if you think life is hard, take a walk and go see the world.

i took a walk today. the sun had just disappeared, and i didn’t have a plan or a destination in mind. i was just jogging, not thinking about anything at all. before i knew it, i was somewhere unfamiliar, and almost two hours had already passed. i am lost. not in the way that i don’t know where i am or that i’m scared i won’t find my way home. i’m talking about life in general. i don’t think i deserve everything i’ve been through. yes, i made poor choices that led me to certain places, but i never asked to be discarded after pouring everything i had into someone. it’s always like this. i get hurt, i heal, and i trust fully again, only to be let down worse than before. i just want to figure this out. i want to pull myself out of this hole that the wrong people helped dig. and the truth is, no one else can really do that for me. depending on people i once thought so highly of only ends in disappointment. i want to be happy. i want to laugh without guilt, without the fear that joy will demand some kind of payment later. i want peace. i’m tired of walking on eggshells, tired of carrying so much self-condemnation and grief. i want to feel normal. i want to feel like myself again. i don’t know how exactly, but maybe it starts with choosing myself first. i tried so hard to make people stay, to make them choose me. in the end, i burned myself out trying to fill a place in someone’s life that was never meant for me. i gave everything, and still, i wasn’t a priority. maybe i don’t need validation from anyone else. maybe it’s time to give that to myself. from now on, it should be me first. whoever stays, stays. whoever leaves, leaves. at the end of the day, it’s still me who has to live with the consequences and figure things out anyway. i can handle it. and this time, i’m finally choosing myself—without apology, without fear, and without looking back.