Unsure

 Here’s the problem: 

I have too many. Problems, I mean. It’s the most frustrating mess. I am a walking contradiction. Now I know, some people hear that, and think that “oh well everyone is in some way!” No, not like me. I loathe this about myself, but I am a walking, stereotypical “female” contradiction. I want people to know what I’m feeling, but I don’t want to tell them. I hate showing emotion, but I do, and part of it, is for attention. I also hate the fact that I feel emotions at all. They suck. Emotions are a little bitch messing up every good thing in life. My own mind is a prison that has no laws against cruel and unusual punishment. This includes my drastic need to cry in the shower for a straight 45 minutes sometimes. And I despise it. I loathe it. I hate the mindset of not loving yourself but recently I have been forced to face the fact that some people don’t. 

I have been forced to face the fact… that I don’t. 

I talk about self love like it’s gospel. I speak of loving yourself and who you are for all your quirks and flaws as thought it would cure the black plague. 

And here I am. 

Realizing that I don’t love myself. 

That a lot of the time, I want to be a hermit. I don’t always let myself, and it is emotionally and mentally, and even physically, draining. 

Realizing that 80% of the time I want to be a hermit, is because I do not feel I am stable enough to be around people. A loaded gun, a lit cannon. 

I am frustrating, and work to be around, and that is just a fact. 

I don’t like myself. 

Lots of people don’t. 

And yet, 

When I look back on the person I was a few years ago, I often cringe. I often feel embarrassed, and upset. I am not proud of who I was. And I have hope for how far I’ve come. How many times have I wanted to reach back to past Emily, and tell her she gets better? Tell her not to give up hope? 

Is future me, looking back, and praying that I hold on long enough to become her? 

Is she wondering, and hoping, that I will make it through this? Does she want to give me a loving hug, and a heart full of understanding, the same way I wish I could give those things to my past self? 

I don’t really have a point or a conclusion to this. But you know what, as much as I want to give up sometimes, as angry, and hurt, and lost as I feel, I will keep going. 

I’ll keep going, for you, future me. Only for you.