Pain-stained Journals | Anthology

7 | How to appreciate yourself

My name is Sarah. I always felt like losing, like my life was a losing battle. When I am looking at my past, I see rocks. A heavily rocked road that seemed to never end. Whether it was sunlight, whether it was dark, there was a stoned path underneath my feet.

Travelling this path through my entire life I noticed insightful things. I gained this knowledge only some time ago. Dark times and black rocks at the bottom were all I knew back then.

What was this road that I travelled? It was my life, full of unachieved opportunities. Once I knew I lost my chance, but then I accepted the fact that I am defeated. It was a blind gap in my life that I used to recall many times. How can someone be grateful for the life he has been given when all he sees is rock bottom and himself underneath?

I used to use this metaphor often to describe my state back then. All I could think of was my past, my mistakes, my decisions and my lost chances. What used to be my life is not my life anymore.

I embraced what I had without throwing myself into the stone bottom. I appreciate every moment of my past. It was another path of my life — the path to recovery. It wasn't stoned but covered in roses. The Roses were so beautiful that I wanted to smell each of them. So fresh and delicate looking. As delicate as me when I travelled that path.

When you are in the recovery state you tend to go through many things that you are incapable of changing. If you accept this truth, you can easily travel further. I reached my destination; my life goal was completed. I always knew there was a goal that needed to be achieved.

Even from early childhood, I knew there was something at the end. I say the end because I refer to the state when you feel the most peaceful. The state when you know you are complete is when you reach the end of your path.

There are many paths as well as there are many people. I refer to those paths as veins. Countless veins are travelling through my body, transporting blood that is needed for me to live. The same is with the paths. They are needed as much as veins; they are a part of me.

To keep the blood flowing you need to keep moving on your path. I have known that truth for a long time. I remember when one of my close relatives, the person dearest to me, told me about the paths of life.

I was ten when I started my walk down the sand walk. The sand was warm, a little too warm for my vulnerable and soft feet. The sun was shining bright till I was twelve. Travelling till the age of twelve was my happy time. The sand was getting warmer and warmer with each moment of sadness. It was like a paradox. However, when I was little, I didn't refer to it that way. The paths of life are only in my head, I am only visualizing them to feel stable.

My childhood was a ride full of happiness and regret. I suffered living in a family of ignorant, they didn't value my feelings as much as I never learned to value the feelings of others. I wasn't taught empathy, only judgement. Harsh judgement was all I gave and all I got.

When I was ten, I felt alone. My father was drinking alongside my mother crying over it. I didn't know what I did wrong. "You are a mistake" my father used to call me every time he got drunk. My mother covered my ears so that I wouldn't hear his truth.

The sand kept on getting warmer, my steps became cautious and hurtful. My life then was like the path I travelled. It seemed endless, just like all the terrifyingly depressive times in my life. I wanted to see the end, the end of my misery.

I didn't know I needed help because they told me not to show how I feel. Likewise, I have never felt my emotions being valid. I marked them as invaluable.

The path full of sand ended when I was twelve. There came the muddy walk. My first attempts to fit into society. New school, new classmates but the same home environment. What I thought I achieved at school was peace, when I came home what I saw was chaos. Glass was thrown over the wall, tables turned, and chairs were crushed on the floor — this is all I think of when I recall my household.