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"there'll be a moment when you realise you're 27 when yesterday you were just 17; and you wouldn't be able to tell how a decade passed away and your life got divided into before and afters. the fury of youth will subdue and nothing will really change but everything will feel different when you look at old photographs and blurry videos taken on cheap mobile phones. scents will remind you of childhood and certain friends you don't talk to anymore, hangouts will become reunions and mom's burnt pie will become the best food you ever had. and i know on some days you won't be able to show anything of those 10 years but i hope you remember to breathe, and let go of the knot in your chest. i hope you go out in the sun and live a little, because tomorrow is 37." - ritika jyala (excerpt from The Flesh I Burned)
i started writing on here when i was 17 years old. i am now 23 years old. in the meantime i graduated from high school, i made the bestest of friends in college abroad, i thought those were the happiest days of my life. i graduated in theology and moved back. i got a job, i saved someone from killing themself (if i count myself as well: i saved two people). i got my drivers license. i finished my applied psychology year cum laude. i got into my dream university and am studying psychology, learning about what i love, learning how to help people save themselves from themselves. but i also lost a lot. of myself. i lost loved ones, more than one.
six whole years, and i'm here. sometimes thinking back feels like a dagger to the heart. i didn't cherish it enough. i wasn't appreciative enough. i still am not. and as much as it hurts, i admit i took it all for granted, all of it. and probably still am. my chest aches with the reminiscence of those days. but i realise, it's just not fair to myself. this self-destruction, this ruining my present days for past ones. it was nice. but it's over. and i'm here. and i'm getting better. and i'm learning to fill the void, for i should not have let beautiful memories leave an emptiness within me in the first place. in the absence of their love, i'm learning to love myself, at 23. i haven't gotten to that point yet. and that's okay.
in my remaining years, i'll be kinder to her. i'll be kinder to myself. for i am worth it.
