I’m Slowly Learning To Listen To Both My Heart And My Mind

Now and then I re-read my old writing. My old writing was mostly very emotional. I’m still emotional as a person but I have seemed to stop letting my writing get emotional and raw. One of my friends said that I only speak from the mind now, I don’t speak from the heart. Well, he’s right. I haven’t spoken — or written — from the heart for a while. The words coming out of me are all carefully processed through the thick layers of my hard-earned lessons and strictly controlled by my rational, made-up mind. The older I’m, the more I believe I should know better and so I don’t allow myself to be soapy about the things and people who haven’t proved worthy of my heartfelt words anymore… even though deep inside I still feel.

Of course, I still feel. No matter how much I think I have learned and matured up, biologically, physically, and emotionally at times, I’m still a 24-year-old woman… I’m still a human after all, and my heart is big. I have read enough internet articles which tell me to not do this and that because this and that isn’t worth my time or isn’t deserving of my energy and attention. Sure. I know. I understand the rationale. But my feelings are my feelings. I will feel and I will keep feeling and I need to let myself get soaked in all these messy, overwhelming, uncomfortable feelings before I can be free and strong again. They don’t get to have power over me. They don’t get to dictate my actions. They don’t get to make me feel bad for long.

I often joke to myself that I have the thinking of a 40-year-old and obviously the biology of a 24-year-old and this is causing me lots of troubles. The 24-year-old biology doesn’t care about rationale. It doesn’t care about anything except for its own needs and it’s always so loud about these so-called needs. I used to think that’s just stupid but now I think it’s very natural (and actually sounds way smarter than I am), which is why I have tremendous compassion towards myself. It’s okay to want things. It’s okay to want things that might not work out for you. It’s okay to want things that do not want you the same. It’s okay to want things that don’t quite make you feel great. But it’s not okay to keep hurting yourself wanting these things. At some point, you still have to speak from the mind — mostly to yourself. You have to start to do what’s good for you but might not be natural and you have to commit to these acts.

I have been interested in a person for a few months now and I must be honest that this is not easy for me. Even admitting this isn’t easy but I don’t want to backspace it because it’s a true sentence. And I think it’s okay. It’s okay to be in this situation. It’s okay to feel a bit nervous and shitty when a text is read but not replied immediately (which hasn’t happened in so long). It’s okay to feel uncomfortable having more interest in the person (or being more anxious about the interactions) than they seem in me. It’s okay to feel constantly out of my comfort zone like I’m about to do something really horrible to myself and I should know better. But I can’t let this have power over me and my days in a negative way. I need to slow down. I need to take a step back. I need to listen to both my heart and my mind… Feeling is okay so please feel away, but thinking and doing productively to protect myself is equally important. I need to quiet down my anxiety and allow myself to just be that secure person who always acts in my best interests.

It’s funny… this whole relationship business. Security has always been an illusion and the person is acting more or less the same since the beginning. Yet, the uneasiness starts jumping at me like a monster under the bed and the confident me shrinks into this insecure little girl waiting for approvals… only because now I care more. I care about little things, I care about one million things I have absolutely no control over, and somehow I believe it less that I’m a hotshot they should go after. This is one of the times that listening to my wishy-washy heart is just fucking me over. So I’ll listen to my firm, proud mind. Why should I care about so many things? Why would it be just me holding the world together? I’ll care just the same amount. I’ll divert my thoughts. I’ll have absolute confidence in myself. I’ll take just that much interest, and that’s what I’ll show. Maybe things will fall apart and I’ll realise many ugly, hurtful things but so be it.

See, I’ve got 24-year-old biology with a 40-year-old mind and a 100-year-old heart which still acts 16 most of the time, so I will just have to keep listening to all of them then figure out the best course of actions. What’s the big deal, right?