I've never been good at letting go. Maybe it's because I've had so much taken from me.

I could psychoanalyze that but I won't. Wonder why I still wonder why people I loved 10 years ago hurt me the way they did. Replay conversations until the words are distorted, just old warped records taking up space, collecting dust.

Still I refuse to let go of them.

So I keep them tucked away.

My head is so full it's impossible to navigate.

I tell myself I can make room for new and still hold onto everything I was. 

I spent so much of my childhood wishing for more, for better, knowing one day things would be different -  if not for me then maybe my kids. 

But here I am at 24 and the worst place I have ever lived is my own mind.

And no amount of running can save me. My head follows me wherever I go, no matter how fast I am, no matter the relationship, the job, the new habit. It's always there at the end of the day.

When it's quiet, when I don't have 12 different types of media muffling the sound of my own thoughts. I can see everything I've never let go of. Snapshots of my most painful moments. I feel the weight of it pulling at my feet.

If I'm not careful I'll start to drown in my emotions, my memories, in my everything.

Most days I'm just barely treading water, I don't know if I could walk on land if I had the chance.

 There is a familiar comfort in staying in the suffering you've always known. I'm tired of trading my spite in for hope only to have the rug pulled out from under me. 

So I hold on until my knuckles are white and my teeth are clenched.

Maybe instead of trying so hard to get  "better" I need to start learning to let go, it doesn't matter how much I want to stop myself from sinking if I keep holding onto what weighs me down. 

- Izzy