Procrastination.

https://theprose.com/post/224403/procrastination

I still procrastinate. It's funny. I knew that was going to be the post but I worried, yet hoped simultaneously that it might end up being something much more depressing. I wasn't doing too well back then...

I do still procrastinate. And life still gets empty. That was... About six years ago; that post. I'd like to say my writing is better and it is but I prefer to leave it as - I can express my emotions more clearly now. Relate it to things. Drowning and sinking and terror. I can describe my terror better now. I used to think it was impossible to have people understand what's going on. I just didn't have the words for it.

Thirteen-years-old me was going through it. I still procrastinate. I guess the difference is that I'm not as ashamed of it. Not as violent with myself over it. Not willing to rupture any of the teensy blood vessels scrambling like ants through my skin because of something like a missed assignment or not-to-my-exhuasting-standard result.

I've been self-harm free for about 8 months now. Well... Two-hundred and seventy days exactly, plus one real soon. Typing it in words feels more grand so... There. I have an app for it or I may never have kept track. It's called "I Am Sober" for any curious beans/beings.

I never thought I'd get there. I never thought I could do anything other than hate myself for every little mistake. I never thought I could see my very existence as not-a-mistake.

Things do change. Slowly. But surely. It took work. And effort. And pain. And giving up. It took a year of stopping the fight. Of letting my body be pushed and pulled by the sea while I stared blankly on, no more thrashing, no more... Anything. It took a year of being one with all the murk of the waves as I was thrown about.

Everything silenced eventually. Everything stopped mattering.

I still procrastinate. But see, I don't hate myself for it. I don't hurt myself for it. I am going to make it to a year without harming myself. I swear it. On the love I have for the little child trapped in a body right now, confused but trying to sail through nonetheless. I built myself a boat while I was being tossed around. The sea is home, now. And I am the captain of this, unstable, pretty, fragile, rickety mess of a thing. I shake and I stumble and I am rowing through every wave as it comes, nonetheless.

I still procrastinate. I miss things because I'm afraid. I have to hold myself back from causing myself harm when I am unhappy or angry with nowhere to direct those feelings. But I am alive. And I am better. The pain's dulled a bit, become less important now that self-compassion and self-acceptance have begun to bloom. My scars are... Practically gone, believe it or not.

I thought they'd be there forever. I thought I'd keep replacing them until the end. I thought the end would be by my hands alone.

I still procrastinate. But I love myself anyway. And I'm all the better for it.