.
I also met the part of me that got too excited about the future, — who will I be five years from now, where will I be, or whom I will be with. I started getting excited about the mornings that reassembles a new shade of hope and second chances to undo errors that still pause my yesterdays.
I also met the part of me that learns how to give things up when it gives me so many troubles than peace. I learned to say no instead of alibis. I learned to speak up about why I need to stop forcing myself to stay when I already fell out of touch with love.
I met the part of me that learns to forgive, may it be from stolen apologies or no-closure desertion. I was torn by the things I discovered all too late and I was also a reason why someone wants to heal from the aches of fading love. I learned to take the exit door, learned to drop going-nowhere conversations, and learned to start doing things on my own.
I also met the part of me that wants to believe in happiness again, in how one smile from that significant other could mend my lonely soul. I saw myself wanting to have a hand to hold, to have a warm body I could sleep next to in bed, in a phone call that completes my day. I wanted to believe that there’s something I look forward to seeing someday. I wanted to give myself the chance to choose who I should love without holding back.
This year, I realized I was capable of feeling so many things. I found out that it takes simple things to make me happy. It takes one good conversation to make me stay. I learned how to love and I also learned how to leave. I learned to let go of the grudges and learned to accept the things that are out of my control.
I learned so many things about myself. I learned that I was capable to hold on and to let go.
I learned to forgive so I could forget.
I saw so many endings and starts.
I found myself falling out of love in life
and saw myself fall back in it once again.

- Mica Meñez, Tough Year
Photo by: Alex