Allowances

It's suddenly dawned on me that I'm really growing up. Apart from getting up and still not making my bed, I've spent the hour awake making breakfast and then having it over the papers. I'm about to place an online order for groceries as I shuffle between windows like this, this and this. Not very much of an adolescent's browsing taste. I turn 20 in 21 days but I still feel 17. 16 feels too young and 18 treads on the border of a little too many responsibilities. I must still be muddled in my morning mental chaos because what I wrote doesn't seem to make sense. Point is: I don't really want to grow up.

Also, I don't really want to leave.

I picked up my student visa in town on Tuesday and attended the pre-departure briefing on Thursday evening. Sometimes I swing between being really excited for all that is to come and other times I just want to lock myself in my room and never leave. 2011 me would have said hell fucking no but I think I am semi-ready. I've accepted it, it's going to happen and I'm really leaving home.

Stuff have been going on, there were lots of feels but I'm so grateful for the buzzes I've been getting from my Whatsapp notifications the past week. We can never get the best of everything but I'm so blessed with all the supportive company around me. When you square your perspectives, there are, in some ways, things that appear clearer from the rigidity of everything. I'm still learning to watch. To be a careful observer who silently takes it in, have some thoughts and put a label on what I think it should be.

I am allowed to be vocal about my pain if it helps me heal
I am allowed to be sad in places other than my own head
I am allowed to speak my truth even when it makes others uncomfortable
I am allowed to take care of myself, even if it makes people who hurt me uncomfortable
And so this is the set of rules I've created for self-care because what I've learnt is that there is nothing else more worthy than that.