September is the new January

September is the new January — I read an article about this and loved the idea, fall deserves a fresh set of eyes just as any new year does, plus a little reflection never hurts.

Page one of my journal: January 1, 2020, New Year’s Mantra.

“When the world seems unkind — persist.

When I am tired — persist.

When I feel unsuccessful — persist.

I will become mentally stronger, forge on.”

I am fascinated by mental strength and the power of the mind. But, 2020 watched me write that down and gave me the finger.

I could never have anticipated the irony and value in these two pages being the first consecutive notes in my 2020 journal.

In February, I was faced with a group of girls, acquaintances at most, who projected their self-hatred and anger on me. 10 against one.

The words uttered in that hour of chaos all supported one idea that had no resolution from the very start, I made sure to ask. The idea: My energy is a problem. A room full of people watched with anticipation. The circle of angry girls closed in on me, it all came back to the way I stand, the reasons I am definitively a complete bitch, and the ways in which I “ruin the room.”

It’s taken me six months to write those words down (a fraction of the nasty claims) without bursting into tears. You’re either thinking I’m dramatic and sensitive or that what happened must’ve been deliberate and personal.

I am typically a person who “doesn’t take shit” as they say. That day I did. To this day, I don’t know what changed or why I reacted so calmly. All I know is that I sat there and swallowed foul, untrue decisions they’d made about who I am, without even really knowing me!

Of course, there are always two sides to a story. Some read 10 against one and think, power in numbers, effective, revealing. Others read 10 against one and think bullying, threatening, inhumane. Some might feel that those girls were entitled to feel that way about me, and others would feel that everything they said in that fashion was a projection of their own character.

When the world seems unkind — persist.

I listened. I knew those claims were not true to me. I watched the girls’ anger and their hype for each other’s anger. I listened as a few boys tried desperately to speak up for me. And then I burst into uncontrollable tears. From there I heaved and cried and shuddered and squeezed my eyes as shut as possible. I wanted to disappear.

I couldn’t control my body purging with revulsion—an anxiety attack.

Someone retrieved my best friend, Abi, who took my hands. She hadn’t been in the room for any of the chaos but yes, she dared to approach the emotional wreck of a raisin on the floor, shriveling out of self-preservation. I felt like a circus animal.

She squeezed my hands tight, her eyes bright red, tears rolling down her cheeks as she told me “We are going to be okay. We are going to get through this. We are going to be okay.”

Those words still bring me to tears. She felt every ounce of hurt and fear I felt at that moment, I understood. And I was lucky. When I finally mustered the energy and courage to sweep up the confidence I’d dropped and my pride that had shattered, I emerged from the room with swollen eyes, still shaking.

When I am tired — persist.

The next day I took Courtney (my guest) and Abi to breakfast. I smiled and laughed and I couldn’t tell you one thing we talked about that day — the whole event replayed in my head. But I swore to keep going.

Abi asked me to talk about it. It all started again, the crying and barely breathing and there, my shards of pride and confidence fell out of the pocket I’d shoved them in the night before.

That’s when Abi took over the role that I formerly played myself — warrior, taking no shit. She became my shadowed self, the part of me that was hiding, the part that loves me. She told me what I needed because I couldn’t tell myself. We involved the police. We involved my parents. And I wouldn’t have done it, we did it. The “we” is important and lucky.

Interview after interview, we cried each time. “Persist!” they told me. I recounted the same traumatic moments I’d already lived once. We sat together in the school therapist’s office filling out papers detailing our sanity and cried to a 70-year-old woman who knew nothing about me outside of the mess I’d presented her with.

Nothing but a little setback, persist.

I signed the college version of a restraining order against ten girls feeling deserving and guilty of everything that had happened. Then I slept at all of the wrong hours, Abi watched. I slept all day and threw up my empty stomach all night, Abi worried. I cried when my professor asked how my day was going and avoided talking to anyone about it, Abi hurt.

Is this persisting?

When I realized that many of the people I considered friends wanted nothing but to forget it happened at all, I mimicked it. I swallowed tears in gulps and supported their way of “coping” with the discomfort of it all.

When you feel unsuccessful — persist.

This is an ugly version of the bold and honest person I am. I was shedding the wrong way, pulling my shell over me to make others comfortable. And I only cared to notice when it was hurting Abi, not me.

I thought this for a long time. When people are unkind, persist. When you are tired, persist. When you feel unsuccessful, persist. It’s exhausting and oftentimes, wrong. As time went on, my persisting was numbing me to my life. I was so unresponsive to my emotions and bitter towards the people around me because it must be their fault, I persisted!!!

Thank GOD. We aren’t just supposed to forge on all the time?!

Tears of relief poured out of me in the same immediate, purging fashion that they had that horrible night in February.

I will become mentally stronger if I own everything I feel.

I don’t always enjoy that I feel things so deeply because it seems counterproductive to my own life. But if I learned anything in retrospect, it’s that persisting doesn’t mean pretending. Forging on isn’t always the answer. Feeling everything is important. Taking a break to process feeling is what makes people mentally tough. Forging on without understanding how you feel doesn’t make you a leader it makes you not-human.

I unfollowed people on social media and more importantly, in real life, and started a journey on my own to feel everything again. Here I am, feeling everything and finding value in negative events and trying circumstances.

“Pain is not tragic. Pain is magic.” — Glennon Doyle

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