It fills me with pride to think how much I've grown. This would have been demoralizing and heart breaking to me in the past. It has been this time too. But not enough to break me. I have the wisdom of experience, to know where the road to quitting leads too. It leads to this fucking moment right here, back to the very pain that made you quit the last time. I'm writing this a few days after the darkness, currently I'm on the path of resurfacing for some air again, so I can be optimistic about it. I've earned it. Because I'm still here. Never giving up is the only real trick to life really. The thing is you might have quit and given up on something, but if you find yourself back a year or five down the line, you have not failed. The only real failure is to never try, to never feel this pain of putting in the same amount of effort or more but seeing no improvement in results, not immediately anyways.
It's strange how the mind works, you decide that you are going to do this thing, whatever that might be for you. Just know that all you have to decide is to keep going, without even realizing you'll accumulate skills, traits and the know how to do the thing you wanted. It's very subtle, a small shift in mindset, a new perspective on a thing, a new found curiosity for the thing you feared, any number of things really even all of them and more. The world is a living organism where things happen, facts change all the fucking time. All you have to do is stick around and not loose yourself. That last part is quite important. Luckily even that can be found. Accept wholeheartedly who you are, and work from there. You might be at the lowest point of your life like I was exactly a year ago. It's a good place to start. There is a point on that downward curve where your soul goes, "I need to get help". At least it's what it was for me. Might be different for you. It's not just like a passing thought either. It'll take over your being and you will finally do whatever it is that you need to do. From that moment I've decided to do things differently. I took my fucking time. The goal was to do this for as long as I fucking can, and to take zero shortcuts. Something needs doing, I'll do it the right way. I'll admit I still get reminded of what happens when I do take shortcuts. Progress has been slow, laughably slow, yet there is progress. I'm a totally different person to who I was a year ago and I'm also more of myself today than a year ago.
In the graph of progress, it's best to look at things from a scale of six months or more. The day to day is confusing. Yet that's where all the challenges lie, so I must learn to deal with them better. Also, it's not just part of me that's changed, it's all of it. Also something that took a while for me to realize. Like all things, it's better late than never.
P.S. I use quirky titles that make no sense because, I know what gets me curious. These are notes for me after all. If you get it, you get it.