I’ve sat in many parking lots listening to my friends express the pain and discomfort they feel underneath their skin. I’ve watched tears create pictures of their struggles on their cheeks. And I’ve recognized the fact that being vulnerable with others just showed the beauty of being human.

I have sat in these parking lots talking to my friends about how crucial it is to feel all of your feelings and to be okay with how long it takes for pain to leave your doorstep. I knew there wasn’t some equation to make the pain go away, so I’d just say let patience be your best friend and feel all of those feelings.

I never take my own advice. A number of times I have said it is okay to not be okay and to feel all of your feelings people would actually believe that I did that. A number of blog posts I’ve written that people cry and relate to creates this illusion I cry through my pain plenty of times.

I write in coffee shops knowing that I won’t cry around other people. Though my words may seem deep and from an emotional place, it’s all my shallow struggles that I’m not afraid to share.

I’m working on it, I swear. I took a break from publicizing sad stories. I took a break from being with my friends 24/7. I took a break and decided to start being alone more.

I’m still not sure if it was my choice or if the Earth and my body collided to make sure that I had no other option other than to have this time to learn about who I am and who I was. The point is I didn’t notice my pain or my discomfort in my skin until it all built up in my eyes and the tips of my fingers and I no longer could sit with my friends and giggle.

I started distancing myself from schedules of going out to eat with a different person every night to allow my body to figure whatever it needed to figure out. I started reading the books that have been sitting on my bookshelf for years in this eagerness to better my brain. I started watching the stars and allowing my mind to go in any direction it would like to go to instead of blocking my thoughts with what others told me was right and wrong. I started finding some sort of center within myself through this weird thing called yoga. And when I was ready to write about some of the harder pieces of myself, I would. I wouldn’t go to some coffee shop to block out tears, but I would gently let my pen touch paper and let everything that was ready to come out to come out.

In the midst of all this time of being alone and of doing my own thing, there has been a slow building of confidence and trust within myself. It’s almost like I now believe my own opinions and actually think I’m kind of cool.

It’s like now I can sit with a friend and giggle for hours without thinking about all of the things that I felt uncomfortable about. Now it’s like hanging out with a friend has a freedom and joy that I didn’t have before because I was so overwhelmed with pleasing others before I pleased myself.

The journey of finding yourself and loving yourself never comes to an end. I’m nowhere near where I want to be, but there’s some sort of beauty in being able to be your own best friend and freely laughing with the people you love most.