How strange it is. We have these deep terrible lingering fears about ourselves at the people we love. Yet we walk around, talk to people, eat and drink. We manage to function. The feelings are deep and real. Shouldn’t they paralyse us? How is it that we can survive them, at least for a little while? We drive a car, we teach a class. How is it that no one sees how deeply afraid we were, last night, this morning? Is it something we hide from each other, by mutual consent? Or do we share the same secret without knowing it? Wear the same disguise.
—
Don DeLillo, White Noise
Day 20/20
Day 20 - Has this challenge changed you in any way?
Honestly? I really don’t know. I think I have consciously recognised thoughts that already existed regarding how I consider myself.
But I don’t yet feel I am in a position where I am able to change those thoughts.
Silly as it sounds, I am still scared of the ‘real world’. Still scared of being hurt, and believing in myself, and just…living. As paralysing as it is, my existence is ‘safe’.
And reading this back, I am saddened slightly as it feels like I am settling for less than I should be. Living a lesser life out of irrational fear. I don’t know why I am scared, but I am. I guess the real question to which I do not have the answer, that has arisen from this challenge, is should I be? Should I be scared, or should I just try and see what happens? I guess we shall have to see.
Oh, something is there waiting for me. Perhaps someday the revelation will burst in upon me and I will see the other side of this monumental, grotesque joke. And then I’ll laugh. And then I’ll know what life is.
— Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (via daylight-dreams)
So yes. It had flaws, but what does that matter when it comes to matters of the heart? We love what we love. Reason does not enter into it. In many ways, unwise love is the truest love. Anyone can love a thing because. That’s as easy as putting a penny in your pocket. But to love something despite. To know the flaws and love them too. That is rare and pure and perfect.
— The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (via skeletales)
I am stuck. I am stuck between wanting to get out of this terrible place and clinging on to something I’m not sure I know how to live without.
— Bulimics on Bulimia
